The legendary particle that physicists thought explained the
basic question of why matter has mass, often called the ?God
particle,? probably does not exist, and now a few scientists
are beginning to consider the idea that what might be there
is not a particle at all, but some sort of consciousness or
intelligence, that would mean that the universe does indeed
have a God. However, the conventional Higgs search is no
concentrating on the notions that there may be something
about Quantum Entanglement that explains the absence of the
Higgs, or that the particle itself may be heavier than
expected, and thus not detectable in the particle
acceleration experiments that have been used thus far.
Researchers who have
spent years analyzing data from the LEP accelerator at the
CERN nuclear physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland say that
the elusive Higgs boson, which is central to the theory on
which physicists base their whole understanding of matter,
does not exist. If there is no Higgs, they are totally
unable to
explain mass.
The current model of the universe says that a collection of
fundamental particles make up matter, including muons,
electrons, neutrinos and quarks. In the 1960s, researchers
successfully worked out how these particles interact and bind
with each other using strong and weak nuclear forces.
But that doesn?t explain why the particles also have mass.
Then Peter Higgs of Edinburgh University suggested that
space is filled with a heavy substance, now called the Higgs
field, which gives particles their mass by dragging on them
through a particle called the Higgs boson.
Thus began the 30-year quest to find the God particle. From
interactions between other particles that we know exist,
physicists calculated that the Higgs is most likely to have a
mass (or energy) of around 80 gigaelectronvolts (GeV). If
particle accelerators could smash particles together at that
energy or higher, it would be possible to make one.
This is what members of the Electroweak Working Group at
CERN have been doing for the 5 years until LEP (the Large
Electron Positron Collider) closed down last year. Since then
they?ve been searching through the data they gathered, and
they?ve found no sign of the Higgs boson. ?It?s more likely
than not that there is no Higgs,? says group member John
Swain of Northeastern University in Boston.
Last year researchers from another group at LEP claimed they
had found the Higgs. Their announcement came shortly
before LEP was due to close, and it got them one month?s
extra time on LEP. But they later admitted their calculations
were wrong.
Now their calculations have been reworked, and members of
the Electroweak Working Group say there is no sign of the
Higgs. Its existence is looking ?less and less likely,? says
Steve Reucroft, also of Northeastern University. ?We?ve
eliminated most of the hunting area,? adds Neil Calder of
CERN.
Frank Wilczek, a particle physics theorist at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, believes that the
Higgs can be found only at an improbably high energy level.
He says he?ll stop believing in the Higgs if it doesn?t show up
by about 130 GeV. ?Then I would have a good long think,? he
says.
Swain says he doesn?t think the Higgs exists. But he still
thinks it?s important for CERN to build its Large Hadron
Collider, which is scheduled to start smashing particles at
even higher energies in 2007. ?It?s not until you've ruled out
more than 99 per cent of values that everyone will be
convinced,? he says.
The problem for physicists is that without the Higgs particle
they don?t have a viable theory of matter. ?There is nothing
remotely as plausible or compelling to replace it,? says
Wilczek.
For physicists who have spent years trying to find the Higgs,
admitting it may not exist is hard. But Swain is ready to move
on and says, ?You search for the truth, and the truth is
whatever it is.?
