What Gives Particles Mass? Searching for the Higgs Boson

Published: Feb. 21, 2011, 9 p.m.

More than two dozen UC San Diego physicists are working with hundreds of other scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, searching for a subatomic particle called the “Higgs boson.” How are they doing it? What have they found thus far? And why is this search considered one of civilization’s greatest quests? UC San Diego Professor of Physics Vivek Sharma, who directs the Higgs search for the CMS collaboration, explains what physicists hope to achieve at the world’s largest scientific experiment, involving an estimated 10,000 individuals from 60 countries. Series: "Frontiers of Knowledge" [Science] [Show ID: 20046]