“This is something that may in the end be one of the biggest discoveries or observations of any new phenomena that we’ve had in our field in the last 30 or 40 years.”
Cern spokesman James Gillies said the video was one of several filmed to cover every eventuality and did not directly relate to today's announcement.
Researchers from the Large Hadron Collider will reveal that they have identified a brand new particle which looks exactly like the sought-after Higgs Boson.
But although their results are said to be strong enough to claim an official discovery, the scientists will avoid doing so because they remain unsure whether the particle they have found is indeed the Higgs.
The Internet has been rife with rumours of a discovery ever since CERN, the European nuclear research facility, announced it would hold a press conference today with the leaders of its two gigantic experiments, ATLAS and CMS.
But to claim the discovery of a new particle, physicists insist upon extremely stringent statistical conditions being met: their data must have a statistical significance of ‘5-sigma’, which translates to just a one in 1.7 million chance of the positive result being a statistical fluke.
The results being announced today definitively point to a new particle or particles which fit the description of a Higgs Boson, but further research will be needed to characterise it properly.
Claire Shepherd-Themistocleous, head of the CMS detector team at the Rutherford-Appleton laboratory in the UK, said: "If we were to make a statement that we have found something, it would be fantastically interesting and one of the greatest finds we have come across for a long time regardless of what it turns out to be."
The Higgs boson is the final piece of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, a theoretical model which describes the fundamental particles and forces that control our Universe.
It was first theorised in the 1960s by Edinburgh-based physicist Peter Higgs, amongst others, and is credited for giving all other particles mass. But until now, it has proved impossible to pin down.
To do so, scientists use the LHC to smash together protons at almost the speed of light and scour the debris for traces of particles that sprang into existence for just a fraction of a second before disintegrating.
Sources have told the Telegraph that ATLAS will today announce a 5-sigma signal and CMS will announce a 4.9-sigma signal of a new particle with a mass which matches many physicists' idea of a Higgs Boson.
An ATLAS researcher said there was "no question" the two detectors are seeing the same thing, adding: "A lot of bets are going to be settled up [today]”.
“After so many years preparing and searching, it’s really amazing to see a clear signal emerge,” a CMS Higgs physicist added.
“This is the sort of thing that makes me cry,” said an ATLAS Higgs physicist. “It's the kind of crying that accompanies winning something or being overwhelmed with happiness. Human thought and ingenuity have continually created and discovered, but this outdoes them all."
James Gillies, a Cern spokesman, said: "Fine tuning of the analyses is still ongoing, and any strong statement before Fabiola Gianotti and Joe Incandela present their experiments' results in the morning is premature."
Cern spokesman James Gillies said the video was one of several filmed to cover every eventuality and did not directly relate to today's announcement.
Researchers from the Large Hadron Collider will reveal that they have identified a brand new particle which looks exactly like the sought-after Higgs Boson.
But although their results are said to be strong enough to claim an official discovery, the scientists will avoid doing so because they remain unsure whether the particle they have found is indeed the Higgs.
The Internet has been rife with rumours of a discovery ever since CERN, the European nuclear research facility, announced it would hold a press conference today with the leaders of its two gigantic experiments, ATLAS and CMS.
But to claim the discovery of a new particle, physicists insist upon extremely stringent statistical conditions being met: their data must have a statistical significance of ‘5-sigma’, which translates to just a one in 1.7 million chance of the positive result being a statistical fluke.
The results being announced today definitively point to a new particle or particles which fit the description of a Higgs Boson, but further research will be needed to characterise it properly.
Claire Shepherd-Themistocleous, head of the CMS detector team at the Rutherford-Appleton laboratory in the UK, said: "If we were to make a statement that we have found something, it would be fantastically interesting and one of the greatest finds we have come across for a long time regardless of what it turns out to be."
The Higgs boson is the final piece of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, a theoretical model which describes the fundamental particles and forces that control our Universe.
It was first theorised in the 1960s by Edinburgh-based physicist Peter Higgs, amongst others, and is credited for giving all other particles mass. But until now, it has proved impossible to pin down.
To do so, scientists use the LHC to smash together protons at almost the speed of light and scour the debris for traces of particles that sprang into existence for just a fraction of a second before disintegrating.
Sources have told the Telegraph that ATLAS will today announce a 5-sigma signal and CMS will announce a 4.9-sigma signal of a new particle with a mass which matches many physicists' idea of a Higgs Boson.
An ATLAS researcher said there was "no question" the two detectors are seeing the same thing, adding: "A lot of bets are going to be settled up [today]”.
“After so many years preparing and searching, it’s really amazing to see a clear signal emerge,” a CMS Higgs physicist added.
“This is the sort of thing that makes me cry,” said an ATLAS Higgs physicist. “It's the kind of crying that accompanies winning something or being overwhelmed with happiness. Human thought and ingenuity have continually created and discovered, but this outdoes them all."
James Gillies, a Cern spokesman, said: "Fine tuning of the analyses is still ongoing, and any strong statement before Fabiola Gianotti and Joe Incandela present their experiments' results in the morning is premature."