For physicists, the perfect Easter gift would be a new look at the underpinnings of the cosmos - meaning the confirmation that the Higgs boson, or "God particle," whose theoretical existence underlies much of modern cosmological theory, actually exists. There is a rumor going around the world at Internet-warp speed that physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have actually detected the Higgs, but are keeping it quiet while they ensure the observation can be replicated.
The note's title is:
"Observation of a γγ resonance at a mass in the vicinity of 115 GeV/c2 at ATLAS and its Higgs interpretation"
Here is where the original note (or alleged note) about the apparent find was posted:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3643
For people who think physicists are boring, there's a heck of a lively exchange here.
COMMENT: I'm not about to try to explain what I don't even understand, as this all gets very technical. But I wanted to post it here because of the interesting implications for the way science works. Should an internal note posted anonymously to a blog be passed on? Are scientists who work with public funding entitled to sit on potentially important data while they do further research?
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