After a quest spanning nearly half a century, physicists yesterday said they had found a new subatomic particle consistent with the elusive Higgs boson, which is believed to confer mass.
Rousing cheers and a standing ovation erupted at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) after scientists presented astonishing new data in their search for the mysterious particle.
Many hailed it as a moment in history, and white-haired veterans of the quest shed tears of joy.
The new find is “consistent with [the] long-sought Higgs boson,” CERN declared in a statement.
“We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature,” CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer said.
He and others cautioned, though, that further work was needed to identify what exactly had been found.
“As a layman, I would say: ‘We have it.’ But as a scientist, I have to say: ‘What do we have?’” Heuer told a press conference. “We have discovered a boson, and now we have to determine what kind of boson it is.”
Peter Higgs, a shy, soft-spoken British physicist who in 1964 published the conceptual groundwork for the particle and whose name became associated with it, expressed his delight.
Finding the Higgs would validate the Standard Model, a theory that identifies the building blocks for matter and the particles that convey fundamental forces.
It is a hugely successful theory, but has several gaps, the biggest of which is why some particles have mass, but others do not.
Mooted by Higgs and several others, the boson is believed to exist in a treacly, invisible, ubiquitous field created by the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.
When some particles encounter the Higgs, they slow down and acquire mass, according to the theory. Others, such as particles of light, encounter no obstacle.
At a particle-physics conference in Melbourne, Australia, a participant said there was a “jaw-dropping” moment when the scientists reacted to the announcement.
Scientists began to pore over what the find could mean.
“[The Higgs] has been anticipated for more than four decades and were it not there, theorists all over the world would have been back to their drawing boards in desperation,” Anthony Thomas at the University of Adelaide in Australia said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS