A beginner's guide to the Higgs boson
Who is Higgs?
Peter Higgs was an Edinburgh-based theoretician -- one of six physicists who, in 1964, proposed the particle as an explanation for the property of mass.
What's he doing with a boson?
A boson is a subatomic particle.
Help, I can't even pronounce it.
It's "boh-sun", not "bos-son".
Why is the Higgs boson important?
It is thought to be one of the basic building blocks of the universe. However, no one has ever seen one. Yesterday, scientists said that two experiments had seen hints of the Higgs at the same mass, although they would need to gather more data before claiming a discovery. Discovering the Higgs bosun would confirm the "Standard Model" of modern particle physics.
If in doubt, say:
This could be the most exciting scientific discovery since Newton.