Particle Fever Page #4

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not the thing that drives us.

It's not how we think about it,

but it's something

you can say quickly,

and the person you're talking to

won't, you know,

get diverted or pass out

or pick up the SkyMall catalog

if you happen to be next to them

on an airplane.

Answer number one:

We are reproducing the physics,

the conditions,

just after the big bang.

We're doing it in this collider,

and we're reproducing that

so we can see what it was like

when the universe just started.

This is what we tell people.

Okay, answer two:

We are trying to understand

the basic laws of nature.

It sounds slightly more mild,

but this is really where we are

and what we're trying to do.

We study particles,

because just after the big bang,

all there was was particles,

and they carried the information

about how our universe started

and how it got to be

the way it is

and its future.

At the beginning of the 1900s,

it became clear

that all known matter,

everything that we know about,

is made of atoms,

and that atoms are made

of just three particles:

The electron, the proton,

and the neutron.

In the '30s,

other particles were discovered,

and by the 1960s,

there were hundreds

of new particles,

with a new particle discovered

every week.

And there was mass confusion,

until a number

of theorists realized

that there was a simple

mathematical structure

that explained all of this,

that most of these particles

were made of the same

three little bits

we call quarks,

and that there are only

a handful

of truly fundamental particles,

which all fit together

in a nice, neat pattern.

And there was born

the Standard Model.

Eventually, all the particles

in the theory

were discovered,

except one:
The Higgs.

And the Higgs

is unlike any other particle.

It's the linchpin

of the Standard Model.

Its theory was written down

in the 1960s by Peter Higgs

and a number of other theorists.

We believe

it is the crucial piece

responsible

for holding matter together.

It is connected to a field

which fills all of space

and which gives particles,

like the electron, mass

and allowed them

to get caught in atoms

and thus is responsible

for the creation of atoms,

molecules, planets, and people.

Without the Higgs, life

as we know it wouldn't exist.

But to prove that it's true,

we have to smash particles

together at high enough energy

to disturb the field

and create a Higgs particle.

If the Higgs exists,

the LHC is the machine

that will discover it.

Let's assume you're successful

and everything comes out okay.

- Sure.

- What do we gain from it?

What's the economic return?

How do you justify all this?

By the way, I am an economist.

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