Translated material
About the boson tail
Recently, good scientific news came from the Swiss-French border. The local scientists and maidens, dug into the ground to a depth of more than a hundred meters in a 27-kilometer tunnel, gave out option number two from their research.
Until now, the first option has prevailed, according to which outstanding scientific achievements, for which, in fact, huge amounts of money were buried underground, were not achieved due to various annoying failures in the activities of extremely complex technology. But this postulate, of course, is difficult to exploit endlessly to justify zero results. And therefore, sometimes it is necessary to dilute it with near-sensational achievements, which are, as it were, epoch-making by definition, but so far, alas, have not been brought to their final brilliance due to the strict adherence of scientists to the purity of experiments. And therefore, on the one hand, they use things that excite the minds of ordinary people, and, on the other, very cautious statements like: “two steps away from the goal”, “one step away from success”, “very close”, etc.
This time a stronger expression was found: “grabbed by the tail.” After all, who, or rather what, was captured? Yes, the “divine particle”, popularly called the Higgs boson, for which, in fact, this super-expensive CERN was dedicated to finding!
Here it should be emphasized that the particle invented by the Scottish theoretical physicist Peter Higgs, supported by the authority of the Belgian physicists Francois Angler and Robert Brou, who thought in the same direction, is now considered by their colleagues to be the fundamental elementary particle and even the “last missing brick” in the system of the universe they are building. This is the smallest particle that, being itself devoid of any mass, when interacting with its larger, although also elementary, particles imparts mass to them. And, therefore, actually creates this entire magnificent material world of ours. In other words, physicists, having grabbed this boson “by the tail,” simultaneously grab the beard of God himself with the other hand! For, as they think, now they will be able to comprehend the entire essence of the universe.
However, not everything is so simple in this material world of ours. Swiss expert on elementary particles, Professor Günther Dissertori, who worked at CERN for ten years and knows all the nooks and crannies there, not only underground, but also in the mindsets of his colleagues, immediately reported that the notorious “divine particle” is a pure hoax. True, out of delicacy, the professor tried to reduce the confusion to terminology. They say that his colleagues actually called this particle not “divine”, but, on the contrary, “cursed by God.” It’s just that some journalist misheard or misunderstood something and let a “divine particle” wander around the world. And physicists called this boson so disrespectfully for the reason that they could not detect it. At the same time, in the words of the Swiss professor there was clearly a hint of that very notorious black cat, which one cannot find in a dark room, where this cat does not exist and never has existed.
And there was something else in the words of the knowledgeable scientist that made us think: what did the tenacious CERN experimenters actually “grab by the tail”? The professor made it clear that even if the elusive Higgs boson was never discovered in the end, that would also be a great scientific success. Or maybe it will be even more interesting for theoretical physicists: they will have to figure out again what other mechanism gives mass to elementary particles. As we see, the Swiss scientist laid out straws for his colleagues ahead of time, obviously already guessing what would happen ahead...