What is the Higgs Boson?

In particle physics, bosons are sub-atomic particles.

The Higgs Boson is named after the British scientist Peter Higgs, who put forward a theory. This was, that there could be an invisible field (now called the Higgs field) which would exist throughout the entire universe. This field could be the way that matter obtained mass after the universe was created in the "Big Bang".

Some bosons have already been discovered, but the Higgs Boson, nicknamed the "God particle", is a particle which is believed to exist, but no proof of it has yet been found. Therefore, it is called a "theoretical" particle. It is not believed to be made up of smaller particles, so it is also known an an "elementary" particle or "fundamental" particle

There is a story that it is nicknamed the God particle so as not to offend people. It was originally referred to as "The Goddamned Particle" because of scientists frustration of their faliure to find it!

On Tuesday 13th December 2011, an announcement was made at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) where a researcher said that said there was an “excess of events” detected in particle-collider experiments that hints at where the Higgs could be found. So although it has not yet been proved to exist, scientists still beleive that there is a very good chance that it could be there.