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SA participated in the observation of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson
The Higgs field has been described as a kind of cosmic "treacle" spread through the universe. According to Professor Higgs's 1964 theory, the field interacts with the tiny particles that make up atoms, and weighs them down so that they do not simply whizz around space at the speed of light. But in the half-century following the theory, produced independently by the six scientists within a few months of each other, nobody has been able to prove that the Higgs Field really exists. Professor Higgs predicted that the field would have a signature particle, a massive boson. One of the great aims of modern physics has been to generate these Higgs particles. To create the right conditions for their study, huge accelerators such as the Tevatron in Illinois and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva were built involving thousands of physicists and tens of thousands of engineers over decades, with funding from around the globe. Now scientists at CERN, the Geneva-based European laboratory for particle physics, have revealed the latest findings in their search for the Higgs boson. The Higgs particle is not simply about the matter of which we are composed, nor about how it communicates (like light reaching our eyes from a distant galaxy), nor is it another layer of an infinite onion of smaller and smaller particles. It is the first part of the mechanism that tells us why the universe is the way it is today, why the stars burn the way they do and why light and matter are the way they are. Tunnelling to the beginning of time To find the particle and characterise it, scientists first have to create it by smashing beams of protons together inside the LHC at close to the speed of light and analysing the debris. The LHC at CERN has been heralded as the most important new physics discovery machine of all time. The LHC is asking some big questions about the Universe we live in. The LHC will let us see how matter behaved a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang. South African contribution South African scientists, students and computer experts have participated in these exciting developments. "It is a global experiment, and we have six of our universities participating at CERN," says Professor Jean Cleymans of the University of Cape Town, leader of the South Africa-CERN programme, which launched almost four years ago. The Department of Science and Technology said in a statement that it selected CERN as one of its global large-scale infrastructure projects; it supports scientists in the South Africa-CERN consortium to participate in experiments to investigate the existence of the Higgs boson particle and other expected discoveries. The Department is proud of the scientists who are part of this major scientific breakthrough and celebrates this achievement with the rest of the world. To find out what a Higgs boson is, watch this video Sources: The Guardian and The Telegraph |
