Peter Higgs

That atom is the smallest unit in a substance has had a long history to conclude. The idea of atom is the outcome of man’s analysis of nature and natural objects viewed by him from time to time  with proportionate advancement in his brain and its mode of action. Along with the path of progress, during 5^th century BCE, appeared in  Greek, two great philosophers, namely Leucippus and Democritus, who discovered the idea of atom, terming it as indivisible smallest part of matter.The idea of Democritus was that, if a piece of wood is cut into small parts and still smaller parts,again still smaller parts and if the process is continued, then a stage will come when further smaller pieces can not be cut. He termed that smallest piece as the atom of that original piece of wooden block. Leucippus was his contemporary thinker who thought in a similar manner.

   In later periods came John Dalton, a British chemist at around 1800 AD,  who had evolutionized the idea about atom. The idea ,that knocked philosophers’ mind about the smallest particle during 5^th century BCE, was established on a scientific footing after about 2300 years  by the British scientist John Dalton.This happens in science. The idea of dialectical process was explored initially by Zeno of Greek , by Buddha of India in the pre-Socratic era , but  there had occurred a great  break , after more than 2300 years for Hegel to bring back the moot point how the course of development of matter was proceeding. As regards atom the postulates of Dalton’s Atomic Theory are like this :

• The matter is made up of indivisible particles called atoms.
• The properties of all the atoms of a given element are same including mass.
• Atoms of different elements combine in fixed ratios to form compounds.
• Atoms are neither created nor destroyed.This holds good during chemical reactions also.
• Atoms of an element are identical in mass, size, and many other chemical or physical properties; but atoms of different elements differ in mass, size and many other chemical or physical properties.

    There we see here a great jump in the chain of discoveries from Democritus to Dalton . But the race did not stop there. The future courses of advancements show that the great Dalton’s atomic theory also had some short comings. Such as, the atom was not indivisible. He told that the atom was all solid and compact. His theory figured in the beginning of the 19^th century. Towards the end of the 19^th century J J Thomson discovered electron in the atom. Towards the beginning of the 20^th century . Ernest Rutherford  successfully triggered Gold Foil experiment and declared that major part of the atom was hollow and only in the small area there were the nucleus containing neutron and proton and orbiting the nucleus there were  electrons occupying very small area. He discovered a model in the atom similar to the solar system where the nucleus was at the centre as the sun and the electrons were moving around the nucleus like planets. So a lot of new informations have been available since the days of Democritus. According to Rutherford, an atom contains three types particles neutron and proton at the centre and electrons revolving around the centre. Neutrons are neutral, protons bear positive charges and electrons bear negative charges. It is known that same charges repel each other. So a question may reasonably  arise why the protons remaining together do not repel and collide with each other breaking the centre away. The reason is that if an electron while revolving releases energy, gets weak and dives into the centre from the lowermost shell and unites with one proton. The proton’s number getting reduced, creates counter force on the number of the neutrons. Then a neutron breaks into electron and proton. The proton makes the number as before and the electron moves upward to enter into the first orbit. This process goes on and a movement of particles from proton to neutron and back create a force called nuclear force which keep the system running. The researcher scientists have succeeded in discovering one important matter that the electrons are arranged in different orbits making shells getting gradually away from the centre and getting the total number of electrons to be two multiplied by n square, n being the number of shells ‘( i.e.2n²). The number of protons in the atom of one element makes its atomic number.  The elements are placed in the periodic table according to the increasing atomic number of elements. As after every eight elements, the elements show almost same properties, these elements are grouped together and placed in the same column. This arrangement is called Mandeleev’s  periodic table. The table has also been developed further to make the study of the elements convenient.

The study is getting lengthy with the discovery of more properties of the particles. Firstly, the atom was told to be indivisible. Later it was found divisible. Then proton was termed indivisible. Later on,  penetration was made into the proton. Thus was discovered quarks inside the proton. Another smaller particle is discovered to be named lepton along side with electron.

Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons. There are six types of quarks called flavors, such as: up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top. Up and down quarks have the lowest masses of all quarks. Up and down quarks create mass. Strange quarks are formed in pair-production processes in collisions between constituents of the plasma. When electron from the outermost orbit gets shifted or electron is added to an outermost orbit, ion is formed. If an atom assumes the charged stage, capable of gaining electron or releasing electron, and termed as positive ions or negative ions,  this is known to be plasma. There are another small particle called leptons.

What are leptons?

Leptons are small particles that include electrons.They carry electric charge ( -1e), termed charge leptons.  A lepton is an elementary particle of half-integer spin (spin ¹⁄₂) . There exist two types of leptons: charged leptons (also known as the electron-like leptons), and neutral leptons (better known as neutrinos). Unlike quarks, leptons do not carry colour charges. They also undergo radioactive decay. As such  they are subject to weak interaction.

What is Higgs boson?

To define Higgs boson, it is necessary for one to be apprised of standard model of particle physics. Standard Model theory concerns electromagnetic strong and weak interactions.These interactions mediate the dynamics of subatomic particles. The things that are discovered or hypothesized are quarks, neutro Higgs boson and their varieties.That is why standard model is sometimes regarded as `theory of almost everything’. In this standard model there is an elementary particle named Higgs boson or Higgs particle. Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs, a prominent physicist. Higgs boson is a subatomic particle, massive in character and also decays almost immediately after being created. Higgs boson has a very important property of contributing mass to matter. Particles like protons and neutrons have mass. Higgs boson provides mass to protons and neutrons. Particles like photons do not have any mass. Different subatomic particles are responsible for giving matter different properties.

The `God particle’ is the nick name given to the subatomic particle called Higgs boson. But many physicists including Peter Higgs have disliked this nickname.The search for the elusive particle has taken more than 40 years and led  to the completion one of the world’s most expensive complex experiment. By March 2013, the particle had been proven to behave, interact, and decay in many of the ways predicted for Higgs boson to behave. On December 10, 2013, two of the original researchers Peter Higgs and Fancois Engert were awarded Nobel Prize in Physics for this work. Is it the end?

         The main spirit of my submission is that our findings have not come to an end. The scientists are working day and night to reveal  the secrets of the nature  one after another. For atom the attempt started from the philosopher-cum- scientist Democritus. He hypothesized the smallest particle to be derived by cutting one thing again and again as many times as possible and termed the smallest piece to be `atom’. The smallest thing of this type was not actually atom, at best it might be `molecule’, carrying the property of the compound got cut. Dalton discovered atom and brought forward the difference between molecule and atom. It was a jump of knowledge enlighting us how to scrutinize properties of an element. The atom was told to have been compact in nature without any vacant place in it. Then Thomson discovered electron. Rutherford proved atom to be hollow in major area . not to be the smallest  particle and discovered protons , neutrons and electrons as its parts. It was then assessed that these are the small particles. But time has proved that smallness has no limit. Quarks, leptons, etc are still smaller. But the quest does not stop, Quarks, termed as God’s particles, have exhibited six flavors and given out the secret of the mass- building phenomenon. So also the facts lie in the detailed study of the leptons. Now the question arises , where to end. Is there  practically any end to our knowledge to be gathered as regards the inside view of atom ? The space in the universe is endless in diverge direction. In area the universe is endless. An atom is small and limited. But the discovery of mystery inside this particle cannot be taken to have come to an end. So it is limitless in terms of smallness.   The movement inside the atom has been exploring newer informations step by step. As smallness cannot have a limit, so also exploration of knowledge  cannot have limit. So far the vastness is concerned , the space is spread in as large a volume as possible. Up till now 4000 crores of stars are known to have appeared in the lens of the researcher scientists, the farthest star, as of now, being located at a distance of five billion light years from the earth. Its name is MACS J1149 plus 2223 lensed star as detected on April 2, 2018. It may now be easily said that vastness does not end there. So we are lying between two diverge infinities ,`smallest’ and `largest’, yielding  a challenge to the race of our knowledge.

        While studying the phenomenon of evolution, it is experienced that aquatic animals made a continued attempt to get rid of water, The evolution of amphibian and then reptilian animals resulted in order to negate water. After settlement over the soil surface of the earth, the struggle was gradually launched against gravitation. The evolution of birds and the two-legged man is the result of the struggle against gravitation. This struggle has up till now enabled man to resort to the invention of aeroplane , sputnik, rockets etc. The journey in space will not be limited to Mars or Jupiter only. It is open to move beyond our solar system too. As regards medical sciences, most of the previous types of diseases came under full treatment, It is seen that the newer forms of germs are found to attack people with the normal diseases getting medically treated. So the question rises to be asked where to stop.