A great article, Chasing the Higgs Boson, in the NY Times (Science, Mar 5) paints an elegant portrait of the ups-and-downs experienced by physicists working at the Large Hadron Collider over the past few years. Two large teams of physicists – more like ‘armies’ really – toiled over separate particle detectors so that they could be the first ones to find the Higgs, if it existed at all. (Two independent teams not only doubled the chances of detection, but it was also hoped that two sets of measurements would nail down the discovery once it was made.)
An interesting view of high profile, high $$$, high stakes science. I wonder what the LHC janitors think about when they go home at night?
