Physicists closing in on 'God particle'

Physicists closing in on 'God particle'
Experiments at the world's largest atom smasher are tantalizing hints that a long-sought subatomic particle actually exists, with the final proof was probably the end of 2012, physicists said Monday.
"We all know about the Higgs boson, except whether it exists," said Rolf Heuer, Director General of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
"We can sort out this issue of Shakespeare - or should not be - until the end of next year," he told journalists in a webcast press conference at CERN in Geneva.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermilab, meanwhile also reported telltale signs of the elusive particles, heating up a long-standing rivalry between the two high-energy physics laboratories.
CERN and Fermilab have reduced both the range of the mass, in which the "God particle" as it is known, could be found on a fairly narrow, low-mass band.
"The search for the Higgs boson is entering the most exciting, end-stage", Stefan Soldner-Rembold, spokesman for one of the two major experiments at Fermilab, last week said in a statement.
Higgs or no Higgs, the possibilities are enormous either way, and could easily earn a Nobel prize for scientists who can be credited for the breakthrough.
The long-postulated particle, first proposed in 1964, is declared to interact with the missing cornerstone of an otherwise well-tested theory, the so-called standard model, known as' sub-atomic elements in the universe.
Without the "God particle", is, however, that whole building apart, because the standard model does not answer a basic question: Why do most elementary mass?
British physicist Peter Higgs proposed a mechanism to "save" would be the theory - if the particle named after him really existed.
"If you have found the Higgs boson, the Standard Model is complete. If you can not find it, then the model is a serious problem. Both results are discoveries," said Heuer.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - a 27-kilometer (16.9 mile) circular tunnel 100 meters (325 feet) below ground on both sides of the French-Swiss border - was on the right path to the puzzle within 18 months of crack he said.
"The LHC is beyond my expectations, works like the experiments", he added, are "ready to lead us into uncharted territory."
Scientists have delivered the number of collisions increased with the experiments by a factor of 20 over the past year, he noted.
The complex is designed to sub-atomic particles are accelerated in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light and then smash them together, whereby collisions, the short stoke temperatures 100,000 times hotter than the sun.
The researchers are looking for the fugitive, sub-atomic rubble for clues to a number of unsolved mysteries about the origin and makeup of the universe.
"But do not expect too much too fast," warned Heuer. "We are by a factor of ten [of the collision force], we hope to have at the end of next year. We are right in the middle," he said.