Scientists prepare to rewrite the physics textbooks

Updated July 04, 2012 13:04:00

Physicists are expected to announce today that they've observed a new particle which could be the explanation for mass. Whether or not it's the Higgs Boson particle, the ramifications are expected to be very significant for understanding the universe.

Source: The World Today | Duration: 5min 8sec

Topics: physics, australia


EMILY BOURKE: Scientists are preparing to rewrite the physics text books in response to a major announcement which is expected tonight.

The existence of a particle which explains why things have mass has been a hypothesis for several decades.

But much of what we know about the universe has been formed around the assumption that it does in fact indeed exist.

A video has been leaked which seems to confirm that scientists have found the Higgs Boson, or 'the God Particle' as it's been nicknamed in the media.

But there's still some mystery about what tonight's announcement will be and what it will mean, as Simon Lauder reports.

SIMON LAUDER: It's been about 40 years since physicist Peter Higgs tried to explain why some particles have mass while others don't.

He proposed that the universe is full of an invisible field similar to a magnetic field and particles interact with it in different ways.

The latest attempt to prove the existence of Higgs Boson involves smashing particles together at near light speed at a facility near Geneva called the Large Hadron Collider.

The news that an announcement is imminent has prompted a flurry of speculation that the Higgs Boson has been found.

This morning a video recording of Joe Incandela from the CERN Physics laboratory was leaked on the internet.

In the video he announces that CERN has observed a new particle and the details he describes suggest it could be Higgs Boson.

JOE INCANDELA: This is something that may in the end, be one of the biggest discoveries or observations of any new phenomena that we've had in our field in the last 30 or 40 years.

SIMON LAUDER: Higgs Boson or not, physicists are bound to be excited by the results.

Professor Incandela says if it's not what they expected from the Higgs Boson the implications could be profound.

JOE INCANDELA: This is a revolution in fact, because we have the possibility of then studying this thing and seeing how it's different from what we would have expected for a standard model boson. We'd get some clues about what else is out there.

And it really could be a portal to almost an entirely new dimension if you like, a dimension of new particles, as in super-symmetry; literally new dimensions to the universe, new spatial dimensions.

These details may be hidden somewhere there.

SIMON LAUDER: Unravelling the mysteries of the universe is hard work. It's also difficult to work out whether the video which has been leaked by CERN reflects what will be announced later today.

CERN has since said it recorded videos for more than one scenario and no one fully knows what will be announced.

The convenor of the European research team, Dr Albert De Roeck is in Melbourne for the International Conference on High Energy Physics. Dr De Rook says physicists don't like calling Higgs Boson the 'God Particle' but he understand why it's earned that name.

ALBERT DE ROECK: The role that particle plays is really special and to illustrate that - I can tell you why people call it like that - that is because it gives mass particles. If that were not to happen, we would not be here to talk about it.

SIMON LAUDER: Do you believe the Higgs Boson has been observed?

ALBERT DE ROECK: You see, I know 50 per cent of the truth so far. Because there are two major experiments which are going to release that data now and from one of the experiments, so I know what that experiment is seeing in its data. I don't know what the other experiment's going to show today and only today and this afternoon, when we're going to see the data from both these experiments, then I think we can say either the Higgs exists or it doesn't.

SIMON LAUDER: What would be the most alarming conclusion; that it exists, or that it doesn't?

ALBERT DE ROECK: Both of these conclusions are actually fantastic in a way. If we can exclude it that would send a lot of people back to the drawing board. If we see it and we tell where it is, textbooks will have to be rewritten in that context and that will have consequences and you can shift out the chapters where they sort of speculate about a non-existing situation of the Higgs.

So I think whatever's going to happen today, textbooks will be affected.

SIMON LAUDER: So in other words, decades of theory has worked on the assumption that this thing exists?

ALBERT DE ROECK: Well there is a class of theorists, the majority that thought that this was the answer because of its simplicity actually, the way the mechanism was introduced in the theory made it elegant and simple and that is of course always something that attracts people.

But as long as you have no experimental evidence for that, there's always the shadow and the big shadow of doubt. In fact quite a big number of theories which has been developed over the last 30 years or so, trying to avoid having an Higgs and trying to solve the problem in a different way.

So yeah, one or the other is going to have to give today.

SIMON LAUDER: And are there any theories which will have to go straight out the window if it is confirmed?



ALBERT DE ROECK: Some of them which use extra dimensions as a way of explaining to create mass rather than a Higgs mechanism. So these were nice exercises and thoughts but that is for the garbage can.

SIMON LAUDER: As of tonight will I be any closer to being able to walk through a wall or visit a parallel universe?

ALBERT DE ROECK: I'm afraid not (laughs). Higgses don't do that and they won't help you with that. But you will be going to sleep knowing that we understand better why we are here.

EMILY BOURKE: Physicist Albert de Roeck speaking to Simon Lauder.