God particle

The Higgs boson is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics. It is the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, a fundamental field of crucial importance to particle physics theoryfirst suspected to exist in the 1960s. Unlike other known fields such as the electromagnetic field, it has a non-zero constant value in vacuum. The question of the Higgs field's existence became the last unverified part of the Standard Model of particle physics, and for several decades was considered "the central problem in particle physics".

The Higgs boson is often referred to as the "God particle" in popular media outside the scientific community. The nickname comes from the title of the 1993 book on the Higgs boson and particle physics, The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? by Nobel Physics prizewinner and Fermilab director Leon Lederman.Lederman wrote it in the context of failing US government support for the Superconducting Super Collider, a part-constructed titanic^[179][180] competitor to the Large Hadron Collider with planned collision energies of 2 × 20 TeV that was championed by Lederman since its 1983 inception and shut down in 1993. The book sought in part to promote awareness of the significance and need for such a project in the face of its possible loss of funding.Lederman, a leading researcher in the field, wanted to title his book The Goddamn Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? But his editor decided that the title was too controversial and convinced Lederman to change the title to The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?