The long road to find the Higgs boson is littered with subatomic particle discoveries and canceled colliders, but it ends with a discovery and a theory validated nearly 50 years after the idea was born.
- 1961
Sheldon L. Glashow in 2005.Juan Herrero/European Pressphoto AgencyA Step Toward Einstein's Dream
Sheldon L. Glashow proposes a mathematical formalism that combines electromagnetism and the weak nuclear force into an “electroweak” force, a step toward Einstein’s dream of a single, unified theory.
Peter Higgs in 2012.Gavin Rodgers/Rex Features, via Associated PressHiggs and the Others Invent 'Field'
Peter Higgs suggests that elementary particles sweep up their masses from an invisible energy field – now known as the Higgs field – permeating space, and predicts the existence of a new particle, the Higgs boson. Two other groups of physicists, Robert Brout and François Englert from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Gerald Guralnik, Carl R. Hagen and Tom Kibble from Imperial College, London, described the same process in separate papers, also in 1964.
The motion of quark particles inside a proton can distort its shape. If the quark “spin” aligns with the proton spin, the proton looks like a peanut. If the quark spin is opposite, the result is a doughnut.Dr. Gerald A. Miller/University of WashingtonQuarks Named
Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig independently suggest that protons and other heavy particles like neutrons are composed of smaller bits that Dr. Gell-Mann calls quarks. Dr. Gell-Mann took the word “quark” from a line in “Finnegans Wake” by James Joyce: “Three quarks for Muster Mark!”- Q&A: What is a Quark?
- Physicists Hunt for 'Quark' in the Sky (April 26, 1966; PDF)
- Murray Gell-Mann on Ditching What 'Everybody Knows'
Steven Weinberg in 2002.Frank Curry for The New York TimesHiggs Becomes Centerpiece of Electroweak Unification
Steven Weinberg makes the Higgs boson the centerpiece in the unification of the electromagnetic and weak forces. A year later, Abdus Salam proposes a similar scheme.- Why the Higgs Boson Matters
- Steven Weinberg's Nobel Citation
- Scientist at Work: Steven Weinberg; Physicist Ponders God, Truth and 'Final Theory'
A view of Fermilab's Tevatron collider in 2012. Reidar Hahn/FermilabAmerican Physics Laboratory Opens
The National Accelerator Laboratory is founded on 6,800 acres of former farmland in Batavia, Ill. It is later renamed the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory after the nuclear physics pioneer Enrico Fermi.
Gerard 't Hooft in 1999.ReutersElectroweak Theory Becomes Mathematically Tractable
Gerard 't Hooft, a graduate student at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, shows that the new unified electroweak theory makes mathematical sense and can be used to calculate detailed predictions. He and his adviser, Martinus Veltman, win the 1999 Nobel Prize.A New Face for the Weak Force
Experiments at CERN using the Gargamelle bubble chamber reveal a new kind of weak-force interaction, so-called neutral currents, predicted by the Weinberg-Salam-Glashow “electroweak” unification.The November Revolution
Samuel Ting of M.I.T. and Burton Richter of Stanford independently discover the same particle, called the J by Dr. Ting, and the psi by Dr. Richter. It is the first example of a new family of quarks, elementary particles from which other particles are built. Dr. Ting and Dr. Richter later share the Nobel Prize.
Carlo RubbiaCERNW and Z Bosons Discovered
Carlo Rubbia discovers W and Z bosons, putting CERN on the map. The bosons are key components of the so-called weak force. The weak force is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe, the others being gravity, electromagnetism and the strong force, which holds atomic nuclei together. Dr. Rubbia shares a Nobel Prize in 1984 for advances in particle physics with his CERN colleague Simon van der Meer.Large Hadron Collider Proposed
Steve Myers and Wolfgang Schnell propose an “LEP proton collider” and lay out plans for what will eventually become the Large Hadron Collider.U.S. Isabelle Collider Canceled
Despite an expenditure of more than $200 million, a collider known as Isabelle on Long Island is canceled after the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel of the Department of Energy votes to scrap the project. Physicists propose instead to leapfrog ahead to a much bigger “super collider.”U.S. Approves the Superconducting Super Collider
President Ronald Reagan approves a plan to build a giant collider 54 miles around that would collide protons at the energy of 40 trillion electron volts. It is estimated to cost $4.4 billion. The approval sets off a nationwide competition to host the machine. Texas wins.
A view of a tunnel access shaft for the Superconducting Super Collider in the early 1990s.Associated PressU.S. Cancels Super Collider
The U.S. House of Representatives votes for the third time to reject financing for the vast Texas atom-smasher, effectively ending the $11 billion program.- Collider Dead, Physicists Seek to Save Studies (March 20, 1994)
- House Kills the Supercollider, and Now It Might Stay Dead (Oct. 20, 1993)
- Requiem for the Supercollider (Oct. 24, 1993)
CERN Approves Large Hadron Collider
Top Quark Discovered
Fermilab discovers top quark, making the Higgs particle the only missing piece of the Standard Model.
The final data recording from the Large Electron-Positron collider in 2000.CERNLarge Electron Positron Collider Comes Close to Higgs
LEP, for Large Electron-Positron Collider, operated for 11 years and came very close to finding the Higgs boson, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. The Large Hadron Collider will occupy the same tunnel where LEP once stood.- World's Biggest Accelerator Surges to Life (Aug. 08, 1989)
- Particle Physics Braces for the Next Big Thing (Nov. 21, 2000)
Large Hadron Collider Begins Operating
After 14 years of labor, scientists at the CERN laboratory outside Geneva successfully activate the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest, most powerful particle collider and, at $8 billion, the most expensive scientific experiment to date.- Cameras for Catching the Primordial Fire
- Protons and Champagne Mix as New Particle Collider Is Revved Up
Scientists in Geneva applaud the discovery of a subatomic particle that looks like the Higgs boson.Pool photo by Denis BalibouseHiggs-Like Boson Announced
The two research collaborations, named after the Atlas and the CMS detectors, present findings to a packed CERN auditorium – signaling a likely end to one of the longest, most expensive searches in the history of science. “I think we have it,” says Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director general of CERN.To Be Continued
After recording some 2,000 trillion proton-proton collisions, the Large Hadron Collider shut down for two years of repairs and maintenance. During the shutdown, engineers will rebuild the electrical connections between the collider's giant magnets, allowing the machine to get closer to its design energy of 7 trillion electron volts per proton when it starts up again in the spring of 2015.
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