Working toward the Higgs
In 1964, Belgian physicist François Englert proposed a solution to one of the universe’s central mysteries: how a particle gains mass. His idea, developed with Robert Brout, and independently proposed by Peter Higgs, was that a particle’s mass is determined by interactions with an invisible field that permeates the known universe. Particles that interact strongly with the field have more mass and are heavier, while particles that interact weakly with the field have less. It would take experimental physicists 50 years to confirm the Higgs field and the Higgs boson. In 2012, particle physicists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider found evidence of the Higgs boson, touching off celebrations in the physics world, including at Harvard, where faculty and researchers took a lead role in designing and operating the ATLAS detector, one of two in operation at CERN (which stands for the European Organization for Nuclear Research), near Geneva. In October, Higgs and Englert...