The quest of physical science is to try to understand nature, to answer questions such as, “How do things work?” “What gives ruby its color?” Great leaps forward have occurred, but deep mysteries remain. One is the explanation of the heaviness of things. Why is lead a lot heavier than aluminum?
Ever since the pioneering work of Lord Rutherford in 1911, scientists have known that what appears to be solid matter is almost completely empty space, in which unseen electric and magnetic forces prevail. But that doesn’t explain why some matter is “lighter” than other matter.
Hope for answers rose during the first decade of this century. That hope centered on a new particle, called the “Higgs boson,” and in June 2012 there was jubilation among physicists as its discovery was confirmed with 99.999 percent certainty through the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The Higgs boson is important because, in layman’s terms, it is believed to affect all particles in the universe, giving them mass. Particles that are slowed more by the Higgs boson (such as tennis balls) are heavier. Those that travel faster (such as electrons) are lighter.
