Finding the 'GOD Particle'

The results of what scientists call an extremely important experiment will be announced simultaneously in Geneva and Melbourne - where the international High Energy Physics conference is taking place - from 5pm (AEST).The findings may, or may not, confirm existing theories of the way the universe - and our world - are held together.The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has been leading the search for the Higgs boson, an elusive sub-atomic particle dubbed by some as the "God particle", which is believed to confer mass.

The Higgs has led scientists on a chase since 1964, when British physicist Peter Higgs helped lay the conceptual foundation for it.If the particle exists, it would vindicate the so-called Standard Model of physics, which identifies the building blocks for matter and the particles that convey fundamental forces.

CERN physicists have said they will not make an announcement until they have proof - from two laboratories working independently at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - that the risk of a statistical fluke is vanishingly small.In scientific parlance, the goal is "five sigma," meaning that there is just a 0.00006 per cent chance that what the two laboratories found is a mathematical quirk.In a news report, the British science journal Nature said CERN will announce that the two labs saw signals of a new particle with a probability of between 4.5 and 5 sigma.But CERN will stop short of calling it the Higgs until more is known about what the particle does, Nature said."Crucially, they will want to know whether it behaves like a mass-giving Higgs, and more specifically whether it behaves like the Higgs predicted in the Standard Model," the journal said.Last week, CERN boss Rolf Heuer cautioned about the need for verification."It's a bit like spotting a familiar face from far. Sometimes you need closer inspection to find out whether it's really your best friend, or your best friend's twin."

Because the Higgs cannot be seen, its existence - or not - has to be inferred.This is done by smashing protons together in an underground tunnel, providing a tiny but fierce collision that causes sub-atomic debris to fly into detectors built into the 360-degree walls of a car-sized lab.The trick then is to sift through the signals from this smash up and look for a pattern that points to the Higgs.The boson has been so slippery because it is believed to decay almost instantly after it interacts with other particles to endow them with mass.

Learge Hadron Colider