itgrrl.com

Well, last night was very exciting if you’re a science nerd! Physicists from CERN reported that two independent experiments at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) confirmed that they have very strong evidence for a particle that is consistent with the expected energy signature of the long-sought Higgs Boson.

Angry Birds celebrated in geeky style with an homage…   🙂

Why is there so much hype about the Higgs Boson? Well, according to the Standard Model of physics, the Higgs Field^ is what ‘gives’ mass to all the particles that have mass. If we didn’t find the Higgs Boson roughly where we were searching for it, that would suggest that the Higgs Field doesn’t exist. And that would indicate that our current understanding of some fundamental physics was wrong. But nope, it seems like we’re on the right track – we’ve ‘seen’ the Higgs Boson, and can be confident that the Higgs Field is real.  *whew*

With the Higgs Boson where we expect it – and with an ability to ‘see’ it (indirectly) – we can start figuring out how gravity works. Which is kind of a big deal. (If you’re a nerd.)

Now the hard work really begins…   🙂

^ The Higgs Field surrounds and permeates everything. It binds the universe together. Y’know, kind of like The Force.   😉