# Canonical recap data for Higgs Boson Discovered at CERN (2012)
# Source: https://recap.at/2012/higgs-boson-discovery
# Format: YAML 1.2 (UTF-8). Generated at request time.
slug: higgs-boson-discovery
canonicalUrl: "https://recap.at/2012/higgs-boson-discovery"
title: Higgs Boson Discovered at CERN
aliases:
- Higgs particle discovery
- July 4, 2012 CERN announcement
- God particle found
- Standard Model confirmation
subtitle: Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider confirmed the Higgs boson, validating the Standard Model and deepening understanding of particle physics.
recapType: global_event
eventStatus: concluded
startDate: 2012-01-01
datePrecision: year
year: 2012
decade: 2010
country:
name: Switzerland
slug: switzerland
summaryShort: The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson that couples to particles who
summaryLong: The Higgs boson, sometimes called the Higgs particle, is an elementary particle in the Standard Model of particle physics produced by the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, one of the fields in particle physics theory. In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a massive scalar boson that couples to particles whose mass arises from their interactions with the Higgs field, has zero spin, even (positive) parity, no electric charge, and no color charge. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately upon generation.
lede: On July 4, 2012, physicists at CERN announced they'd found the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle that had eluded detection for nearly 50 years. The discovery confirmed a crucial piece of the Standard Model—the theory explaining how matter gets its mass—and represented the culmination of decades of theoretical prediction and experimental effort by thousands of scientists.
heroImageUrl: "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/79/Candidate_Higgs_Events_in_ATLAS_and_CMS.png/1280px-Candidate_Higgs_Events_in_ATLAS_and_CMS.png"
heroImageCredit: Wikipedia · "Higgs boson"
importance: 86
sourceConfidence: 75
keyFacts:
- label: Announcement date
  value: July 4, 2012
- label: Location
  value: CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
- label: Predicted
  value: 1964 by Peter Higgs and others
- label: Confidence level
  value: 5 sigma (99.99997% certainty)
- label: Particle mass
  value: 125.1 GeV/c²
- label: Instrument
  value: Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
- label: Physicists involved
  value: 13,000 from 180 countries
- label: Search duration
  value: 48 years (1964-2012)
timeline:
- date: 1964-07-01
  title: Higgs mechanism proposed
  description: Peter Higgs and others independently propose the Higgs field and boson as explanation for particle mass.
- date: 1983-01-01
  title: W and Z bosons confirmed
  description: Discovery of W and Z bosons at CERN by Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer lends credence to electroweak theory, which depends on Higgs mechanism.
- date: 1989-11-10
  title: Large Electron-Positron Collider opens
  description: LEP begins operations at CERN, beginning the hunt for Higgs boson with increasingly precise experiments.
- date: 2008-09-10
  title: Large Hadron Collider startup
  description: LHC, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, begins operations at CERN to search for Higgs boson and other phenomena.
- date: 2010-11-30
  title: LHC reaches design energy
  description: LHC reaches 7 TeV collision energy, significantly increasing chances of producing Higgs boson events.
- date: 2012-07-04
  title: Higgs boson announced
  description: CERN announces discovery of Higgs-like boson with 5-sigma significance in both ATLAS and CMS experiments.
- date: 2013-03-14
  title: Particle confirmed as Higgs
  description: CERN confirms discovered particle is consistent with Standard Model Higgs boson after additional analysis.
- date: 2013-10-08
  title: Nobel Prize awarded
  description: Peter Higgs and François Englert awarded Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical prediction of Higgs mechanism.
sources:
- url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson"
  title: Higgs boson
  provider: Wikipedia
related: []
impactStatement: The Higgs boson discovery validated 48 years of theoretical prediction and closed a major gap in particle physics. It demonstrated the power of international scientific collaboration—13,000 physicists from 180 countries working on the Large Hadron Collider—and provided experimental proof that the mechanism explaining mass itself actually exists.
categories:
- tech-launch
metaDescription: CERN physicists confirm discovery of the Higgs boson on July 4, 2012, validating 50 years of theoretical prediction.
wikidataQid: Q402
archiveSnapshots:
- url: "https://web.archive.org/web/20120703102502/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson"
  capturedAt: 2012-07-03
  label: Higgs boson
  originalUrl: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson"
taxonomy:
domain: scientific
eventTypes:
- particle_discovery
canonicalClasses:
- discovery
impactRadius: global
velocity: sudden
predictability: forecastable
intentionality: planned
domainCoupling: single_domain
lifecycleClass: birth
