Hi everybody, we’re back for the next round of Stump the Scientist! This question came in from Facebook community member William Franco. Don’t forget that you can visit www.facebook.com/ge or www.facebook.com/edisonsdesk and post your questions. This will be our last post for 2011 but we look forward to reading your Stump the Scientist questions and answering more in 2012!
Question posted by Facebook user William Franco:
How do magnets work?
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Response from Chief Scientist Jim Bray:
This is a “hot topic” at present in physics because the new CERN particle accelerator (the world’s most powerful “atom smasher”) is partly devoted to looking for this particle and is closing in on its whereabouts. Most of the physicists involved in this search think that they will have the answer (its existence and mass, or its non-existence) within a few months.
Physicists have created a “Standard Model” of all matter and energy in the universe (except for gravity and perhaps dark matter and dark energy). Most of the particles within this model have mass, but some do not (notably the photon, the particle of light). A major unsolved question is why most particles have mass, and how do they get mass. The chief theoretical answer that has been proposed for this question is: by their interaction with another very important particle within the model, which has not yet been seen. This proposed particle is the Higgs boson.
Since mass is such an important property of almost all things, you can now see why the Higgs is important. If it cannot be found or can be showed not to exist, the question of why things have mass will be unanswered, and some new theory will perhaps be required, one that might perhaps supplant the Standard Model. This would require a lot of revisions in physics which would be avoided by finding the Higgs.
