What Is the Higgs Boson?

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The Higgs boson is the particle which sort of gives mass other particles through. It in itself doesn't play any direct role in our everyday matter, but this mechanism called the Higgs mechanism appears to be the way in which the universe works to actually generate mass. The best analogy I found for how it works is a cocktail party. A rumor spreads through a cocktail party and if you can imagine that there'syou know there's rumor that sort of spreading through through the field. That's kind of what a Higgs Boson is. You said it's quick fire rounds that's really really quick to quick answer. Okay, what's what is gravity? Good question, not my area

Physics has always sought to deepen our understanding of the nature of matter and the world around us. But how do you conduct experiments with the fundamental building blocks of existence? How do you manipulate a particle a trillion times smaller than a grain of sand? How do you cause a proton to sail around a twenty-seven-kilometer-long loop 11,000 times per second? And, crucially, why is all this important? In The Matter of Everything, accelerator physicist Suzie Sheehy introduces us to the people who, through a combination of genius, persistence and luck, staged the experiments that changed the course of history.

Shermer and Sheehy discuss: what it’s like being a female physicist in a mostly male field • Does science progress through falsification, confirmation, consensus, or Bayesian reasoning? • atoms, light, Higgs Boson, time, gravity, dark energy, dark matter, string theory, radioactivity • Gold Foil Experiment • cloud chambers • particle accelerators • splitting the atom • Is there a place for God in scientific epistemology? • Is math all there is? Is math universal? • other universes, dimensions, and the multiverse.

Suzie Sheehy is a physicist, science communicator and academic who divides her time between research groups at the University of Oxford and University of Melbourne. She is currently focused on developing new particle accelerators for applications in medicine. The Matter of Everything is her first book.