Not looking good for the Higgs boson

Most of the possible masses for the Higgs boson (aka the God particle) have been eliminated with at a 95% confidence level by physicists at CERN. They’re checking the other masses and will likely have an answer one way or the other in December.

“We are now entering a very exciting phase in the hunt for the Higgs boson,” Sharma said. “If the Higgs boson exists between 114-145 GeV, we should start seeing statistically significant excesses over estimated backgrounds, and if it does not then we hope to rule it out over the entire mass range. One way or the other we are poised for a major discovery, likely by the end of this year.”

(via @daveg)

• CERN
• Higgs boson
• lhc
• physics
• science