There's a 'new boson' in the universe

<b>week in review </b> Scientists discover the "God particle," while Facebook users discover an e-mail black hole. Also: Apple scores twin legal victories.

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Steven Musil

July 6, 2012 9:50 a.m. PT

3 min read

week in review Scientists believe they have found the "God particle," also known as the Higgs boson.

The leaders of the experiments running through the giant Large Hadron Collider (LHC) said that their two teams had independently observed a particle consistent with the Higgs, which has until now been theoretical rather than a sure thing. The Higgs boson is thought to be responsible for mass in the otherwise-already-proven standard model of physics.

The scientists say they have more than "five-sigma" certainty that the particle they saw was the Higgs boson, which means they are 99.99999 percent sure of their conclusions. The revelation comes days after U.S. scientists working at Fermilab said their experiments with Tevatron, a less powerful particle accelerator that was otherwise similar to the LHC, had strongly suggested that the high-mass particle did exist.
• Understanding the Higgs boson
• Stephen Hawking: I lost a $100 bet over Higgs boson discovery