On this day - 4 July
Historical items of interest as featured in the papers of the day.
Discovery of the Higgs boson particle
The Higgs boson is a highly unstable particle produced by quantum excitation (an increased energy level) of the Higgs field. The Higgs field gives mass to other particles like electrons and was the last part of the Standard Model of particle physics to be verified. The Higgs boson and the Higgs field were both named after Peter Higgs. He, alongside several other scientists, proposed the theories underpinning the Higgs field and its existence in 1964.
On July 4th 2012 a new particle was discovered in Switzerland thanks to experiments carried out at the Large Hadron Collider, whose properties matched the predicted properties of the Higgs boson.
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