On this day in physics: 02 February 1937- Happy Birthday to C.R. Hagen, a theoretical physicist, who is still currently a professor of theoretical physicist at the University of Rochester. He published one of the first papers to describe the "Higgs Mechanism" and be theory on the Higgs Boson, with five other physicists, one of course being the particle's namesake, Peter Higgs. [Source].
Word of the Day: Higgs Boson- The elusive Higgs Boson is a particle in the standard model of physics which was theorized to exist since the 1960s, but was only officially discovered to exist this decade at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). So what is it. It's a boson, it has no spin, no electrical charge, or "color charge". It lives for about 10^-22 seconds. So why the heck is it important? It is something that is necessary for the standard model in physics to be correct. The Standard Model is what classifies all of matter, like electrons, photons, quarks, bosons, etc. In order for everything to work, there needs to be what is known as a Higgs Field, and a particle known as the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson is what allegedly gives matter its mass.
Let's try and understand how it works Imagine putting together a 250 piece puzzle. It's hard, because you don't have the box to see the full picture, but no matter, we're smart people. We get the frame of it together, and start working on the inside. Great, great. But now, we've finished about a quarter of the inside, and we see that two pieces are missing. They are totally framed out by the other pieces that we have, so we know that they need to be there to make the puzzle, but they are gone. So you start to look for them, and 50 years later, you find them. Can you imagine your excitement?
So now that it has been verified to exist, it gives physicists a great confidence that the Standard Model of Physics is correct. In science if you make a theory, and can't back it up with evidence, out it goes. So, physicists for the last 50 years had been tenuously supporting the theory, while trying to make modifications in the event that the Higgs Boson was never found. Now those modifications are unnecessary. It also gives great credence to the Standard Model because the model is able to predict particles that we can then look for and observe, and find to be real.
Quote of the Day: "I never expected this to happen in my lifetime and shall be asking my family to put some champagne in the fridge."- Peter Higgs (on the discovery of the Higgs Boson) [Source]
Keywords: Higgs, Boson, Fisld, Standard, Model, Physics
