Physics

Dark matter and dark energy is thought to account for up to 80% of the matter in the universe. Does it exist? Well, it has to, we just can't see it. So what is it? We better know what it isn't. Dark matter is not the stars and planets that we see and it is not in the form of dark clouds of normal matter - baryons - because we would be able to detect baryonic clouds by their absorption of radiation passing through them. Dark matter is not antimatter because we don't see the unique gamma rays that are produced when antimatter annihilates with matter and we can rule out large galaxy-sized black…

This is an apology and a promise - as every time there is a big event or deadline, everything else gets pushed down, creating a long backlog. My mailbox is in an awful state, and here too I am doing a very bad job answering questions. The fact that I will be driving for most of the day today, to get back to Venice, makes things worse. I will get back to all your questions in due time, and update the ATLAS Higgs results post with graphs. Be patient, and sorry for that ! Sincerely,Tommaso

Rolf is drawing the conclusions. He just asked the audience: "I think we have it. Do you agree ?" And a roar of consensus fills the auditorium. The slide says "The observation of a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson". It is a historic milestone, but only the beginning. A standing ovation follows. Then a connection with Melbourne, with the other auditorium applauding. Now questions in the CERN site ensuing. Theorists take the stage, Higgs saying it is an extraordinary achievement for the lab, and that he is glad that it happened in his lifetime. A very moving finale ! What happens next…

At CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented their latest results in the search for the Higgs particle. Both experiments see strong indications for the presence of a new particle in the mass region around 125-126 GeV and a 4.9-5 sigma signal. When the results from the two experiments are combined, they should show a 5-sigma signal and be a discovery. If this is indeed a new particle, then it must be a boson and it would be the heaviest such particle ever found. The results presented today are preliminary. They are based on data collected in 2011…

[ The previous entries of this live blogging series are available here (part 1) , here (part 2) , here (part 3) ,  here (part 4), and here (part 5) . The report of the CMS seminar is here.] Fabiola Gianotti now takes the stage for ATLAS. She also starts with a joke (this one about a german newspaper showing how Higgs bosons look like, quite unlike what we think they do). She also mentiones pile-up, higher by a factor of two. ATLAS is not ready with the publication of results of the "low-mass-resolution" channels, which in CMS were shown and decrease a bit the total significance... THe…

The Higgs boson has been discovered last year. There is no news today. It is merely the significance level that is a little higher now, but even a level of so called “five sigma” (don’t worry if you do not understand it, it is arbitrary anyway) does not prove anything. The faster than light neutrinos came with six sigma (!), and nobody in their right mind believed it, precisely as everybody in their right mind knows for more than half a year already that the Higgs boson is for real. So why the hype now? Big money projects need a lot of hype for justification. Thus, the Higgs boson is…

The long and complicated journey to detect the Higgs boson might finally have reached its goal, said experimental physicists at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CERN, near Geneva - and they said it with a telltale bump on a slide. The Higgs boson is the final building block that has been missing from the "Standard Model," which describes the structure of matter in the universe. The Higgs boson combines two forces of nature and shows that they are, in fact, different aspects of a more fundamental force. The particle is also responsible for the existence of mass in the elementary…

[ The first three entries of this live blogging series are available here (part 1) and here (part 2) and here (part 3) and here (part 4) and here (part 5)]. 8.55 AM. So here we go. The seminar is about to strt.... I can see all the big names entering the main auditorium, most notably Peter Higgs. People are clapping hands. 9 AM The CERN security guys in the aisles have prevented the main auditorium from getting crowded... Safety first. There is just one person which is sitting on the steps, and they have not kicked him out yet. 9.05 AM Now they are starting. Rolf Heuer is taking the stage. He…

[ The first three entries of this live blogging series are available here (part 1) and here (part 2) and here (part 3) and here (part 4)].Ian Sample, a science journalist from the Guardian, asked me for some quotes. I offered him a choice, as follows. - This is evidently a discovery of a new particle. If anybody claims otherwise you can tell them they have lost connection with reality. - Is it a Higgs boson or not ? Well, it has been found using techniques tuned for the standard model Higgs. A different object might have stepped in, but it is quite unlikely in my humble opinion. It could…

Below is a live streaming webcast from the auditorium at CERN, where they will be revealing the latest news on the Higgs discovery. Science 2.0's Dr. Tommaso Dorigo is writing live from there so check out his articles for the latest news. Loading flash player jwplayer('cameraPlayer').setup({ skin: 'http://webcast.web.cern.ch/webcast/static/videoplayer/skin/nacht.zip', width: 410, height: 320, autostart: 'true', rtmp: { subscribe: 'true' }, modes: [{ type: '…