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Quirks and Quarks

Most Wanted Particle

Professor Jon Butterworth provides and insiders account of the hunt for the Higgs Boson
CBC Radio ·
A view of a segment of the LHC in its tunnel at CERN (European particle physics laboratory) near Geneva, Switzerland. (Martial Trezzini/The Associated Press)
Quirks and Quarks19:33Most Wanted Particle - 2015/03/07 - Pt. 5
In 2012 researchers at the Large Hadron Collider announced they'd discovered the elusive Higgs boson.  The Higgs was the last undiscovered particle predicted by our best fundamental theory of particle physics, the Standard Model, and so this was a momentous discovery by the world's largest and most expensive science project.
Professor Jon Butterworth, a physicist at University College London, and a member the the ATLAS detector team, was one of the roughly three thousand scientists who participated in the discovery of the Higgs. 

In his new book, Most Wanted Particle – The Inside Story of the Hunt for the Higgs, the Heart of the Future of Physics, he provides a unique behind-the-scenes look at the search for the Higgs boson, mixing the detailed science with stories of vital collaborations built over beer and billiards.

Related Links

- Most Wanted Particle
- Professor Butterworth's blog

 

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