At the start of December a rumour swirled around the internet and physics lab coffee rooms that researchers at the Large Hadron Collider had spotted a new particle. After a three-year drought that followed the discovery of the Higgs boson, could this be the first sign of new physics that particle physicists have all been desperately hoping for?
Researchers working on the LHC experiments remained tight-lipped until December 14 when physicists packed out CERN’s main auditorium to hear presentations from the scientists working on CMS and ATLAS experiments, the two gargantuan particle detectors that discovered the Higgs boson in 2012. Even watching the online webcast, the excitement was palpable.
Everybody was wondering if we would witness the beginning of a new age of discovery. The answer is … maybe.
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Image: The Large Hadron Collider/ATLAS at CERN
Credit: Image Editor
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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