The Science Book

298

A VACUUM IS

NOT EXACTLY

NOTHING

PETER HIGGS (1929–)

T

he great scientific event of

2012 was the announcement

from scientists at the Large

Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in

Switzerland that a new particle had

been found, and that it might be

the elusive Higgs boson. The Higgs

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Physics

BEFORE

1964 Peter Higgs, François

Englert, and Robert Brout

describe a field that gives

mass to all elementary and

force-carrying particles.

1964 Three separate teams

of physicists predict the

existence of a new massive

particle (the Higgs boson).

AFTER

1966 Physicists Steven

Weinberg and Abdus Salam

use the Higgs field to formulate

the electroweak theory.

2010 CERN’s Large Hadron

Collider reaches full power.

The search begins for the

Higgs boson.

2012 Scientists at CERN

announce the discovery

of a new particle matching

the description of the

Higgs boson.

boson gives mass to all things in

the universe, and is the missing

piece that completes the standard

model of physics. Its existence had

been hypothesized by six physicists,

among them Peter Higgs, in 1964.

Finding the Higgs boson was of

A tax collector enters

the party, and travels

unimpeded to the bar at the

far end of the room.

In walks Peter Higgs. The

physicists would like to talk to

him, so they gather around,

impeding his progress.

Imagine a room of physicists at

a cocktail party. This is like the Higgs field,

which fills everything, even a vacuum.

A vacuum is not exactly nothing.

The taxman has

little interaction with the

“field” of physicists and is

analogous to a particle of

low mass.

Peter Higgs interacts

strongly with the “field”

and moves slowly through

the room. He is like a

high-mass particle.