Two scientists have won the Nobel prize in physics for their work on the theory of the Higgs boson.
"The awarded theory is a central part of the Standard Model of particle physics that describes how the world is constructed," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a post on Twitter.
The Nobel committee decided Peter Higgs, from the UK, and Francois Englert from Belgium, should jointly take the accolade for the boson, discovered at Cern in 2012
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| Cern director general Rolf Heuer joined physicists celebrating the announcement |
In the 1960s they were among several physicists who proposed a
mechanism to explain why the most basic building blocks of the Universe
have mass.
The mechanism predicts a particle - the Higgs boson - which was finally discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, in Switzerland.
"This year's prize is about something small that makes all the
difference," said Staffan Normark, permanent secretary of the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences.
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Francois Englert and Peter Higgs meet at CERN
in 2012 during an announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson. The
discovery came nearly 50 years after they proposed the theory behind it
in independent papers that led to their being awarded the 2013 Nobel
Prize for physics.
(Credit:
CERN)
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It took thousands of scientists working at the a underground particle accelerator 27km in circumference called the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva, an effort that took years.
• The Standard Model is the simplest set of
ingredients - elementary particles - needed to make up the world we see
in the heavens and in the laboratory
• Quarks combine together to make, for
example, the proton and neutron - which make up the nuclei of atoms
today - though more exotic combinations were around in the Universe's
early days
• Leptons come in charged and uncharged
versions; electrons - the most familiar charged lepton - together with
quarks make up all the matter we can see; the uncharged leptons are
neutrinos, which rarely interact with matter
• The "force carriers" are particles whose
movements are observed as familiar forces such as those behind
electricity and light (electromagnetism) and radioactive decay (the weak
nuclear force)
• The Higgs boson came about because
although the Standard Model holds together neatly, nothing requires the
particles to have mass; for a fuller theory, the Higgs - or something
else - must fill in that gap
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| A proton-proton collision produced in the Large Hadron Collider shows characteristics in line with the decay of a Higgs boson particle. |
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| CERN's Globe of Science and Innovation exhibition center and surface buildings, which provide access to the Large Hadron Collider, can be seen near Geneva, Switzerland. |
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| Professor Peter Higgs inside the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful "atom smasher" ever built |
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| It took nearly half a century to prove Professor Higgs' theory |
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| Higgs enthusiasts camped overnight in order to get a seat in Cern's lecture theatre |
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| The theory came to Prof Higgs over a number of weeks while at home in Edinburgh, not in a Eureka moment in the Cairngorms |
Peter Higgs: Particle Man: Here's something to inspire every late developer: Peter Higgs didn't win a prize for physics until he was 52.
Best explanation of Higgs boson..
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| Scientists' best theory for why different things have mass is the "Higgs field" - where mass can be seen as a measure of the resistance to movement. The "Higgs field" is shown here as a room of physicists chatting among themselves. |
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| A well-known scientist walks into the room and causes a bit of a stir - attracting admirers with each step and interacting strongly with them - signing autographs and stopping to chat. |
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| As she becomes surrounded by admiring fans, she finds it harder to move across the room - in this analogy, she acquires mass due to the "field" of fans, with each fan acting like a single Higgs boson. |
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| If a less popular scientist enters the room, only a small crowd gathers, with no-one clamouring for attention. He finds it easier to move across the room - by analogy, his interaction with the bosons is lower, and so he has a lower mass. |
And....
The matter we can detect accounts for less than 5% of the Universe that
should be there. A significant chunk of the missing 95% may be dark
matter made from heavier siblings of the fundamental particles we
already know. The Higgs Boson's heavier cousins - if they're there - may
give our first glimpses of the dark Universe.
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