It was a discovery waiting 50 years to happen. But on July 4, 2012, physicists announced that they had conclusively detected the effects of the “Goddamn particle” at the LHC. Officially named after Dr. Peter Higgs, the elusive particle was finally found. I have to admit, before the announcement, I didn’t know its significance, or …
Dark matter is excess mass that we can observe by its gravitational affect in our universe. What is it made of? This is still a mystery. Dark matter does not interact with light, so we can’t ever hope to see it. But we can observe how it affects its surroundings. We have observed dark matter’s …
After the news of the discovery of the Higgs Boson on July 4, 2012, followed by the confirmation of repeated results on March 14, 2013 (phys.org/news/2013-03-confident-cern-physicists-higgs-boson.html), it is being reported that it is the last great discovery (guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/08/robin-mckie-higgs-boson-discovery-where-next). It is being heralded as the final piece of the puzzle of the Standard Model of physics. …
Read more “Is the Higgs boson really the Last Great Discovery?”