By: Wayne Rash, eWeek
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the Higgs Boson, the discovery of which was announced at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire). Without this particle, you wouldn’t exist. For that matter, the universe wouldn’t exist. That’s because the Higgs Boson creates a field that gives other particles mass, giving weight and shape to all the matter we see in the universe Or, to describe the indescribable, what the Higgs Boson does is create a field of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence, and while they’re in existence those virtual particles provide mass to other particles that are able to interact with them. Photons, which are being created by the bazillion (to use the precise scientific term) by the monitor in front of you, are the particle manifestation of the electro-magnetic field we call “light.” Photons are very real and depending on how they’re observed can appear as either particles or waves.
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