Higgs boson: A bluffer’s guide
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Protons and neutrons are without mass in the Big Bang.
TERE IE Lurene Mega So where mass come from?2: Massive... more or less
So the current The lightest particle is the electron.
leading theory of The heaviest particle is the top quark,
particle physics which weighs about 350,000 times
can’t explain more than the electron.
where particles Logic would dictate that the iop
get their mass. quark must be very muc
ut, worse still, it larger than the electron - yet
can’t explain why the particles are about the
some particles Electron same size.
have so much So how can physicists
more mass than explain this astonishin
other particles difference?RTC Ree eau (eg
We know from quantum theory that
every field has an associated particle
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transmits the effect of the field to the
particle
To explain this, a group of physicists,
including Peter Higgs, proposed that
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As particles travel
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since these force-carriers are called
‘bosons, this is called the Higgs boson
Peter Higgs
if it sounds odd that an all permeating field is made up of particles, just think of the
electromagnetic field. Electromagnetism (x-rays and radio waves through to visible
light and gamma rays) is all pervasive yet it is made up of particles - the photon