A rumor is floating around the physics community that the world's largest atom smasher may have detected a long-sought subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle."

The controversial rumor is based on what appears to be a leaked internal note from physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 17-mile-long particle accelerator near Geneva, Switzerland. It's not entirely clear at this point if the memo is authentic, or what the data it refers to might mean — but the note already has researchers talking.

The buzz started when an anonymous commenter recently posted an abstract of the note on Columbia University mathematician Peter Woit's blog, Not Even Wrong.

Some physicists say the note may be a hoax, while others believe the "detection" is likely a statistical anomaly that will disappear upon further study. But the find would be a huge particle-physics breakthrough, if it holds up.

"If it were to be real, it would be really exciting," said physicist Sheldon Stone of Syracuse University.

Hunting for the Higgs

The Higgs boson is predicted to exist by prevailing particle-physics theory, which is known as the Standard Model. Physicists think the Higgs bestows mass on all the other particles — but they have yet to confirm its existence.

Huge atom smashers — like the LHC and the Tevatron, at Fermilab in Illinois — are searching for the Higgs and other subatomic bits of matter. These accelerators slam particles together at enormous speeds, generating a shower of other particles that could include the Higgs or other elemental pieces predicted by theory but yet to be detected. [Wacky Physics: The Coolest Little Particles in Nature]

The leaked note suggests that the LHC's ATLAS particle-detection experiment may have picked up a signature of the elusive Higgs. The signal is consistent, in mass and other characteristics, with what the Higgs is expected to produce, according to the note.

However, some other aspects of the signal don't match predictions.

"Its production rate is much higher than that expected for the Higgs boson in the Standard Model," Stone told SPACE.com in an email interview. So the signal may be evidence of some other particle, Stone added, "which in some sense would be even more interesting, or it could be the result of new physics beyond the Standard Model."

Read more:http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/22/worlds-largest-atom-smasher-detected-god-particle/#ixzz1KXe8MC9Z

The Higgs boson is supposed to impart mass to other particles and is seen as the last piece of the puzzle to prove the Standard Model of particle physics.

The Standard Model — with its familiar particles like electrons and photons, and less intuitive particles like muons and Higgs bosons — has proved accurate in experiments, but there are gaps in the theory that the Higgs boson would fill, if it existed.

it's about as absurd to think that the higgs bosun has been discoverd as it is to call it god's particle. sheesh, like we don't get enough rumors and bad info from the media.

The office politics behind the "rumor" of finding the Higgs makes it possible that the whole thing is "grasping at straws". There is a bump in the data that "may" turn out to be the Higgs but the evidence so far is pretty weak. It may be that someone wants to go down in history as being the first to find it without actually finding it.

The Standard Model is a very simplified model that works well in simple ways. It has had more and more problems as time has gone on. About six months ago a neutrino changed type during a carefully controlled experiment and it simply cannot do that under the standard model. More and more exceptions have been found.

One of the main problems with the Standard Model is that it falls apart mathematically in the early stages of the big bang. A good theory doesn't fall apart. It is becoming apparent to many physicists that the particles of the Standard Model may not be the smallest unit of matter. The Standard Model also has problems with gravity, dark energy, and dark matter. It appears to be a dead end.

A website for physics.

http://www.new-science-theory.com/the-standard-model.html

A Higgs Boson Rumor has been clearly identified!!!