Physicists Find Elusive Particle Seen as Key to Universe

Like Omar Sharif materializing out of the shimmering desert as a man on a camel in “Lawrence of Arabia,” the elusive boson has been coming slowly into view since last winter, as the first signals of its existence grew until they practically jumped off the chart.

“I think we have it,” said Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director general of CERN, the multinational research center headquartered in Geneva. The agency is home to the Large Hadron Collider, the immense particle accelerator that produced the new data by colliding protons. The findings were announced by two separate teams. Dr. Heuer called the discovery “a historic milestone.”

He and others said that it was too soon to know for sure, however, whether the new particle is the one predicted by the Standard Model, the theory that has ruled physics for the last half-century. The particle is predicted to imbue elementary particles with mass. It may be an impostor as yet unknown to physics, perhaps the first of many particles yet to be discovered.

That possibility is particularly exciting to physicists, as it could point the way to new, deeper ideas, beyond the Standard Model, about the nature of reality.

For now, some physicists are simply calling it a “Higgslike” particle.

“It’s something that may, in the end, be one of the biggest observations of any new phenomena in our field in the last 30 or 40 years,” said Joe Incandela, a physicist of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a spokesman for one of the two groups reporting new data on Wednesday.

Here at the Aspen Center for Physics, a retreat for scientists, bleary-eyed physicists drank Champagne in the wee hours as word arrived via Webcast from CERN. It was a scene duplicated in Melbourne, Australia, where physicists had gathered for a major conference, as well as in Los Angeles, Chicago, Princeton, New York, London and beyond — everywhere that members of a curious species have dedicated their lives and fortunes to the search for their origins in a dark universe.

In Geneva, 1,000 people stood in line all night to get into an auditorium at CERN, where some attendees noted a rock-concert ambience. Peter Higgs, the University of Edinburgh theorist for whom the boson is named, entered the meeting to a sustained ovation.

Confirmation of the Higgs boson or something very much like it would constitute a rendezvous with destiny for a generation of physicists who have believed in the boson for half a century without ever seeing it. The finding affirms a grand view of a universe described by simple and elegant and symmetrical laws — but one in which everything interesting, like ourselves, results from flaws or breaks in that symmetry.

According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass. Particles wading through the field gain heft the way a bill going through Congress attracts riders and amendments, becoming ever more ponderous.

Without the Higgs field, as it is known, or something like it, all elementary forms of matter would zoom around at the speed of light, flowing through our hands like moonlight. There would be neither atoms nor life.

Physicists said that they would probably be studying the new particle for years. Any deviations from the simplest version predicted by current theory — and there are hints of some already — could begin to answer questions left hanging by the Standard Model. For example, what is the dark matter that provides the gravitational scaffolding of galaxies?

And why is the universe made of matter instead of antimatter?

“If the boson really is not acting standard, then that will imply that there is more to the story — more particles, maybe more forces around the corner,” Neal Weiner, a theorist at New York University, wrote in an e-mail. “What that would be is anyone’s guess at the moment.”

Wednesday’s announcement was also an impressive opening act for the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s biggest physics machine, which cost $10 billion to build and began operating only two years ago. It is still running at only half-power.

Physicists had been icing the Champagne ever since last December. Two teams of about 3,000 physicists each — one named Atlas, led by Fabiola Gianotti, and the other CMS, led by Dr. Incandela — operate giant detectors in the collider, sorting the debris from the primordial fireballs left after proton collisions.

Last winter, they both reported hints of the same particle. They were not able, however, to rule out the possibility that it was a statistical fluke. Since then, the collider has more than doubled the number of collisions it has recorded.

The results announced Wednesday capped two weeks of feverish speculation and Internet buzz as the physicists, who had been sworn to secrecy, did a breakneck analysis of about 800 trillion proton-proton collisions over the last two years.

Up until last weekend, physicists at the agency were saying that they themselves did not know what the outcome would be. Expectations soared when it was learned that the five surviving originators of the Higgs boson theory had been invited to the CERN news conference.

The December signal was no fluke, the scientists said Wednesday. The new particle has a mass of about 125.3 billion electron volts, as measured by the CMS group, and 126 billion according to Atlas. Both groups said that the likelihood that their signal was a result of a chance fluctuation was less than one chance in 3.5 million, “five sigma,” which is the gold standard in physics for a discovery.

On that basis, Dr. Heuer said that he had decided only on Tuesday afternoon to call the Higgs result a “discovery.”

He said, “I know the science, and as director general I can stick out my neck.”

Dr. Incandela’s and Dr. Gianotti’s presentations were repeatedly interrupted by applause as they showed slide after slide of data presented in graphs with bumps rising like mountains from the sea.

Dr. Gianotti noted that the mass of the putative Higgs, apparently one of the heaviest subatomic particles, made it easy to study its many behaviors. “Thanks, nature,” she said.

Gerald Guralnik, one of the founders of the Higgs theory, said he was glad to be at a physics meeting “where there is applause, like a football game.”

Asked to comment after the announcements, Dr. Higgs seemed overwhelmed. “For me, it’s really an incredible thing that’s happened in my lifetime,” he said.

Dr. Higgs was one of six physicists, working in three independent groups, who in 1964 invented what came to be known as the Higgs field. The others were Tom Kibble of Imperial College, London; Carl Hagen of the University of Rochester; Dr. Guralnik of Brown University; and François Englert and Robert Brout, both of Université Libre de Bruxelles.

One implication of their theory was that this cosmic molasses, normally invisible, would produce its own quantum particle if hit hard enough with the right amount of energy. The particle would be fragile and fall apart within a millionth of a second in a dozen possible ways, depending upon its own mass.

Unfortunately, the theory did not describe how much this particle should weigh, which is what made it so hard to find, eluding researchers at a succession of particle accelerators, including the Large Electron Positron Collider at CERN, which closed down in 2000, and the Tevatron at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, or Fermilab, in Batavia, Ill., which shut down last year.

Along the way the Higgs boson achieved a notoriety rare in abstract physics. To the eternal dismay of his colleagues, Leon Lederman, the former director of Fermilab, called it the “God particle,” in his book of the same name, written with Dick Teresi. (He later said that he had wanted to call it the “goddamn particle.”)

Finding the missing boson was one of the main goals of the Large Hadron Collider. Both Dr. Heuer and Dr. Gianotti said they had not expected the search to succeed so quickly.

So far, the physicists admit, they know little about their new boson. The CERN results are mostly based on measurements of two or three of the dozen different ways, or “channels,” by which a Higgs boson could be produced and then decay.

There are hints, but only hints so far, that some of the channels are overproducing the boson while others might be underproducing it, clues that maybe there is more at work here than the Standard Model would predict.

“This could be the first in a ring of discoveries,” said Guido Tonelli of CERN.

In an e-mail, Maria Spiropulu, a professor at the California Institute of Technology who works with the CMS team of physicists, said: “I personally do not want it to be standard model anything — I don’t want it to be simple or symmetric or as predicted. I want us all to have been dealt a complex hand that will send me (and all of us) in a (good) loop for a long time.”

Nima Arkani-Hamed, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, said: “It’s a triumphant day for fundamental physics. Now some fun begins.”

Jason Kidd reportedly spurns the Dallas Mavericks to finish a career off as a New York Knick

Only in the NBA, and in this nutty offseason, would spurning the Dallas Mavericks for the New York Knicks actually feel like a good idea. And though the Knicks aren't about to set the Eastern Conference ablaze, something about veteran Jason Kidd deciding to leave the Mavericks as a free agent and join New York just feels right. Even if the Dallas Mavericks might be a few tweaks and trades away from being better next year. Even if the Mavs are led by a billionaire who actually thinks things out. Even if the Knicks are the Knicks.
Jason Kidd lives in the New York metropolitan area. He's enjoyed two stints with the Dallas Mavericks with the latter culminating in an NBA championship in 2011, but he's also shot just over 36 percent from the field his last two seasons. He turned the ball over on nearly a quarter of the possessions he used up last year, his defense has faded significantly, and his 3-point shooting has dipped down to the ranks of below average. And yet two teams wanted him, badly, enough to potentially pay him until he turned 42 — even if we're currently unaware of just how many years this three-year deal is guaranteed for.
And he chose the Knicks — THE KNICKS!
(And it makes sense.)
Far beyond the initial cable TV reaction that has us immediately looking toward Kidd's ability to potentially mentor Jeremy Lin, the sad-yet-warming fact is that the best thing Kidd does well now is exactly what these oddball Knicks need — someone to throw a two-footed lob pass through and/or above the defense as they attempt to front Carmelo Anthony at the triple-threat position, or the increasingly stagnant Amar'e Stoudemire by shooting the gap between him and his much-loved elbow-extended spot at the high post.
In a way, Kidd will be acting as a Mark Jackson sort. Teams won't have to guard him but will, and he'll just pinpoint with passes while taking advantage of the fact that teams will continue to overreact and treat him as a major threat from behind the 3-point arc. It's a simple, staid offense that will be run by a man with a brain that demands complexity and improvisation and quick movement, though his weary legs guarantee that this brain has to play down to his team's offense.
If that sounds like a shot at both Kidd and the Knicks, it is; but that doesn't mean we shouldn't agree to the move, and we certainly agree that this is an upgrade. I'm very much looking forward to this setup.
At this point, Carmelo Anthony is stuck where he's at. He was always more Adrian Dantley than Ray Allen -- and the problem inherent in that is that Anthony always had the ability to be a fabulous combination of the two, and that Dantley was paid like and treated as a secondary star. Anthony has never given himself the legs nor the space to turn into the sort of player that can drive defenses batty even without touching a ball during a possession, as he's constantly coming to the strong side and demanding things. Sometimes it works, and you get those 30 points on an efficient night. Usually, it's just big numbers with a lot of hoggin' goin' on. I can't blame Anthony at this point, it's all he knows.
Kidd will aid in that sort of play. He'll take chances with over the top lobs that will force Anthony to move more; to grab a pass like Willie Mays grabbed Vic Wertz's bomb, spin and find that baseline wide open for a play to put the opposing defense in the penalty. Kidd will allow Stoudemire, who might not be as explosive when he changes course and dips backdoor after his defender overplays the entry pass these days, for the perfectly timed touch pass spaced well enough to get Amar'e a good look while affording him enough time to avoid that help defender and potential charge.
He really is a quarterback, at this point. A Dan Marino in his final year at quarterback with those plodding legs, to be sure, but there will be times when Kidd will adapt.
The Knicks weren't going anywhere, either. If they pull a sign-and-trade for Kidd, they can keep the salary cap exemption they were planning on using to sign the guard. They are sure to reel J.R. Smith back in, a player that Kidd can find in transition and give that Kidd-branded exasperated half-smile to. They can even decide to either take out Houston's aggression against itself and walk away from matching the hefty price tag for the guard in Jeremy Lin that they cut eight months ago (while going after Raymond Felton as a result), or they can commit to Lin and that obvious Sports Illustrated feature for next fall ("he's been the best, you can't help but pay attention to everything he says" Lin went on …).
Essentially, now that the Knicks have locked themselves into nearly hitting the salary cap, on average, through just Anthony, Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler over the next three seasons, this a fair bit of reconciliation. Even if Kidd could fall even further off, which seems hard to do, his thin salary could be used in a deal, or just shuttled away.

Serena Williams Wins 5th Wimbledon Title

England - Eighteen years had passed. Amazingly, the faces had not changed. The orchestrator, Richard Williams, was there with his trusty camera. Venus Williams alternated smiles and tears, covering her face with her hands. Sister Isha was right up front with the mom, Oracene. And there was Serena, leaping into a box full of these familiar faces, celebrating a Wimbledon victory that defined this family for all time.

Watching Serena's 6-1, 5-7, 6-2 victory over Agnieszka Radwanska unfold on Centre Court, and especially the aftermath, I found myself transported back to a Halloween night in the Oakland Coliseum Arena, 1994. It was Venus' debut as a 14-year-old professional. The crowd was sparse, a mere trifle compared with the Rolling Stones' concert taking place next door. The echoes of a well-struck tennis ball competed with the thumping reverberations of bass-line rock and roll.

Venus was gangly, upbeat and ready as all hell. She was facing the 59th-ranked player in the world, Shaun Stafford, but she savored the prospect. This was winning time, Day 1. "I'm just here to have fun," she said after defeating Stafford in straight sets. "But I wasn't surprised. I know I can play."

It seemed that half of the people in attendance that night were tennis writers, come from far and wide. Some of us sat down with Richard to hear the back story. He was intensely skeptical about Venus turning pro so young, saying he'd advised her against it, but that it seemed to be working out OK. "And she's got a younger sister, Serena," he said, "that's gonna be even better."

Eighteen years ago. Serena had just turned 13. So, Richard, you're saying you've got two girls who could change the face of women's tennis?

That's what came to mind Saturday at Wimbledon. As the traditional pomp and circumstance transpired on Centre Court, with the marching ball kids and the stuffy officials in crisp blue blazers and the ever-reliable Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, it was all about Serena Williams' private box. On a women's tour characterized by falsehoods and the vague, this was a day that brought clarity.

There's a certain charm to the unpredictability of it all, but this sport needs a strong, viable champion. It hasn't been Samantha Stosur, who won last year's U.S. Open but reverted to head-case tennis. It wasn't Li Na, who has struggled under the weight of her French Open title. Petra Kvitova's 2011 Wimbledon championship seems a bit of a mirage. Victoria Azarenka somehow has reclaimed the No. 1 ranking, and that crown on her head feels more like a refrigerator.

There's something concrete and authentic about a Williams triumph, anywhere, but especially at Wimbledon. Serena and Venus have five singles titles apiece - that's 10 of the past 13 years. This was the 14th major title for Serena, two more than Billie Jean King and not so distantly removed from the 18 shared by Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova (the all-time leaders are Margaret Court, with 24, Steffi Graf, with 22. In an earlier era, Helen Wills Moody won 19).

"I've seen 'em all," said John McEnroe after working the final for BBC television, "and I believe that Serena is the greatest female that's ever played. It's not just the wins, it's the fact that she had an older sister doing so many big things in tennis, and Serena comes in to steal her thunder.

"The grace and support Venus has given Serena is unbelievable. And so genuine. Just think what these two had to go through when they played each other. How in the world do you do that?"

Serena says she has gained immeasurable strength from Venus' bold fight against Sjögren's Syndrome, an autoimmune disease that leaves her intermittently fatigued. Without a word of complaint, at a time when she could ease comfortably into retirement, Venus soldiers on toward the Olympics (in London later this month) and perhaps more major tournaments.