page_title: History of physics
section_title: Higgs boson
hierarchical_section_title: History of physics / Contemporary and particle physics / Higgs boson
caption_attribution_description: English: An example of simulated data modeled for the CMS particle detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Here, following a collision of two protons, a Higgs boson is produced which decays into two jets of hadrons and two electrons. The lines represent the possible paths of particles produced by the proton-proton collision in the detector while the energy these particles deposit is shown in blue. More CMS events at CMS Media Français&#160;: Simulation de la desintegration d'un boson de Higgs en 2 rayons de hadrons (centre, 11 heures) et 2 electrons (en bas à gauche, 5 heures) dans le detecteur CMS du LHC au CERN. Les traces denotent les particules qui ont ete produites de la collision d'une paire de protons d'ultra-haute energie. Les energies deposees par les particules dans le detecteur sont montrees en bleu pale. Deutsch: Simulation des hypothetischen Zerfalls eines Higgs-Teilchens in Teilchen-Jets am CMS/CERN Polski: Przykładowa (2008) symulacja zderzenia dwóch protonów kreujących Bozon Higgsa rozpadający się następnie na dwa strumienie hadronów (na godzinie 11 i 13) i dwa elektrony (na godzinie 17) wygenerowana dla detektora CMS Wielkiego Zderzacza Hadronów w ośrodku naukowo-badawczym CERN pod Genewą. Ślady cząstek zarejestrowane przez detektor w wyniku kolizji zaznaczono kolorem niebieskim. Español: Un ejemplo de simulación a partir de los datos de la desintegración dos protones de muy alta energía generando un Bosón de Higgs en el decaimiento en dos haces de hadrones y dos electrones en el detector CMS del LHC en el CERN. Las lineas representan las posibles vias de desintegración, mientras que la zona en azul claro representa la energía obtenida en la desintegración de las partículas en el detector.
context_page_description: Physics is a branch of science whose primary objects of study are matter and energy. Discoveries of physics find applications throughout the natural sciences and in technology, since matter and energy are the basic constituents of the natural world. Some other domains of study—more limited in their scope—may be considered branches that have split off from physics to become sciences in their own right. Physics today may be divided loosely into classical physics and modern physics.
context_section_description: On July 4, 2012, physicists working at CERN's Large Hadron Collider announced that they had discovered a new subatomic particle greatly resembling the Higgs boson, a potential key to an understanding of why elementary particles have mass and indeed to the existence of diversity and life in the universe. For now, some physicists are calling it a "Higgslike" particle. Joe Incandela, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, said, "It's something that may, in the end, be one of the biggest observations of any new phenomena in our field in the last 30 or 40 years, going way back to the discovery of quarks, for example." Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago and the chairman of the physics center board, said:
  "This is a big moment for particle physics and a crossroads — will this be the high water mark or will it be the first of many discoveries that point us toward solving the really big questions that we have posed?"
  — Michael Turner, University of Chicago
  Peter Higgs was one of six physicists, working in three independent groups, who, in 1964, invented the notion of the Higgs field ("cosmic molasses"). The others were Tom Kibble of Imperial College, London; Carl Hagen of the University of Rochester; Gerald Guralnik of Brown University; and François Englert and Robert Brout, both of Université libre de Bruxelles.
  Although they have never been seen, Higgslike fields play an important role in theories of the universe and in string theory. Under certain conditions, according to the strange accounting of Einsteinian physics, they can become suffused with energy that exerts an antigravitational force. Such fields have been proposed as the source of an enormous burst of expansion, known as inflation, early in the universe and, possibly, as the secret of the dark energy that now seems to be speeding up the expansion of the universe.
caption: One possible signature of a Higgs boson from a simulated proton–proton collision. It decays almost immediately into two jets of hadrons and two electrons, visible as lines.
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