A recent, headline-grabbing discovery that has caused excitement in the scientific community is the topic of the next Science Café. “Why do things have mass? Discovery of the Higgs Boson,” presented by Andrei Kryjevski, NDSU research assistant professor of physics, is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 11, at 7 p.m. in Stoker’s Basement of the Hotel Donaldson in downtown Fargo.
“Our everyday experience tells us that objects around us have mass. It is harder to move a shopping cart loaded with milk jugs than an empty one. But where does mass come from at the most fundamental level? Until very recently, this seemingly simple question did not have a definitive answer,” explained Kryjevski, noting the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research has provided experimental confirmation to an important theory on mass generation.
Kryjevski said the mechanism of mass generation for subatomic particles that constitute ordinary matter, known as the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, was theoretically proposed in the 1960s. According to the theory, particles acquire mass due to interaction with the so-called Higgs field permeating everything.
“Think of two persons walking through a room full of people. One is a celebrity and the other is not. In this analogy, the two persons are a pair of subatomic particles and people in the room are the Higgs field,” Kryjevski said. “Compared to the unknown person, it is harder for the celebrity to move through the room full of fans who all want to talk to him or her. It appears as though the celebrity is more massive than the less popular person since he or she ‘interacts' with the fans stronger.”
Some have suggested the discovery of the Higgs Boson may guide other theories and developments in “new” physics.
Attendees must be 21 or older or accompanied by a parent or guardian. For more information about the Science Cafe, contact Keri Drinka at keri.drinka@ndsu.edu or 701-231-6131.
NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.