A new discovery at the CERN collider - zombies!

            A group of Ph.D physics students has taken the CERN large Hadron collider where I honestly never thought I would see it - the setting for a zombie movie. Decay, as it is titled, is set entirely in the depths of the CERN collider and the premise is that when Higgs "radiation" came into contact with human flesh it created zombies. I don't know if the movie looks good, but I think I may end up watching it when it comes out anyways.

            This is not the real purpose of my post, but I wanted to use Decay as a fun introduction into (in my opinion) one of the most complex ideas of the science community -the Higgs boson.

            Before I can explain the Higgs boson to you, I have to give you a little background into the Standard Model of Particle Physics. The standard model is the current working model of particle physics and has been the work of many people. Essentially, it proposes that the universe is made up of twelve matter particles (leptons and quarks - which I won't be getting into) and four forces­ – ­gravitational, electromagnetic, strong, and weak. This model has been very effective in explaining most of physics, except for a few concepts here and there. There is one problem though ­­– there is one piece missing in the model and that is the Higgs boson.

            At this point you may be asking yourself, "What the heck is a boson?" Well, let me try and explain. For forces to be able to act upon matter, there has to exist a carrier particle that allows the interaction. This carrier particle is called a boson. So, now that you know what a boson is, the next question is - "what in the world kind of force/thingy-ma-jig is a Higgs."

            The Higgs boson is tied to the idea of the Higgs field, which is all around us and everything at all times. As things (matter) pass through the Higgs field they obtain mass. By finding the Higgs boson, which is the carrier particle through which the Higgs field affects everything, scientists won't be able to make new discoveries per se, but it would be the validation of the way physics is understood!

            It is not for sure the particle discovered and announced by CERN on July 4, 2012 is the Higgs boson, but the particle behaves like the Higgs is projected to. More research is being done on the particle, and I for one, am excited to see how the additional research turns out - hopefully without any zombies along the way.

Learn more about the Higgs Boson below: 

Article about the movie - here