STOCKHOLM Physicists Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain have won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the two scientists for the "theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles."
The physics prize announcement was delayed by one hour, which is highly unusual. The academy gave no immediate reason, other than saying on Twitter that it was "still in session" at the original announcement time.
The academy decides the winners in a majority vote on the day of the announcement.
The scientists' discovery is called the Higgs boson, but popularly it is referred to as "the God particle." It is called this because it's said to be what caused the "Big Bang" that created our universe many years ago. The nickname caught on so quickly (even though scientists and clergy alike do not care for it) partly because it's a great explanation of what it's supposed to do -- the Higgs boson is what joins everything and gives it matter.
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[h=3]CERN scientists announce observation of Higgs boson particle[/h]
In March of this year, a different set of scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) working with the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, finally confirmed the discovery of the Higgs boson.
The finding did not come easily, and since 2008 CERN has been putting together the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider to specifically create high energy collisions to prove that the Higgs boson exists.
The particle, a boson, was first found last July and many thought that it might not be the correct boson, but once scientists finished recent testing an affirmative judgment was made. They were on the right track.
"The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is," said CMS spokesperson Joe Incandela in a statement. CMS -- short for Compact Muon Solenoid experiment -- is one of the two teams working with CERN to make this discover, the other is ATLAS.
This discovery is huge to the scientific community because it gives validity to The Standard Model of Physics, which is authoritative theory for particle physics. The only element or particle that is part of the Standard model and hasn't been discovered is the Higgs boson, until now.
The confirmation was crucial because the model dictates how the basic pieces of matter act together. If it was proved incorrect, or that the there was no Higgs boson, the way modern scientists look at particle physics would be completely altered, therefore changing many of the current technological assumptions.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the two scientists for the "theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles."
The physics prize announcement was delayed by one hour, which is highly unusual. The academy gave no immediate reason, other than saying on Twitter that it was "still in session" at the original announcement time.
The academy decides the winners in a majority vote on the day of the announcement.
The scientists' discovery is called the Higgs boson, but popularly it is referred to as "the God particle." It is called this because it's said to be what caused the "Big Bang" that created our universe many years ago. The nickname caught on so quickly (even though scientists and clergy alike do not care for it) partly because it's a great explanation of what it's supposed to do -- the Higgs boson is what joins everything and gives it matter.
[h=3]CERN scientists announce observation of Higgs boson particle[/h]
In March of this year, a different set of scientists from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) working with the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, finally confirmed the discovery of the Higgs boson.
The finding did not come easily, and since 2008 CERN has been putting together the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider to specifically create high energy collisions to prove that the Higgs boson exists.
The particle, a boson, was first found last July and many thought that it might not be the correct boson, but once scientists finished recent testing an affirmative judgment was made. They were on the right track.
"The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is," said CMS spokesperson Joe Incandela in a statement. CMS -- short for Compact Muon Solenoid experiment -- is one of the two teams working with CERN to make this discover, the other is ATLAS.
This discovery is huge to the scientific community because it gives validity to The Standard Model of Physics, which is authoritative theory for particle physics. The only element or particle that is part of the Standard model and hasn't been discovered is the Higgs boson, until now.
The confirmation was crucial because the model dictates how the basic pieces of matter act together. If it was proved incorrect, or that the there was no Higgs boson, the way modern scientists look at particle physics would be completely altered, therefore changing many of the current technological assumptions.