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Chapter 4 Scientific research applications and usage 95

The physics community had, for the most part, fully bought into the idea that there
was a Higgs field permeating space. Mathematical equations can sometimes tell such
a convincing tale; they can seemingly radiate reality so strongly, that they become
entrenched in the vernacular of working physicists, even before there is data to confirm
them. But it is only with data that a link to reality can be forged. How can we test for the
Higgs field?
This is where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) comes in. Winding its way hundreds of
yards under Geneva, Switzerland, crossing the French border and back again, the LHC is
a nearly 17-mile-long circular tunnel that serves as a racetrack for smashing together
particles of matter. The LHC is surrounded by about 9000 superconducting magnets, and
is home to streaming hordes of protons, cycling around the tunnel in both directions,
which the magnets accelerate to just shy of the speed of light. At such speeds, the
protons whip around the tunnel about 11,000 times each second and when directed by
the magnets, engage in millions of collisions in the blink of an eye. The collisions, in
turn, produce fireworks-like sprays of particles, which mammoth detectors capture and
record.
One of the main motivations for the LHC, which cost on the order of $10 billion and
involves thousands of scientists from dozens of countries, was to search for evidence for
the Higgs field. The math showed that if the idea is right, if we are really immersed in an
ocean of Higgs field, then the violent particle collisions should be able to jiggle the field,
much as two colliding submarines would jiggle the water around them. And every so
often, the jiggling should be just right to flick off a speck of the field a tiny droplet of the
Higgs ocean which would appear as the long-sought Higgs particle.
The calculations also showed that the Higgs particle would be unstable, disintegrating
into other particles in a minuscule fraction of a second. Within the maelstrom of
colliding particles and billowing clouds of particulate debris, scientists armed with
powerful computers would search for the Higgs’ fingerprint, a pattern of decay products
dictated by the equations.
In the early morning hours of July 4, 2012, as the world came to quickly learn, the
evidence that the Higgs particle had been detected was strong enough to cross the
threshold of discovery. With the Higgs particle now officially found, physicists worldwide
broke out into wild applause. Peter Higgs wiped away a tear.
The Higgs particle represents a new form of matter, which had been widely antici-
pated for decades but had never been seen. Early in the 20th century, physicists realized
that particles, in addition to their mass and electric charge, have a third defining feature:
their spin. But unlike a child’s top, a particle’s spin is an intrinsic feature that does not
change; it doesn’t speed up or slow down over time. Electrons and quarks all have the
same spin value, while the spin of photons, particles of light is twice that of electrons and
quarks. The equations describing the Higgs particle showed that unlike any other
fundamental particle species it should have no spin at all. Data from the Large Hadron
Collider have now confirmed this.