In the science and physics world “The Holy Grail” was found today July 4th. The Higgs Boson

The science world is a buzz over the discovery from CERN, Europe’s main particle-physics lab, of what is called the “missing piece” or element of the Standard Model of partical physics called the Higgs Boson.

It’s July 4th and the physics nerds around the world celebrate a massive new discovery. It’s the “holy grail” of physics

According to Wikipedia  “Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics. Most of the interest in this area is in fundamental fields, each of which cannot be described as a bound state of other fields. The current set of fundamental fields and their dynamics are summarized in a theory called the Standard Model, therefore particle physics is largely the study of the Standard Model’s particle content and its possible extensions.”

The Standard Model of partical physics is the best theory available for how the universe works in all its aspects bar gravity which comes out of Albert Einstein’s general relativity theory work.

What is a Bason.  According to Wikipedia:  “In particle physics, bosons are one of the two fundamental classes of subatomic particles, the other being fermions. Bosons are characterized by their obedience to Bose–Einstein statistics. This class of particles includes photons and gluons, as well as the Higgs boson. The name boson is derived from the surname of the Indian physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose, a contemporary of the German physicist Albert Einstein.”

What is Higgs?

The concept of the Higgs was introduced in 1964, so it has taken physicists 48 years to go from idea to observation. None of the model’s 16 other particles was as elusive.

If you’re interested in a timeline of the Standard Model of particle physics read this article by the Economist.  It has a good short summary and a graph.

Some resources to watch

Watch The Higgs Particle Matters on PBS. See more from NOVA.