The Greatest Discovery of all time.

 
Today was a red letter day for the scientific community. Confirmation of the discovery of a new particle. A particle that fits the properties of the predicted Higgs-Boson, nicknamed the God particle.

Professor Brian Cox (http://aspect2ratio.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/professor20brian20cox.jpg%3Fw%3D680)
 
The famous physicist DReamy Brian Cox could hardly control his excitement when speaking about it on the radio, claiming it to be the most important scientific discovery of a lifetime, maybe even ever!
 
He explained the significance of this particle very well. He used the analogy of water condensing on a glass window to help the listeners understand. He suggested that like water condenses from water vapour the Higgs particles 'condensed' into being in the very first moments of the Big Bang and that all space, including the space inside us is teeming with them. The way other particles interact with them gives everything mass etc.. In fact these particles are the 'fundamental building blocks of the Universe'.

Whoa, impressive, but has it changed my life? Is this a piece of science that might in the future have a technological impact on the way we live? I have yet to hear anyone suggest that it might. It might however change my grandchildrens lives...

Large Hadron Collider (http://www.universetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/lhc-580x377.jpg)


What is impressive to me is that 45 years ago a scientist, Dr Higgs, predicted that these particles must exist. His prediction was so powerful that it caused an international scientific group to collaborate and spend £800 billion to develop technology and to look for it. Just to find the answer, just to know more. This is when science is at its best.

What a day for Professor Higgs, proved right, and in his lifetime.

Apparently it is just as well that it has been found as if the predicted particle was found not to exist that would mean that our understanding of the universe was wrong.

Now, that would have been interesting.

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