The discovery of a new Higgs boson particle in the energy window if 125.30.6 GeV, with just a 3-in-10 million chance of being wrong, at the Large Hardon Colloider (LHC) is important for our understanding of the sub-atomic world. The Higgs is the crucial missing link in the 50-year-old standard model, the theory of the known fundamental particles and forces of nature (except gravity), which has withstood all high-precision tests that have been done to verify its correctness. The LHC, which began its operations in March 2010, will continue to run its experiments so that results can be revalidated before its shuts down at the end of the year for maintenance. This is just the beginning of a long journey and other properties of this particle will be scrutinized to see if this is indeed the Higgs boson that scientists were looking for, or another particle altogether. When the LHC reopens in 2014 after a year of upgrades, its energy will double, and other Higgs particles may be seen.
Ranjna Bhardwaj
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