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LHC Seeks Higgs Boson: CERN Particle Accelerator Fires Up

by Jordan Yerman | March 30, 2010 at 06:27 am

3080 views | 16 Recommendations | 7 comments

Large Hadron Collider Smashes Particles at Record Levels, Seeking Higgs Boson Particle and Dark Matter

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has collided particles to release record-setting bursts of energy. LHC collisions have reached 7 TeVs (7 trillion electron volts). The purpose of the CERN particle accelerator experiment is to observe and measure the Higgs Boson Particle, also called the God Particle, predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics, but which has yet to be observed in the physical world.The ultimate goal is a collision releasing 14 Tevs of energy.

The Large Hadron Collider has been shut down following a series of mechanical failures, and has restarted with a bang. The collision experiments will run for up to two years.

"It's a Great Day to Be a Physicist"

“It’s a great day to be a particle physicist,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. “A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends.”

The ultimate goal of the experiment is to crash protons with an energy level of 7 TeV each into each other, releasing 14 TeV of energy.

As soon as they have "re-discovered" the known Standard Model particles, a necessary precursor to looking for new physics, the LHC experiments will start the systematic search for the Higgs boson. With the amount of data expected, called one inverse femtobarn by physicists, the combined analysis of ATLAS and CMS will be able to explore a wide mass range, and there’s even a chance of discovery if the Higgs has a mass near 160 GeV.

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recommend This comment thread is now closed

randomeperson (not verified)

at 15:28 on March 30th, 2010

Hope this defies relegion

olskoggar (not verified)

at 01:44 on March 31st, 2010

Thankfully, the people involved in the CERN project aren't as narrow minded as you.

TCR (not verified)

at 17:58 on March 30th, 2010

I expect LHC will confirm String Theory, and thereby confirm the other dimensions documented in religeous history.

Praveen Kumar mourya09 (not verified)

at 03:21 on March 31st, 2010

time will reveal the true story.

Petri (not verified)

at 13:52 on March 31st, 2010

The past, present, and future are merely an illusion. The illusion of how each interact with one another is the proper order is the question,.

brandon jabbia (not verified)

at 22:32 on April 4th, 2010

with religion \ faith and science being mutually exclusive\destructive, it would be nice if talk of god and faith were left in church, where they belong, and discussion adhered to the realm of physics.

Johnny Poison (not verified)

at 22:28 on May 3rd, 2010

I hope that the non-existance of the Higgs Boson will soon be conformed. Then the boffins can try to re-jig the Standard Model with a more understandable version!!!