CERN has begun webcasting a public seminar in which there may or may not be some announcement regarding the significance or otherwise of recent observations regarding the possible existence of something that might be the Higgs boson. I am not a nuclear physicist, so I will try and keep up but will mainly be trying to catch the significance of the observations they have collected so far. In case these are talked about in terms of sigmas (there's scuttlebutt going around that this is a 3.5 sigma event), here's a table of sigma and probability. [more inside]
posted by carter on Dec 13, 2011 - 85 comments

The CERN Choir sings about the Higgs Boson in the Particle Physics Song (slyt).
posted by Lutoslawski on Aug 31, 2010 - 11 comments

In the event that you have accidentally swallowed the Higgs boson...
posted by Zero Gravitas on Apr 13, 2009 - 50 comments

What is the Higgs Boson, and why do we want to find it?
posted by plep on Aug 28, 2004 - 10 comments

Science may be left totally unable to explain mass. "The most saught after oject particle in physics, the Higgs boson, may not even exist." As devistating as it sounds to science, I just couldn't help but laugh.
posted by joshua on Dec 11, 2001 - 47 comments