General

Higgs boson ‘God particle’ discovery more likely to be correct

Researchers at a conference in Italy say that there is increasing evidence that the Higgs boson, the “God particle” as it is sometimes known, has been discovered.

The Higgs boson is thought to be the particle that is the building block of the universe, the one that gives things mass, and scientists have been using the Large Hadron Collider to search for the elusive particle. They made an announcement in July 2012 saying that it had been found.

In science, everything must be tested and retested, so the two teams of scientists — ATLAS and CMS — have been sifting through data from Large Hadron Collider experiments and have continued their research, even after July.

And, at the Moriond physics conference in Italy, they said Thursday that even more data supports the July finding and that the “spin” is consistent with a Higgs boson particle. “The preliminary results with the full 2012 data set are magnificent and to me it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson, though we still have a long way to go to know what kind of Higgs boson it is,” CMS spokesperson Joe Incandela told BBC News.

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