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| Higgs Announcement at CERN |
We have found it – now we have to work out exactly what "it" is. That neatly sums up the thoughts of many physicists at CERN yesterday as they began to absorb the announcement that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had discovered a Higgs boson – or at least something like a Higgs. CERN's director general Rolf-Dieter Heuer was very careful to describe the new particle, which has a mass of about 125 GeV/c2, as a "fundamental scalar boson". However, even the scalar part of that description – which indicates that the particle has zero spin – has not been completely nailed down.
The Scientific Method is a thought process, an accepted means of constantly questions itself in discoveries and published findings. It can be somewhat off-putting to the general public, used to definitive statements and cock-sureness (at least advertised by their political leaders). Although, I don't know if it's the scientists' fault (as Physics Today opines) more than we've become something our brains weren't designed for nor evolution intended: an entertainment culture addicted to instant gratification. What doesn't come easy to understand in seconds is quickly discarded instead of effort made to master. The Matrix was our undoing...
Physics World: It's a boson, but what sort?
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