When the sun rose over America on July 4, 2012, the world of science had radically changed. The Higgs boson had been discovered. Mind you, the press releases were more cautious than that, with “a new particle consistent with being the Higgs boson” being the carefully constructed phrase of the day. But, make no mistake, champagne corks were popped and backs were slapped. The data had spoken and a party was in order. Even if the observation turned out to be something other than the Higgs boson, the first big discovery from data taken at the Large Hadron Collider had been made.
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•
Don
Lincoln
, The Large Hadron Collider: The Extraordinary Story of the Higgs Boson and Other Things That Will Blow Your Mind
(Johns Hopkins
, 2014
).•
Dan
Hooper
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(Smithsonian
, 2008
).•
Ian
Sample
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(Virgin Books
, 2013
).•
Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjCypYnBYwQ.
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2015
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