As most of you are aware by now, two weeks ago the Large Hadron Collider detected signs of the elusive Higgs boson and confirmed its existence. Yesterday I answered some of the technical questions around the Higgs mechanism, and so today I will try to answer some of the more general questions that readers have been asking.

What use is it to the average person?

This question has been asked of every scientific discovery since the dawn of time. Unfortunately the answer often involves technology ...
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As most of you are aware by now, two weeks ago the elusive Higgs boson was detected at the Large Hadron Collider. Since that time I have been sent several questions about this great discovery, which I will try to answer in this and subsequent blog entries. 

What is the Higgs mechanism/field/particle/boson?

I have written about this in several previous entries, so I won't repeat the details here.   Suffice it to say, that the Standard Model of particle physics only works if all matter started ou...
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There is an interesting result from the cancer research community today, which could be a major breakthrough in treatment methods (although it is admittedly very unscientific).

An oncology researcher in the U.S. had been diagnosed with leukemia several years back, and had undergone several rounds of chemotherapy. Unfortunately each time his cancer would go into remission and then return again later. The latest rounds of treatment were not having any significant effect at all.

So his fellow rese...
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What a tiring yet exciting night for the physics community. After fifty years of searching for the elusive Higgs boson and completion of the Standard Model of particle physics, the two teams at the Large Hadron Collider announced that they had in fact discovered the Higgs. It is fairly certain now that they team leaders (and probably the theorists who developed the model) will be getting a Nobel Prize for this discovery very soon.

As I just wrote a review of the Higgs mechanism yesterday, I w...

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Today is a big day for the physics community, and possibly a day that will be remembered forever in history by scientists in general. Sometime today (around midnight locally) there will be a lecture by the two teams of particle physicists who are searching for the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. With the LHC running at full power now and the search in full gear, the rumors are that they have indeed discovered the elusive Higgs.

I have written about the Higgs mechanism and Higgs boso...

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