Key Concepts

• The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is certain to find something new and provocative as it presses into unexplored territory.
• The Standard Model of particle physics requires a particle known as the Higgs boson, or a stand-in to play its role, at energies probed by the LHC. The Higgs, in turn, poses deep questions of its own, whose answers should be found in the same energy range.
• These phenomena revolve around the question of symmetry. Symmetries underlie the interactions of the Standard Model but are not always reflected in the operation of the model. Understanding why not is a key question.

When physicists are forced to give a single-word answer to the question of why we are building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), we usually reply “Higgs.” The Higgs particle—the last remaining undiscovered piece of our current theory of matter—is the marquee attraction. But the full story is much more interesting. The new collider provides the greatest leap in capability of any instrument in the history of particle physics. We do not know what it will find, but the discoveries we make and the new puzzles we encounter are certain to change the face of particle physics and to echo through neighboring sciences.

In this new world, we expect to learn what distinguishes two of the forces of nature—electromagnetism and the weak interactions—with broad implications for our conception of the everyday world. We will gain a new understanding of simple and profound questions: Why are there atoms? Why chemistry? What makes stable structures possible?

   
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