Discovery, unofficial! Higgs boson, 'God particle': new subatomic particle, without it, Universe does not exist?

A typical ‘candidate event’ in the Higgs-hunting CMS experiment. Red lines represent high-energy proton beams while yellow lines show the tracks of particles produced in the collision.

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The Higgs boson appears in a theory first fleshed out in 1964 by Peter Higgs at Edinburgh University and five other physicists. Finding the particle proves there is an energy field that fills the vacuum of the observable universe. It plays the crucial role of giving mass to certain subatomic particles that are the building blocks of matter. The Higgs field is thought to have switched on a trillionth of a second after the big bang that blasted the universe into existence. Without it, or something to do its job, the structure of the cosmos would be radically different than it is today.

So what is the Higgs boson?
According to HowStuffWorks, it's a hypothetical particle predicted by the standard model of physics that is thought to give mass to matter -- so basically it's just how the universe was formed, no big deal. But researchers aren't quite ready to say they've made a discovery. "I agree that any reasonable outside observer would say, 'It looks like a discovery,'" theoretical physicist John Ellis, a professor who works at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), tells the Associated Press. "We've discovered something which is consistent with being a Higgs."

'God particle' that gives mass to the universe thought to have been found in Large Hadron Collider, announce scientists
In presentations given to a packed auditorium at the laboratory on Wednesday morning, and webcast around the world, the leaders of two research teams, who worked independently of each other, said they had spotted a new particle amid the microscopic flashes of primordial fire created inside the world's most powerful atom smasher. Cern stopped short of claiming official discovery of the Higgs boson, even as many physicists conceded the evidence was now so compelling they had surely found the missing particle.

Evidence of 'God particle' reportedly found
The physics world was abuzz Monday with early reports that the elusive "God particle" had been detected at Europe's premier physics lab. Discovering the particle, formally called the Higgs boson, would finalize physicists' understanding of how subatomic particles have mass, which gives an object weight.

Two international physics teams at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva will present their results Wednesday. Their data should reveal a definitive signature that the particle exists as seen in the atom-smasher experiments at CERN. Physicists have been pursuing the Higgs boson for three decades to understand how particles create forces, such as electromagnetism.

To physicists, mass isn't what we carry around on our waists, but the amount of resistance that matter produces as it's being moved, or inertia. In theory, the God particle, a term coined by physicist Leon Lederman to capture its elusiveness, interacts with the other particles to give them inertia.

A half-century scientific quest culminated early Wednesday as physicists announced the discovery of a new subatomic particle - one theorized to be so fundamental that without it, nothing could exist.

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Images courtesy CERN and Getty Images