John Dewey had rightly said that " Every great advancement in science is issued from a new audacity of imagination." Yes, Peter Higgs dared to imagine what no one else did. He looked beyond the real, that was the SURREAL! But sadly, no one paid heed to his thoughts and imaginations. He suggested the presence of the Higgs boson which confers mass to all the constituents of the universe. But no, he never got recognition for his discovery. Even the journal, Physics Letters which was edited by CERN , rejected Mr. Peter's belief. However, Mr. Peter stood by his stand. The two teams i.e. ATLAS and CMS took the herculean task of investigating about the mysterious particle which Higgs talked about.
The study was started by CERN in Large Hadron Collider. The world's largest particle accelerator is as heavy as the Eiffel Tower and half the size of Notre Dame.This gigantic machine multiplies the speed of a particle through a unique process. The particles are firstly injected into the SPS(Super Proton Synchrotron), then they are transferred to the collider for division into two beams. At the last stage, the particles are accelerated as much as the velocity of light making the particles collide four times. The scientists wanted to delve into this particle puzzle.
WHY IS THIS DISCOVERY SO CRUCIAL?
In the standard model, it is postulated that there are 12 fundamental particles in the universe. They are subdivided into Fermions and Bosons . Today, the fermions consist of Electrons, Up quarks and Down quarks. While the four fundamental forces or the bosons are Photon( for electromagnetism), Gluon (binding quarks to hold atomic nuclei together ) , W and Z Bosons ( weak force for decay of particles) and Gravitron ( cause of Gravity). The only missing piece for completion of this model was the Higgs particle which is finally FOUND! As tested and tried within 5 sigma certainty ( it says that the chance of seeing the required signal without the Higgs particle is one-in-a-3.5million ), this path-breaking discovery literally brought science to a new stage.
Science is proven only using theories and postulations. As Linus pauling once said that," Facts are the air of scientists without which they can't fly." It has been a milestone in the history of science bringing new rays of hope. In the words of Peter Higgs, " This is just the beginning."
Hats off to the intrepid scientists at CERN for having dug into the origin of the universe like never before!!
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