• Question: How exactly does the LHC aim to find answers to questions about the universe and the "Higgs boson"?

    Asked by Arun to Jackie, Michele, Oliver, Vicky, Yelong on 9 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Michele Faucci Giannelli

      Michele Faucci Giannelli answered on 9 Mar 2015:

      By colliding protons at energy never reached before we hope to produce new particles that can answer hope questions such as what is dark matter. If the LHC will produce super-symmetric particle we will have an answer to that question!
      The next run of the LHC will also help us to better understand the properties of the Higgs boson. This will be possible because the LHC will produce many more Higgs bosons which will give us the opportunity to search for more rare processes that will complete our understanding of this particle. The higher statistics will also allow us to improve our current results which in large part are limited by the number of Higgs bosons we observed.
      So the next run of LHC will definitively be an exciting time of (possible) discovery and deeper understanding of Nature!

    • Photo: Jaclyn Bell

      Jaclyn Bell answered on 14 Mar 2015:

      The Higgs boson was the missing piece of the puzzle for many particle physicists but the LHC also is also searching for evidence of other theories like sting theory, evidence of dark matter, and supersymmetry (amongst other things). Once evidence for one is confirmed then the other theories can be ruled out – and this is how physics progresses – experimental results provide the evidence we need to go further with a theory 🙂 For all of these theories we need to observe certain collisions or see new particles produced from these collisions. Our ultimate goal as physicists is to find a theory which explains everything we see around us – the one big theory which encompasses all the individual theories that we can’t piece together yet – like quantum mechanics, gravity, the electroweak theory, relativity, etc all combined to make the theory of everything – the mathematical rule(s) that everything in our entire universe has to obey. (after reading this I realised I have written theory a LOT haha you can tell I’m a theorist 😉 )

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