Higgs Boson Particle Found? God Particle Discovery A Step Closer

More evidence of the almost legendary God Particle, aka the Higgs boson, has been detected by the U.S. "Atom Smasher." The exciting news moves scientists closer to achieving what they've been searching for, for over 30 years. Scientists are hoping that soon they will be able to make a definitive statement on the existence of the so called God Particle.

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The Higgs boson would fill a huge hole in the generally accepted physicist theory of how the entire Universe works.

Although the U.S. Tevatron particle accelerator was shut down last year, data from experiments are continuing to be analyzed. The accelerator conducted hundreds of trillions of particle collisions since March 2001 at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Illinois.

Scientists have claimed to have seen hints of the boson in their results. However, the final analysis does not absolutely confirm the existence of the Higgs boson yet; there is roughly a one in 1,000 chance that the result is attributable to some statistical quirk in the data.  The results obtained identify a signal at a 2.9-sigma level of certainty. In particle physics three sigma equates to "evidence." For a full blown "discovery" a sigma of five is required, which would mean there is only a one in a million chance that any given result is a fluke.

"Our data strongly point toward the existence of the Higgs boson, but it will take results from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to establish a discovery," said Fermilab's Rob Roser, co-spokesperson for the Tevatron's CDF experiment.

Stefan Soldner-Rembold, professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester, told BBC News: "The evidence is piling up... everything points in the direction that the Higgs is there. At the Tevatron a lot of important work has been done over the last years... it has been essential for arriving at this stage.

"So yes, the Tevatron experiments should get recognition for that, even though the LHC will be the collider to provide the final proof that the Higgs exists."

Scientists are unable to see the God Particle directly by any means, rather physicists must infer its existence by evidence of how other particles have interacted with it - by decaying or transforming.