Two independent teams at the world's biggest atom smasher say they have both "observed" a new subatomic particle — a boson — that looks just like the one believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.

One of the two independent teams at the world's biggest atom smasher said Wednesday it has found strong evidence of a new subatomic particle that looks like the one believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.

Joe Incandela, leader of one of the teams known as CMS, told scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, that his team of 2,100 scientists has "observed" a new particle that is a boson — the same type of particle as the long-sought Higgs boson, popularly referred to as the "God particle."

He described the data as consistent with the elusive Higgs boson, whose existence was predicted decades ago to help explain how the universe works, but stopped short of definitively declaring discovery of the Higgs boson.

The second team was just starting to present its evidence before a packed auditorium, where scientists broke into applause intermittently.

Fabiola Gianotti, leader of the second team of some 3,000 scientists, known as ATLAS, said it also has observed some "beautiful" events in CERN's atom smasher, the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border.

It has been creating high-energy collisions of protons to investigate dark matter, antimatter and the creation of the universe, which many theorize occurred in a massive explosion known as the Big Bang.

Update: The head of the world's biggest atom smasher says they have discovered a new particle that is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the "God particle," which is believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape

Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, says "we have a discovery" of a new subatomic particle, a boson, that is "consistent with a Higgs boson."

He spoke after two independent teams at CERN said they have both "observed" a new particle.
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-cern-physi ... ticle.html

YEEEEHAW

TIME FOR A CELEBRATION-PARASCIENTIFICA STYLE!!!

I don't get what the big fuss is about, they found strong evidence, they haven't actually found it? Seems a bit premature.

They are 99.999999999% sure, which is pretty good. They just need more pics of it to learn about it and see if it is the right higgs boson

GAWD negative nancy, what part of celebrate don't you understand? NOW HULA!

I am sensing a bit of sarcasm here

99.99995% actually.

But yeah, whatever.

TRIVIA TIME
The so-called God Particle isn't what many people think it is.

The nickname given to the Higgs Boson actually came out of a magazine that published a story about it a few years back. Physicists at CERN actually used to get frustrated with the fact that they couldn't find it, so they kept calling it "that goddamn particle". The magazine didn't agree with its non-commercial sound, so they just wrote it as "the god particle".

Actually it comes from the title of this book

Also to those talking about the 99.9999995% accuracy, that is not talking specifically about the Standard Model Higgs. That's talking about finding a boson with mass 125 GeV. The reason they aren't confirming it is the Higgs is they are checking for other features of the Higgs such as zero spin.

Double post, my bad

I never understood this!
Why are they wasting all this money on this,
while they could help people?

The Higgs Boson is what allows mass to exist. If we could learn how to manipulate a Higgs Field we could essentially make matter. It could be used like a replicator on Star Trek.