Physicists worldwide are majorly bummed to learn that the new particle discovered this year that supposedly meant a big change in the way we understand the building blocks of our universe is merely “the simplest—and most boring—variety of Higgs boson.”
Increasingly chaotic weather, potentially habitable planets and closing in on the elusive Higgs boson are just a few of the developments observed and discoveries made by the scientific community in 2011. The editors at LiveScience asked university scientists to describe what they think were the most important advances of the year.
Do you know the story of the Higgs boson? It is also called the “God particle” in scientific circles, although certain conservatives would probably not approve, and it has been a kind of physicists’ Holy Grail for decades.