The God Particle Will Be Found

An engineer leans on a magnet in the 27km-long tunnel that will house the Large Hadron Collider (Image: Cern/Maximilien Brice).

Higgs: Particle Will Be Found -- News 24

London - The British scientist who gave his name to the so-called "God Particle" said he believes it will be found by the world's biggest atom-smasher, which was finally fired up on Wednesday.

"I think it's pretty likely," said Professor Peter Higgs a few hours after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was switched at the home of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) below the Franco-Swiss border.

"The way I put it is that if there isn't anything there, then it means I and a lot of other people no longer understand all the things we understand about these weak and electromagnetic interactions," added the 79-year-old.

Physicists have long puzzled over how particles acquire mass. In 1964 Higgs, came up with this idea: there must exist a background field that would act rather like treacle.

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