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  • way.

  • We're on our way to CERN in Geneva, and this is young mark cameramen Way should be coming up on it.

  • That's the dome that's a famous CERN does bad.

  • That's pretty exciting.

  • On July 4th, here at CERN on historic announcement was made, a new particle had been discovered, most likely the sought after Higgs Bos on as a layman, I would not say I think we have it.

  • You're a great thief.

  • Finding made news around the world and will form the fix was in the booth and led to an outpouring of emotion from the normally restrained particle physics community.

  • For the discoverers themselves, it was particularly momentous.

  • Well, I mean, I've never seen physicists like this.

  • It really looks beautiful.

  • Beautiful.

  • That's why we're here.

  • Essentially, you know, that's that's That's the reason why I'm doing particle physics.

  • But now that this particle has been found, what's left to do at the Large Hadron Collider?

  • Let's find out.

  • Our current understanding of the universe is based on the modestly named a standard model, a theory of all fundamental matter particles and their interactions.

  • Virtually all of the standard model has been verified, apart from one crucial element.

  • What gives matter its mass and to be clear, that is absolutely critically important even to our daily existence.

  • Because if an electron would be massless, it could not be bound to a proton you could not have on Adam.

  • And then, you know, sort of all of, you know, the stars, the planets chemistry couldn't exist because instead of electrons bound two protons in the hydrogen atoms and larger Adams instead, you would just have electrons whizzing off to infinity.

  • In the standard model, Mass is explained by the Higgs mechanism, of which the Higgs Bos on is only one part.

  • For example, you've probably heard that the Higgs Bos on gives mass to the other subatomic particles.

  • But if that were true, shouldn't there be Higgs bo zones everywhere?

  • I mean, why would it be so difficult to create and detect them?

  • Well, in truth, it's not the particle itself that gives mass to the other particles.

  • It's the Higgs field.

  • You can think of the Higgs field as a huge sea of honey that fills all space.

  • Some particles air able to travel through it unimpeded, whilst others interact with it, slowing down in the process, and that translates into Mass when enough high energy is added to the field.

  • Fleeting expose owns air created.

  • So in order to discover the heat's particle, we needed to invest energy by the collision in the Higgs field and create a Higgs particle out of it.

  • And then we'll know if indeed we have.

  • And that's what this incredible machine does.

  • Using powerful magnets, the Large Hadron Collider whizzes two beams of protons in opposite directions around a 27 kilometre circular tunnel.

  • When the protons collide, their energy can be converted into the mass of new particles like the Higgs Bos.

  • On short lived, these particles decay quickly, and it's their decay products, which are then analyzed by massive detectors.

  • This is the giant apparatus at CMS Detector.

  • It's one of two major detectors on the beam line where the protons collide.

  • You can actually see a life size picture of the CMS detector.

  • I am standing above the beam line on this protons whizzing around underneath my feet, right now, 90 meters under the ground at speeds that are basically the speed of light.

  • 99.99999999% the speed of light, you may as well just be the speed of light.

  • But of course a proton can never reach that speed.

  • These are some big toys.

  • The other big experiment examining Proton collisions is called Atlas.

  • The team's at Atlas and CMS, each made up of about 3000 scientists, work independently in a sort of friendly rivalry actually friendly.

  • Yes, of course it is.

  • I mean way, always say, is that?

  • Of course it's essential that if if there's a major discovery, which is made, that it's confirmed ultimately by the two experiments and independently.

  • And that's why the discovery announced earlier this year was so dramatic.

  • Both detectors saw the same results more or less simultaneously.

  • Protons air bags of other particles when they smashed together.

  • A mess of new particles is created, and it's the pattern of the debris that provides the answers.

  • What they saw was evidence of a new particle with a massive between 100 and 25 100 and 26 Giga electron volts.

  • Then we say these two large blobs of energy in the calorie madan and you could save them over here if you added those two bits of energy together.

  • What total energy would you get?

  • I think in this one you get 125 TV.

  • So that seems to be exactly what would be expecting ifit's.

  • But the question now is if it is a Higgs.

  • Is it the Higgs, as predicted by the standard model?

  • Are you willing to make a bet about what kind of exposed on this do you think it's the standard model?

  • Higgs?

  • Wow, that's a difficult one.

  • No, I wouldn't bet my life on.

  • I might bet my life that day.

  • We discover the hits, but I wouldn't bet my life That is the standard model Higgs.

  • It's very difficult to tell.

  • All we know is this their way almost know nothing about its properties, and its properties are key, really, to tell us exactly what it is.

  • So to find out, the LFC will conduct many more collisions, and this should allow scientists to determine the properties of the new particle.

  • If it is not standard model heads, we may be able to tell that early way could even tell that this year as an example, both experiments saw a bit too many photons, too many times the Higgs with decaying into photons more than you'd expect more than you'd expect him in the case about strangely, that's exactly what these guys are hoping for.

  • That it doesn't fit the model perfectly that it's not the standard model.

  • Higgs.

  • Let's let's say that the reason for doing science is, of course, we're looking for answers.

  • But generating more questions is an inevitable and and one of the most exciting pieces of the scientific procedure.

  • And what would that help you determine?

  • I mean, if it's not standard model Higgs, that's a big thing.

  • If it's not Standard model, who's then?

  • We know that there's new physics, for sure.

  • And if the new physics is along the lines that we expect, then we have something pretty profound.

  • As a possibility.

  • One would be additional spatial dimensions.

  • Okay, that's one possibility.

  • Another would be really almost a mirror image of the entire universe in terms of particles that supersymmetry and these things would be extremely profound whether it turns out to be the standard model Higgs or something even more profound.

  • One thing is for sure.

way.

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