【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 s 39。ll make it easier, actually, by blowing one of the lines , each of these terms refers to some of the those Ws there refer to the Ws, and how they stick carriers of the weak force, the Zs, the there39。s an extra symbol in this equation: , stands for Higgs particles have not been they39。re necessary: they39。re necessary to make that mathematics all the exquisitely detailed calculations we can do with that wonderful equation wouldn39。t be possible without an extra it39。s a prediction: a prediction of a new does it do? Well, we had a long time to e up with good back in the 1980s, when we wanted the money for the LHC from the , Margaret Thatcher, at the time, said, “If you guys can explain, in language a politician can understand, what the hell it is that you39。re doing, you can have the want to know what this Higgs particle does.” And we came up with this analogy, and it seemed to , what the Higgs does is, it gives mass to the fundamental the picture is that the whole universeand that doesn39。t mean just space, it means me as well, and inside youthe whole universe is full of something called a Higgs particles, if you analogy is that these people in a room are the Higgs when a particle moves through the universe, it can interact with these Higgs imagine someone who39。s not very popular moves through the everyone ignores can just pass through the room very quickly, essentially at the speed of 39。re imagine someone incredibly important and popular and intelligent walks into the 39。re surrounded by people, and their passage through the room is 39。s almost like they get get that39。s exactly the way the Higgs mechanism picture is that the electrons and the quarks in your body and in the universe that we see around us are heavy, in a sense, and massive, because they39。re surrounded by Higgs 39。re interacting with the Higgs that picture39。s true, then we have to discover those Higgs particles at the it39。s not truebecause it39。s quite a convoluted mechanism, although it39。s the simplest we39。ve been able to think ofthen whatever does the job of the Higgs particles we know have to turn up at the , that39。s one of the prime reasons we built this giant 39。m glad you recognize Margaret , I thought about making it more culturally relevant, but(Laughter) that39。s one 39。s essentially a guarantee of what the LHC will are many other 39。ve heard many of the big problems in particle of them you heard about: dark matter, dark 39。s another issue, which is that the forces in natureit39。s quite beautiful, actuallyseem, as you go back in time, they seem to change in , they do change in , the electromagnetic force, the force that holds us together, gets stronger as you go to higher strong force, the strong nuclear force, which sticks nuclei together, gets what you see is the standard modelyou can calculate how these changeis the forces, the three forces, other than gravity, almost seem to e together at one 39。s almost as if there was one beautiful kind of superforce, back at the beginning of they just there39。s a theory called supersymmetry, which doubles the number of particles in the standard model, which, at first sight, doesn39。t sound like a actually, with this theory, we find that the forces of nature do seem to unify together, back at the Big Bangabsolutely beautiful model wasn39。t built to do that, but it seems to do , those supersymmetric particles are very strong candidates for the dark a very pelling theory that39。s really mainstream if I was to put money on it, I would put money onin a very unscientific waythat that these things would also crop up at the other things that the LHC could in the last few minutes, I just want to give you a different perspective of what I thinkwhat particle physics really means to meparticle physics and that39。s that I think it39。s given us a wonderful narrativealmost a creation story, if you39。d likeabout the universe, from modern science over the last few I39。d say that it deserves, in the spirit of Wade Davis39。 talk, to be at least put up there with these wonderful creation stories of the peoples of the high Andes and the frozen is a creation story, I think, equally as story goes like this: we know that the universe began billion years ago, in an immensely hot, dense state, much smaller than a single began to expand about a million, billion, billion, billion billionth of a secondI think I got that rightafter the Big separated away from the other universe then underwent an exponential expansion called about the first billionth of a second or so, the Higgs field kicked in, and the quarks and the gluons and the electrons that make us up got universe continued to expand and about a few minutes, there was hydrogen and helium in the 39。s universe was about 75 percent hydrogen, 25 percent still is continued to expand about 300 million light began to travel through the was big enough to be transparent to light, and that39。s what we see in the cosmic microwave background that George Smoot described as looking at the face of about 400 million years, the first stars formed, and that hydrogen, that helium, then began to cook into the heavier the elements of lifecarbon, and oxygen and iron, all the elements that we need to make us upwere cooked in those first generations of stars, which then ran out of fuel, exploded, threw those elements back into the then recollapsed into another generation of stars and on some of those planets, the oxygen, which had been created in that first generation of stars, could fuse with hydrogen to form water, liquid water on the at least one, and maybe only one of those planets, primitive life evolved, which evolved over millions of years into things that walked upright and left footprints about three and a half million years ago in the mud flats of Tanzania, and eventually left a footprint on another built this civilization, this wonderful picture, that turned the darkness into light, and you can see the