News

Subscribe

Brown physicists celebrate God particle discovery

  • Photo by AP Photo/Keystone/Martial Trezzini •
Belgian physicist Francois Englert, left, and British physicist Peter Higgs answers journalist's question about the scientific seminar to deliver the latest update in the search for the Higgs boson at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva, Switzerland, Wednesday, July 4, 2012. The head of the world's biggest atom smasher is claiming discovery of a new particle that he says is consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson known popularly as the "God particle" which is believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape.
  • Originally published July 5, 2012 at 9:24 a.m., updated July 5, 2012 at 9:24 a.m.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Brown University scientists who have long been involved in the search for the so-called "God particle" are celebrating its apparent discovery.

The university says several of its physicists played a critical role in the discovery of a new subatomic particle believed to be the Higgs boson.

Scientists working at the world's biggest atom smasher near Geneva announced the discovery on Wednesday.

Brown's Greg Landsberg, physics coordinator for one of the key experiments at the atom smasher, says it's the greatest discovery in particle physics in 30 or 40 years.

Brown physicist Gerald Guralnik, one of the originators of the theory that predicted the boson nearly five decades ago, calls the discovery a "wonderful feeling of great satisfaction and amazement."

The particle's existence is fundamental to the creation of the universe.