Scientists hoping to puzzle out how the universe began will find a long-sought theoretical particle — or rule out that it exists — by the end of 2012, the director of the world’s largest atom smasher predicted Monday.
Rolf Heuer, director of the European particle physics laboratory near Geneva, said his confidence was based on the latest findings from the $10 billion proton collider under the Swiss-French border.
"I would say we can settle the question, the Shakespearean question — ‘to be or not to be’ — end of next year," he told reporters at a major physics conference in Grenoble.
The Higgs boson isn’t just any particle. It’s the linchpin of the Standard Model of particle physics theory that explains the Big Bang, because it is believed to answer a fundamental question about why matter has mass. The particle itself is thought to give mass to other particles, and thus to objects and creatures in the universe.
