From Big Bang Theory to Higgs Boson The Big Bang Theory is an attempt to explain the expanding universe.

This phenomenon was confirmed in 1929 by astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble. The Big Bang Theory holds that all things in the universe had emerged from a large explosion or a Big Bang that set each celestial body in its place. The Big Bang Theory infers the universe is this way and it is expanding because of a massive explosion that created it, that is, before this explosion the universe did not exist. The birth of the universe is commonly believed to have resulted from an extremely powerful explosion. This was the first significant event that triggered the chain of events that led to the creation of galaxies, stars, planets and, eventually, the origin of life on Earth. It all began with a bang... Over 15 billion years ago, the entire universe was compressed into a miniature space the size of an atoms nucleus. A gargantuan explosion known as the Big Bang released all the compressed matter and energy and created space and time. The newly-born universe expanded rapidly and with a nearly infinite capacity for expansion. Nanoseconds after the Big Bang, the entire universe consisted of a hot and dense cloud of hydrogen atoms. Since these atoms were packed together tightly there were lots of violent collisions between them. These collisions fused many of the hydrogen atoms together, forming helium. The exact same fusion process occurs in the extremely hot cores of stars. As the universe expanded, it cooled too rapidly to allow atomic fusion to occur, making hydrogen and helium, the two simplest chemical elements, the only elements in the universe at that time. Now we are going to fast-forward to a couple hundred million years after the Big Bang. Under the influence of gravity, hydrogen and helium collected together into massive gas clouds, forming simple galaxies. These galaxies became the birthplace of stars. As the clouds became larger, gravity forced the core of the cloud to become increasingly dense. This resulted in the contraction of the star and changed the shape of the cloud into that of a huge ball. More and more pressure built up in the cloud, producing lots of heat, and slowly changed the color of the cloud to a bright yellow-white light. A star is born!

During the lifetime of a star, the stars color gradually changes. When you gaze up into the night sky with a telescope or binoculars, you can see stars in a plethora of colors. The color of a star corresponds to its temperature. Extremely hot stars, called supergiants, emit blueish white light. Red stars, called red dwarfs, are comparably cool. As superhot stars like supergiants begin to exhaust their hydrogen fuel, the core cools and shrinks. Eventually, varying fusion reactions take place until the core is nearly iron. The last stage of a stars life is when the pressure in the iron core is so great that it undergoes a final collapse, called a supernova. The outer gases of the sun are blown away in a great burst of energy, matter and light. With the incredible amount of energy produced in this explosion, elements that are heavier than iron were fused and flung outward. Eventually these elements find their way to the planet Earth, where they were deposited in a number of different forms and substances. In summary, the Big Bang created the universe and initiated the creation and placement of the chemical elements and matter essential for the development of life on Earth and other planets in the universe. In order to give a credible explaination to the proposed Big Bang theory, scientists had to wait for a major breakthrough in the particle physics which came in 1970, when physicists realized that the unification of four fundamental forces in nature, namely gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear forces may be the key in formulation of a model to explain the creation of the Universe. Scientists found enough evidence to suggest unification of at least two of four fundamental forces weak force and electromagnetic force and proposed a model, called Standard Model, to explain the proposed theory and the Universe as it exists today. However, one of the requirements of such a unifying model entails that all particles are massless something which is apparently not true! After all, electron, proton, and neutron all have definite masses. How can we then explain the creation of mass and the Universe, as we see it today? Physicists Peter Higgs, Robert Brout and Franois Englert came up with a solution to solve this conundrum. They suggested that particles had no mass just after the Big Bang. As the early Universe (1/10 second after the Big Bang)

cooled and the temperature fell below a critical value (10 Kelvin), an invisible force field called the 'Higgs field' was formed together with the associated 'Higgs boson'. The field prevails throughout the cosmos: any particle that interacts with it is given a mass via the Higgs boson. The stronger the interaction, the heavier they become, whereas particles that never interact are left with no mass. Photon, which is the carrier of the electromagnetic field, is an example of a particle with no mass and hence it does not interact with the Higgs field. Till recently, the Higgs boson existed only in theory; no experimental evidence of the existence of the Higgs boson was found. During last 40 years physicists tried to find the Higgs boson and did several experiments to create conditions that could simulate the formation of the early Universe. Fermi Lab in USA used the Tevatron a powerful particle accelerator to accelerate protons to a very high speed (99.9 % of speed of light) and then collide them. Highspeed collision was expected to create the conditions prevailing in early Universe for a brief moment. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)built the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a larger and more powerful particle accelerator, which could accelerate protons up to 7 trillion electron volts (TeV). Scientists did a number of experiments during last two years to search for any evidence that confirms the existence of the Higgs boson. The Standard Model does not predict an exact mass of the Higgs boson. In a particle accelerator like LHC, smashing protons at near-light speed generates a vast shower of particles that are created only at extremely high energies. Systematic analysis of data is carried out to search for a particle over a range of masses. Scientists knew that Higgs boson cannot be observed directly because of its extremely short life of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second. They were looking for Higgs boson that only fleetingly exists in a soup of particles but leaves behind a trail of other particles that could prove its existence. It was predicted that Higgs boson should have a mass much more than that of protons. Finally on 4 July, scientists of CERN announced that the long-sought Higgs boson does exist. Experiments conducted in the Large Hadron Collider yielded results that were consistent with its existence. Scientists found data corresponding to a

particle weighing about 125 billion electron-volts (GeV), which is about 133 times heavier than protons, thus confirming Higgs boson. So far, this discovery is claimed to be the greatest discovery of 21st century. Some physicists are comparing this to the Apollo program that landed man the Moon in 1960. Currently, however, the finding has been termed as tentative by the CERN teams and the final confirmation is about to be revealed. Discovery of the existence of the Higgs boson will certainly prove to be a major milestone in our understanding of the Universe. Scientists will also look at how the Higgs boson decays or transforms into other more stable particles. This will provide more data to support the Standard Model. As Professor of the University of California, Santa Barbara, says Were on the frontier now, on the edge of new exploration. This could be the only part of the story thats left, or we could open a whole new realm of discovery. Discovery of the Higgs boson may just be the beginning of many more discoveries to uncover other secrets of the Universe. All matter we see comprises only 4% of the observable Universe the rest, as proposed by the scientists, is made up of mysterious dark matter and dark energy. Definitely science will explain these mysteries in days to come.