'God particle: Confirmation achingly close'
Physicists in Italy said last Wednesday that they are achingly close
to concluding that what they found last year was the Higgs boson, the
elusive 'God particle'. They need to eliminate one last remote
possibility that it's something else. The long theorised subatomic
particle would explain why matter has mass and has been called a missing
cornerstone of physics.
With new analyses, scientists are closer to being certain they found
the crucial Higgs boson. But they want to be 99.9 percent positive, said
Pauline Gagnon, a physicist with the European Center for Nuclear
Research.
Last July, scientists with the world's largest atom smasher, the $10
billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border, announced
finding a particle they described as Higgs-like, but wouldn't say it was
conclusively the particle. Now thousands of checks show them even
closer.
"It looks more and more like a Higgs boson," said Gagnon after an
update presented at a conference in the Italian Alps.Gagnon compared
finding the Higgs to identifying a specific person. This looks, talks,
and sings like a Higgs, but scientists want to make sure it dances like
the Higgs before they shout "Eureka."
- AP
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