SCIENTISTS AT CERN are to give an announcement this week on their ongoing search for the Higgs boson, with one describing the current scientific results as a “very exciting time”.
Researchers say they have have gotten more information from the Large Hadron Collider between June and April of this year than they did for the whole of 2011.
They have also refined their analysis techniques to improve their ability to detect anything that could be indicative of the Higgs boson.
“We now have more than double the data we had last year,” said Sergio Bertolucci, CERN’s Director for Research and Computing. “That should be enough to see whether the trends we were seeing in the 2011 data are still there, or whether they’ve gone away”.
In their last update in December researchers from CERN said that they had no definitive proof but found ‘intriguing hints’ that the Higgs boson could exist.
“It’s a bit like spotting a familiar face from afar,” said CERN’s Director General Rolf Heur.
Sometimes you need closer inspection to find out whether it’s really your best friend, or actually your best friend’s twin.
The Higgs boson is a subatomic particle which has been predicted to exist, but has never actually been observed. One Nobel laureate in physics has said that finding the Higgs boson would tie up a loose end of the so-called standard model of physics, which requires a Higgs-like particle to exist.
CERN will be giving its update on the search for the Higgs boson at 8am Irish time on Wednesday morning.
In the meantime, as we wait for the announcement from CERN this gives us an excuse to post the greatest nerdiest video ever:
(Video: alpinekat/YouTube)
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