Greatest experiment ever in particle physics nears countdown

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

GENEVA (AFP) — Scientists at CERN, Europe's atom-smashing laboratory, are preparing for the greatest experiment in the history of particle physics which could .unveil a sub-atomic component, the Higgs Boson, which is so tantalising that it has been called "the God Particle".

Below ground, in a vast circular tunnel below the French-Swiss border near Geneva, the final pieces of a gigantic machine are being set in place for the extraordinary investigation into the infinitely small.

The "Higgs," named after a British physicist, Peter Higgs, who first proposed it in 1964, would fill a gaping hole in the benchmark theory for understanding the physical cosmos.

Other work on the so-called Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could explain dark matter and dark energy --...