On July 4th, 2012, one of physics’ most exhilarating results was announced: a new particle – and very likely a new kind of particle – had been discovered at the Large Hadron Collider, the huge particle accelerator designed to reproduce energies present in the universe a fraction of a second after the Big Bang. The particle’s existence had been speculated on for nearly fifty years: here, finally, was proof.
Professor Lisa Randall of Harvard University is one of the world’s most influential theoretical physicists, and author of the bestselling Knocking on Heaven’s Door and Warped Passages. In Higgs Discovery she deftly explains both this epochal discovery and it’s startlingly beautiful implications.
