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The 'God Particle' Explained in Two Minutes by the Man Who Discovered It
This undated image made available by CERN shows a typical candidate event in the search for the Higgs boson, including two high-energy photons whose energy (depicted by red lines) is measured in the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter. The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in the collision. Physicists Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain have won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics, Tuesday Oct. 8, 2013. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the two scientists for the "theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles." (AP/CERN, File)

The 'God Particle' Explained in Two Minutes by the Man Who Discovered It

"Could you encapsulate that information in 30 seconds?"

Who better to describe the Higgs boson -- colloquially called the "God particle" -- than the man who helped theorized its existence and is its name sake?

Dr. Peter Higgs sat down with the BBC's Life Scientific radio program Monday and gave one of the most basic descriptions he could.

One would think that the subatomic particle, which researchers at the CERN particle accelerator in Geneva, Switzerland, have been just shy of officially finding, would be complicated to explain -- and it can be.

Professor Peter Higgs stands in front of a photograph of the Large Hadron Collider at the Science Museum's 'Collider' exhibition on November 12, 2013 in London, England. At the exhibition, which opens to the public on November 13, 2013 visitors will see a theatre, video and sound art installation and artefacts from the Large Hadron Collider, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva. It touches on the discovery of the Higgs boson, or God particle, the realisation of scientist Peter Higgs theory. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images) Professor Peter Higgs stands in front of a photograph of the Large Hadron Collider at the Science Museum's 'Collider' exhibition on November 12, 2013 in London, England. At the exhibition, which opens to the public on November 13, 2013 visitors will see a theatre, video and sound art installation and artefacts from the Large Hadron Collider, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the CERN particle physics laboratory in Geneva. It touches on the discovery of the Higgs boson, or God particle, the realisation of scientist Peter Higgs theory. (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images)

But the Nobel laureate was able to get to the key points in just two minutes on BBC's show.

Dr. Higgs' initial reaction to the question "What is the Higgs boson?" was a chuckle.

Then he launched into it.

"…these particles are just packages of energy of some kind of field," the 84-year-old said. "And the feature [that] distinguishes this kind of theory, which leads to this kind of symmetry breaking, is the existence of what we, theoretical physicists, call the vacuum, which means nowadays something different than what it used to mean. It's just the lowest energy state that you could possibily have in which there are no particles around but there maybe something around. And that something around can be a background field of some sort, which pervades the universe.

This undated image made available by CERN shows a typical candidate event in the search for the Higgs boson, including two high-energy photons whose energy (depicted by red lines) is measured in the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter. The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in the collision. Physicists Francois Englert of Belgium and Peter Higgs of Britain have won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics, Tuesday Oct. 8, 2013. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the two scientists for the "theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles." (AP/CERN, File) This undated image made available by CERN shows a typical candidate event in the search for the Higgs boson, including two high-energy photons whose energy (depicted by red lines) is measured in the CMS electromagnetic calorimeter. The yellow lines are the measured tracks of other particles produced in the collision.  (AP/CERN, File)

"In this theory, there is such a background field. And the background field, its interaction with all the other stuff that goes through, is responsible for generating the masses and mass differences of the other particles, elementary particles, [those] which are packages of all the energy in other fields. Simply because the background affects the way the waves propagate.

"But then, the field itself can be excited, or classically to give you waves to the packages of energy of that are the Higgs boson. So it's an extra which comes with this type of theory, that you need to have something there, which is the excitation of the background field."

"For me, that's a beautifully eloquent explanation of what the Higgs field is or what the Higgs mechanism is," the radio host said.

Then the host hits him with a more difficult question: "Could you encapsulate that information in 30 seconds?"

The answer from Dr. Higgs? A simple "no."

Watch the clip where Dr. Higgs gives you a brief overview of the Higgs Boson in 120 seconds:

Higgs first described the elusive particle in 1964. In March 2013, researcher's analysis of data from CERN regarding boson research said it "strongly indicated" the finding of the particle that scientists say is a building block of the universe.

(H/T: Gizmodo)

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