CERN confirms existence of new particle consistent with Higgs boson, rewrites the standard model

Physics' big announcement had more in common with a leaky product launch than the serious business of re-writing the science books. But slack asset management aside, it's official: a new boson has been observed within 5 standard deviations of accuracy. The highly anticipated announcement came this morning direct from CERN's press conference (via ICHEP in Melbourne), and is the result of an intense, ongoing search for the elusive particle. The observation is of a boson particle with a mass of 125.3 ± 0.6 Gev, at a significance of 4.9 sigma. Joe Incandela -- giving the presentation -- said that this is "In agreement with the standard model at 95% confidence range." This is still a preliminary result, but by far the strongest case yet for the existence of the elusive Higgs.

CERN confirms existence of new particle consistent with Higgs boson, rewrites the standard model originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 03:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.