This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Tomorrow afternoon, in "the most eagerly awaited scientific presentation of the century to date", particle physics laboratory Cern will update the world on its search for the Higgs boson, that elusive particle that is believed to give mass to fundamental particles.
The Higgs is the only particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics, currently the best theory we have to describe how particles interact, that we have not yet observed. Cern wants to change that.
Scientists working on Cern's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been looking for the Higgs for quite a while now. I'm not quite sure how to break it to them, but I think I might know where it is...
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Ok, ok. This is actually a stop motion animation that uses skittles (the sweet kind) to explain how the LHC works. It was made by a team of Imperial College Science Communication masters students, including myself, and the Higgs makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance towards the end.
So whatever the announcement is tomorrow, remember that we found it first.
(For a slightly more serious post about the Higgs, go here to read why the Higgs matters)
Video credit: Peter Larkin, Harriet Jarlett, Heather Cruickshank, Sam Cavenagh, Kelly Oakes, Georgia Bladon, Antonio Torrisi, and Dharshani Weerasekera.
