The Week: Most Recent Science

What if scientists actually didn't discover the Higgs boson?

The Week — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 11:19:00 -0400

Maybe Stephen Hawking should ask for his money back. After two teams at Europe's CERN announced on July 4 that they had almost certainly found the elusive Higgs boson, the famous British physicist settled his $100 bet with the University of Michigan's Gordon Kane that the so-called God particle would never be found. But now, Ian Low at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and two fellow physicists suggest the possibility that the much-sought-after Higgs boson was not, in fact, the particle the CERN teams discovered. Did the researchers find the actual Higgs, an "impostor" particle, or something...

Glimpsing the 'God particle': 4 lingering questions

The Week — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 07:02:00 -0400

Scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva were cheered like rock stars on July 4 when they formally announced that they had almost certainly nabbed the biggest and most elusive catch in modern physics: the Higgs boson. Dubbed the "God particle," the Higgs boson is "the missing cornerstone of particle physics," said CERN director Rolf Heuer. This "milestone in our understanding of nature" essentially confirms that the universe was formed the way scientists believe it was. Two teams of atom-smashing researchers at CERN's Large Hadron Collider independently verified...

What finding the God particle would mean: 3 talking points

The Week — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:20:00 -0400

The big buzz in the science world is that researchers from the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, are on the verge of announcing their most compelling proof yet that the Higgs boson particle exists. Nicknamed the "God particle," the Higgs is theorized to exist in between a very specific set of frequencies, and is described as the invisible glue that binds the universe together. When paired with gravity, the subatomic particle is said to be the magic ingredient that gives everyday objects their weight. Two teams of CERN researchers, nicknamed ATLAS and CMS, have worked independently...

Einstein wins: Debunking the 'faster-than-light' neutrinos

The Week — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:12:00 -0500

Light is once again the speediest thing in the known universe. Last September, OPERA, a project organized by an international group of physicists, boldly proclaimed that it had clocked some neutrinos, sub-atomic particles, moving faster than light. It was a shocking result, since Albert Einstein's longstanding theory of relativity says that nothing is faster than light. Well, it turns out Einstein was right all along. Late Wednesday, Science Insider broke the news that OPERA's experiment was flawed — its results compromised by a faulty connection between a GPS receiver and a computer. Indulging...

The new, 'tantalizing hints' of the 'God particle'

The Week — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:32:00 -0500

After months of subatomic particle smashing, two teams of researchers at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, announced Tuesday morning that they've each recorded hints of the elusive Higgs boson, better known as the universe-creating "God particle." Here's what you should know:

What exactly is this "God particle"?
The Higgs boson is an elusive, subatomic particle "that was predicted to exist nearly 50 years ago," says Alok Jha at Britain's Guardian. And though scientists have been hunting for evidence of the particle for decades, they've had "no solid proof that it was real." Still...

The hunt for the 'God Particle': Will we ever find it?

The Week — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:18:00 -0400

Researchers at the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) facility in Geneva say the "God particle", also known as the Higgs boson, will be found within the next year — if it exists. The elusive, and possibly mythical, particle is believed to have helped give shape to the universe after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, and would be the final puzzle-piece that scientists need to corroborate their universe creation theory. Here's what you should know:

First off: What's a God particle?
Named after British physicist Peter Higgs, the Higgs boson is the only elementary particle...

Particles that move faster than light: Was Einstein wrong?

The Week — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:36:00 -0400

Albert Einstein sits atop the pantheon of scientists because of his seminal theory of relativity — but new research from scientists working in Switzerland and Italy suggests that Einstein might have been wrong. OPERA, an international group of physicists at CERN's particle accelerator outside Geneva, claim to have tested neutrinos traveling faster than the speed of light — which Einstein maintained is the fastest thing in the universe. What exactly did the physicists find, and what are the implications? Here's what you should know:

What are neutrinos?
Neutrinos are virtually...

The Big Bang machine's 'incredible' antimatter trap

The Week — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:00:00 -0400

Scientists at CERN, the European lab for particle physics, are celebrating an "incredible" success: trapping antimatter atoms for nearly 17 minutes. That's a major step in our quest to better understand the history and invisible workings of our universe. Here, a guide to the research:

First things first: What is antimatter?
The subatomic particles — protons, neutrons, and electrons — that make up all the matter around us have, or had, corresponding particles with the same mass but the opposite electric charge. That's antimatter.

So where is all this antimatter?
When antimatter and matter...

The Large Hadron Collider: A time machine?

The Week — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 06:10:00 -0400

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was built to replicate the conditions at the Big Bang, and answer humanity's most basic questions — what are we made of and how did we come to exist? Scientists are still working on that, but have stumbled across something that promises to be even more exciting: The possibility of time travel. Here, an instant guide:

What is the Large Hadron Collider, again?
It's a 17-mile-long particle accelerator built deep underground in Geneva, Switzerland. Scientists hope to use it to discover the Higgs boson, or the "God particle." This mysterious subatomic particle is...

What the 'Large Hadron Collider' might do: 6 theories

The Week — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:35:00 -0400

After two years of delays, the Large Hadron Collider is finally up and running — and hasn't yet destroyed the universe. The 17-mile particle accelerator, based in Geneva, Switzerland, has begun smashing together subatomic particles at near-lightspeed velocities in the search for the "Higgs Boson," an elusive piece of matter also known as the "God particle." But what else will this colossal $9 billion machine do? Here 6 theories of what the Big Bang Machine will accomplish:

1. Kill us all
The "early collisions" in the now-operational LHC might seem to disprove "doom-monger" theories that the...

The latest Tweets on the 'Large Hadron Collider'

The Week — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:28:00 -0400

The Big Bang machine

The Week — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:54:00 -0500

What is the Large Hadron Collider?
It’s the largest machine in the world, built to unlock the deepest secrets of the universe. Located 300 feet below ground along the border between France and Switzerland, the LHC is housed inside a mammoth circular tunnel measuring 17 miles around. The tunnel contains two large tubes lined with more than 1,000 powerful magnets cooled by helium to just above absolute zero, so that they offer virtually no resistance to the current flowing through them. The tubes channel beams of lead ions and hydrogen protons and neutrons—the largest components of atoms...