Higgs Boson Could Help Explain How We Exist

Get Inside the Science:

• Physicists Detect New Heavy Particle
• CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson
• Don Lincoln
• Tevatron scientists announce their final results on the Higgs particle
• What is the Higgs Boson? [Video]
• Origin of Mass - Search for the Higgs [Video]

Inside Science Buzzwords:

1. Subatomic particle - A particle that makes up an atom, or is otherwise smaller than an atom.
2. Higgs field - A field existing in space that gives subatomic particles their mass.
3. Higgs boson- A particle from the Higgs field that, if detected and verified, could help explain how subatomic particles such as electrons and quarks get their mass.
4. Atom - A basic building block of matter, made of negatively charged electrons surrounding a positively charged nucleus, itself consisting of protons and in most cases neutrons that are in turn composed of quarks.
5. Matter - Anything that has mass and takes up space.
6. Mass - A measure of the amount of matter in an object; often defined in terms of inertia, or an object's resistance to motion, and measured as the amount of force needed to accelerate an object.
7. Massless - Objects such as photons (particles of light) that do not have mass.
8. Weight - Distinct from mass, the amount of force on an object due to gravity; however, weight and mass are related in that an object's weight is its mass multiplied by the acceleration on the object due to gravity.