A rendering from the LHC that might represent a decaying Higgs boson. (Image: CERN)

WARNING:  This is so far above both our heads, that we’ll probably get cramps in our necks trying to see it.

Scientists at The Large Hadron Collider, in Geneva, Switzerland, are announcing the discovery of what appears to be the Higgs Boson.  They’re claiming “Sigma 5” confidence, which means they’re 99.9999% sure they’ve discovered evidence of a particle that behaves exactly as predicted for the Higgs Boson.  Apparently they didn’t find the particle itself, but have detected the expected decay energy of a Higgs Boson.

I’m not even going to try to explain any of it, I’d probably just get it wrong, anyway.  Go first to this site, Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy, then to this site, The Mother Nature Network, for much better explanations than I could ever come up with.

You’ve heard of this particle before.  Sure you have.  This is “The God Particle“.  See, I knew you’d heard of it.  I don’t know if this is 42 or not, or the grand unifier, but it is a huge leap forward for particle and quantum physics.

It’s also an important indicator of something else.

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