13/12/2011

'God Particle' Evidence Spotted By Scientists

The multi-billion pound search, using the largest and most sophisticated machine ever built, has found hints of the mysterious 'God Particle' that would explain the building blocks of the universe.

Scientists have been searching for the Higgs Boson since it was proposed in the 1960s, but have only had a chance of confirming its existence since the completion of the Large Hadron Collider on the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland in 2009.

Now, after two years of painstaking work, scientists believe they have spotted the infamous particle that would help complete The Standard Model - a collection of theories that explain how the universe works at microscopic scales.

Giving reports on Tuesday, both of the main detectors, ATLAS and CMS, were shown to have uncovered hints of a Higgs Boson, and to have estimated its mass.

The particle is the constituent of an unseen entity called the Higgs field, which is thought to give all particles their mass.

Tonelli and Fabiola Gianotti, head of the ATLAS detector, separately presented results from more than 300 trillion high-speed particle collisions made in the last year.

"This is the first time we're really exploring the entire [mass] region with the right sensitivity – the one that will allow you, if there is something there, to start seeing something," said Tonelli.

(DW)

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