Last July, scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, announced that they had found a particle they described as “Higgs-like." Last week, after completing their examination of the data, lead researcher Joe Incandela announced that, in his words, “it is clear that we are dealing with a Higgs boson."
The research continues, but discovery of a Higgs boson would leap to the top of Nobel Prize contenders.
MSU physics professors Joey Huston and Elizabeth Simmons explain the significance of this subatomic matter.