In the issue of Science (December 2011) I read, there was a tiny blurb on the Higgs-boson. Remember the blog I posted last month about the book The God Particle?
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting little follow up, especially since the writer claimed (and I sensed a little exasperation between the lines) that "Next year, particle physicists will either find the long-sought Higgs boson, or prove it doesn't exist..." He goes on to claim "It's not so much a prediction as a matter of fact." and concludes that "It's all but a mathematical certainty." (And from what I understand "mathematical certainty" translates to "pretty damn sure" in the vernacular.)
The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is on the hunt, and producing so much data, so rapidly, that scientists believe if the Higgs is out there, it will soon have no place left to hide.
Either way I think it's exciting. If they do find it, it will vindicate the Standard Model theory and be one of the (maybe the?) greatest achievements in modern physics. If they don't find it, then they will have to start from scratch and come up with a whole new theory. And that would be really interesting too.
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