Page 91 - Building Big Data Applications

86 Building Big Data Applications

The Higgs boson is the last undiscovered particle predicted by the Standard Model,
a beautiful mathematical framework physicists use to describe the smallest bits of matter
and how they interact. Experimental results have time and again validated the model’s
other predictions. But finding the Higgs boson would not close the book on particle
physics. While the Standard Model accounts for fundamental forces such as electro-
magnetism and the strong nuclear force, it cannot make sense of gravity, which is
disproportionately weak compared to the other forces. One possible explanation is that
we experience only a fraction of the force of gravity because most of it acts in hidden
extra dimensions.
The relentless pursuit of this fundamental particle was propelled further by particle
physics. No particle can move with a speed faster than the speed of light in vacuum;
however, there is no limit to the energy a particle can attain. In high-energy acceler-
ators, particles normally travel very close to the speed of light. In these conditions, as
the energy increases, the increase in speed is minimal. As an example, particles in the
LHC move at 0.999,997,828 times the speed of light at injection (energy ¼ 450 GeV) and
0.999999991 times the speed of light at top energy (energy ¼ 7000 GeV). Therefore,
particle physicists do not generally think about speed, but rather about a particle’s
energy. Energy and mass are two sides of the same coin. Mass can transform into
2
energy and vice versa in accordance with Einstein’s famous equation (E ¼ mc ), and
because of this equivalence, mass and energycan be measured with thesameunit(by
setting c ¼ 1). At the scale of particle physics these are the electronvolt and its
multiples.
In this pursuit is where CERN became involved. Just because something looks like
the Higgs particle does not mean it is the Higgs particle. If physicists do discover a new
particle, they will need to measure its numerous properties beforetheycan determine
whether it is the Higgs boson described by the Standard Model of particle physics.
Theory predicts in great detail how a Standard Model Higgs particle would interact with
other particles. Only after carefully measuring and testing these interactions, like a
biologist examining the genetic makeup of a new plant species would scientists be
certain that they had indeed found the Standard Model Higgs boson. A new particle
that did not act as expected would give physicists a whole new set of mysteries to
explore.
The Standard Model is a collection of theories that embodies all of our current
understanding of fundamental particles and forces. According to the theory, which is
supported by a great deal of experimental evidence, quarks and leptons are the building
blocks of matter, and forces act through carrier particles exchanged between the
particles of matter. Forces also differ in their strength.