The Higgs boson is special kind of particle that doesn’t really appear in everyday life. Instead, it subtly interacts with many other particles and is responsible for giving them mass. Additionally, it plays a crucial role in the determining the characteristics of the forces of nature.
The Discovery of Higgs Boson
In 1964, several researchers, including British physicist Peter Higgs, found a clever solution to a troubling problem in theoretical physics. The problem was that at high energies, two of the forces of nature, electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force, merge together into a single force. But at low energies, the two forces couldn’t be any different, with different force carriers, ranges, and properties.
This experimental result suggested that there was a deep connection between the forces, but that connection only manifested at high energies, and at low energies something else in the universe was breaking that connection.
