From pretty sure to... "more certain"

           Scientists at CERN are "more certain" that they have correctly identified the Higgs boson. For more information on the Higgs boson and the standard model of particle physics, take a look at my previous blog post - here! Essentially, the Higgs boson is evidence for the Higgs field. This field is theoretically around us and everything at all times. As anything passes through the Higgs field, it obtains mass. The discovery of the particle does not lead to new discoveries, but authenticates all of the understanding and claims that physicists have made since the introduction of the standard model.

            The initial announcement about the Higgs boson was made over the summer. Scientists announced that they had discovered a particle that was "Higgs-like," but they couldn't be sure of the identity until after they went through all of the data they had obtained. According to the New York Times, the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider went through around 2,000 trillion collisions of subatomic particles. That is an insane amount of data. Written out, this is 1 trillion - 1,000,000,000,000. So, 2000 trillion written out is - 2,000,000,000,000,000 - which I think may be 2 quadrillion.  I can't even begin to image how many hours had to be put in by how many scientists to filter through it all. This data is actually more (about double) than the amount of data that led to the initial discovery over the summer.

            The next step for CERN is determining whether or not this is the ONE Higgs boson, or if it is a lighter member of a family of Higgs bosons (scroll down about 3/4 of the page for a good explanation). According to the Standard Model, there should be only one particle. Scientists have met and discussed this, but plan on watching how the particle spins and decays to finally determine what it is. The Higgs boson should have no spin at all. There is an interesting article on spin - here.

            Well, we will all have to wait and see. CERN is now down for two years so that repairs can be made, and the data they have already collected can be fully analyzed. If the Higgs is proven to exist, then the understanding of our universe and how it interacts on the subatomic level will be greatly increased. I for one, look forward to seeing where this data and proposed Higgs boson take the world of particle physics in the next few years.

National Geographic article - here

NBC science article - here

 CNN tech article - here