Balanceophile

Science and its facts have never failed to excite the younger minds. Be it technology or any core field, the search always will be constant. Why am I suddenly writing about science and facts? Well, this post is about one of those researches which is still going on.

But before telling you about it, let me ask you something? What is the most smallest particle?

Atom? Nah!

Sub-atomic particles (protons, neutrons or electrons)? Nah!

The nucleus present in atom! Well, If you think this is the smallest.. Well that’s where this search comes up.

There is a particle which is smallest than all of these!

What is it?

It’s called as the “Higgs Boson”!

What is Higgs Boson?

Higgs Boson is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics.

How does this come?

To understand this, we need to understand the term called the Higgs Field.

What is Higgs Field?

We all have heard of the electric field, magnetic field, etc. This is also one such field which is assumed to be existing in the universe.

What does this field do?

It is assumed that this field, if really exists, gives mass to all the particles that is present in the universe.

The obvious question that we might get here is that we all have learnt that mass cannot be created or destroyed but can be passed from one particle to another.
If this field is found to be true and proves that it gives mass, won’t this law be violated?

Well, that is where the Higgs Boson – The God Particle (assumed to be) comes to the picture.

How does this particle distributes mass?

So, when any particle collides with Higgs Boson in the Higgs field, the latter transfers the mass to the former particle. As a result of the “mass gain”, the particles’ speed will be reduced in comparison with the speed of light.

As, this particle is assumed to be “giving mass” to other particles, this would be given the most importance.

Where is the research going on?

European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) built the world’s largest and most powerful collider called “The LHC – Large Hadron Collider. It is under a tunnel, with a length of about 27km beneath the France-Switzerland border near Geneva.

The collider has four crossing points which has seven detectors to sense the different particles. In 2018, for further upgrades, it entered a two-year shutdown.

The discovery of this particle has given every physicist a new perspective to work on. And the credit goes to the group of scientists who predicted the existence of such a particle.

It was proposed by Peter Higgs (the particle is named after him) including other 5 scientists who explained the idea of Higgs Mechanism.

Well, nobody knows whether this particle really exists or not. But if found true, it would bring a whole new perspective of thoughts. The research is going on.We need to wait and watch for the results.