1 00:00:02,770 --> 00:00:07,506 NARRATOR: They built the largest, most complex machine in history, 2 00:00:07,541 --> 00:00:11,310 to probe the deepest mysteries of the early universe, 3 00:00:11,345 --> 00:00:16,348 as it was at the beginning of time. 4 00:00:16,384 --> 00:00:20,519 MAN: The Large Hadron Collider is allowing us to see right back 5 00:00:20,554 --> 00:00:24,623 to ten to the minus 12 seconds after the Big Bang. 6 00:00:26,260 --> 00:00:28,961 NARRATOR: Within two massive detectors, 7 00:00:28,996 --> 00:00:32,297 in conditions harsher even than outer space, 8 00:00:32,333 --> 00:00:35,901 tiny particles smash together at nearly the speed of light... 9 00:00:38,472 --> 00:00:40,839 unleashing incredible energy. 10 00:00:40,875 --> 00:00:42,374 MAN: Trying to figure out 11 00:00:42,410 --> 00:00:47,179 what happens in the collision of two protons at very high energy 12 00:00:47,214 --> 00:00:49,681 is like analyzing what happens 13 00:00:49,717 --> 00:00:52,217 in the high-speed collision of two garbage trucks. 14 00:00:52,253 --> 00:00:56,155 NARRATOR: Within that spray of debris, physicists search 15 00:00:56,190 --> 00:01:01,160 for a tiny bundle of energy, a subatomic particle... 16 00:01:01,195 --> 00:01:06,899 proof of an invisible energy field that fills all of space. 17 00:01:06,934 --> 00:01:08,500 It just may be 18 00:01:08,536 --> 00:01:11,503 the most important feature of our universe. 19 00:01:11,539 --> 00:01:13,539 Without it... 20 00:01:13,574 --> 00:01:14,940 There are no atoms, 21 00:01:14,975 --> 00:01:16,308 there's no chemistry, there's no life. 22 00:01:16,343 --> 00:01:20,479 NARRATOR: 50 years of effort, $10 billion, 23 00:01:20,514 --> 00:01:23,182 and thousands of researchers around the world. 24 00:01:23,217 --> 00:01:25,884 For them, the stakes have never been higher. 25 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:27,286 MAN: It's practically 26 00:01:27,321 --> 00:01:30,155 my whole professional life that's led to this point. 27 00:01:30,191 --> 00:01:34,393 NARRATOR: It's the moment of truth when science flips the switch 28 00:01:34,428 --> 00:01:36,328 on the Big Bang Machine. 29 00:01:36,363 --> 00:01:38,764 MAN: One, zero... 30 00:01:38,799 --> 00:01:41,867 NARRATOR: Right now, on NOVA. 31 00:01:56,951 --> 00:02:00,285 Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following: 32 00:02:04,892 --> 00:02:08,794 Supporting NOVA and promoting public understanding of science. 33 00:02:11,832 --> 00:02:15,334 And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 34 00:02:17,304 --> 00:02:20,739 And by contributions to your PBS station from: 35 00:02:26,413 --> 00:02:29,615 Additional funding is provided by Millicent Bell through: 36 00:02:36,056 --> 00:02:38,323 One of the world's most-wanted fugitives 37 00:02:38,359 --> 00:02:40,893 has finally been captured. 38 00:02:40,928 --> 00:02:41,960 Done! 39 00:02:41,996 --> 00:02:44,296 NARRATOR: The announcement came 40 00:02:44,331 --> 00:02:47,533 at the end of a high-speed, high-stakes chase. 41 00:02:47,568 --> 00:02:49,368 A mystery. 42 00:02:49,403 --> 00:02:51,436 300 people were hot on the trail. 43 00:02:51,472 --> 00:02:53,005 Decades worth of work. 44 00:02:53,040 --> 00:02:55,941 NARRATOR: It was a truly international effort 45 00:02:55,976 --> 00:02:58,710 that drew to its dramatic conclusion here. 46 00:02:58,746 --> 00:03:00,612 MAN: It's a historic milestone today. 47 00:03:00,648 --> 00:03:04,149 NARRATOR: On the border of France and Switzerland, 48 00:03:04,185 --> 00:03:07,486 300 feet below ground. 49 00:03:07,521 --> 00:03:09,955 But this wasn't a search for some outlaw 50 00:03:09,990 --> 00:03:12,257 or criminal mastermind. 51 00:03:12,293 --> 00:03:15,827 It was a hunt for something far more elusive... 52 00:03:22,570 --> 00:03:28,607 An unstable bundle of energy far smaller than an atom 53 00:03:28,642 --> 00:03:31,310 that winks out of existence 54 00:03:31,345 --> 00:03:33,445 in a trillion trillionth of a second. 55 00:03:36,517 --> 00:03:40,619 It's evidence of a force that fills all of space, 56 00:03:40,654 --> 00:03:43,455 completely invisible, and yet without it, 57 00:03:43,490 --> 00:03:49,761 life, earth, the universe we know could not exist. 58 00:03:52,967 --> 00:03:57,269 Finding this elusive particle marks the end of a quest 59 00:03:57,304 --> 00:04:01,373 that required constructing the largest, most complex machine 60 00:04:01,408 --> 00:04:02,975 the world has ever seen. 61 00:04:04,478 --> 00:04:07,446 A quest that consumed nearly half a century, 62 00:04:07,481 --> 00:04:10,549 billions of dollars, 63 00:04:10,584 --> 00:04:14,686 and asked thousands of scientists across the globe 64 00:04:14,722 --> 00:04:18,056 to invest years, even decades of their careers 65 00:04:18,092 --> 00:04:21,093 with no guarantee of success. 66 00:04:22,263 --> 00:04:23,962 I got a job to do this in 1993. 67 00:04:23,998 --> 00:04:25,964 It's eleventh year now. 68 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:27,566 About ten years, me. 69 00:04:27,601 --> 00:04:29,001 Yeah, and about five years for me. 70 00:04:29,036 --> 00:04:30,402 20 years, something like that. 71 00:04:30,437 --> 00:04:32,871 Since 1994, I guess. 72 00:04:32,906 --> 00:04:36,275 It's practically my whole professional life 73 00:04:36,310 --> 00:04:39,011 that's led to this point. 74 00:04:39,046 --> 00:04:41,280 NARRATOR: The discovery has been hailed 75 00:04:41,315 --> 00:04:45,917 as one of the greatest scientific victories of all time 76 00:04:45,953 --> 00:04:50,022 and has already won the Nobel Prize. 77 00:04:50,057 --> 00:04:51,390 It's an enormous triumph. 78 00:04:51,425 --> 00:04:53,625 This was my generation's Manhattan Project, 79 00:04:53,661 --> 00:04:55,560 and I wanted to be on the inside looking out. 80 00:04:55,596 --> 00:04:57,763 It's been extremely exciting. 81 00:05:01,201 --> 00:05:04,269 NARRATOR: But what is this mysterious quarry? 82 00:05:04,305 --> 00:05:06,705 What does it actually do? 83 00:05:06,740 --> 00:05:10,409 And why was finding it so important? 84 00:05:16,450 --> 00:05:23,155 That story begins at the very beginning of time, 85 00:05:23,190 --> 00:05:27,359 when the universe came into being in a massive explosion 86 00:05:27,394 --> 00:05:28,927 called the Big Bang. 87 00:05:28,962 --> 00:05:30,729 So here we have the Big Bang. 88 00:05:30,764 --> 00:05:33,332 NARRATOR: Billions of years ago. 89 00:05:33,367 --> 00:05:36,101 Deserves a little bit of color, I think. 90 00:05:36,136 --> 00:05:39,037 And then the timeline of the universe. 91 00:05:39,073 --> 00:05:41,707 This is where we are. 92 00:05:41,742 --> 00:05:44,009 This now the age of the universe, 93 00:05:44,044 --> 00:05:50,515 like 13.7 billion years after the Big Bang. 94 00:05:50,551 --> 00:05:54,152 And so working backwards, we had the dinosaurs. 95 00:05:54,188 --> 00:05:57,289 So here's a dinosaur. 96 00:05:57,324 --> 00:06:03,462 Then life itself, first DNA was about four billion years ago. 97 00:06:03,497 --> 00:06:05,697 NARRATOR: Before DNA, there was the earth. 98 00:06:07,835 --> 00:06:12,037 Before that, the first stars. 99 00:06:12,072 --> 00:06:15,207 Before them, just atoms. 100 00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:21,279 While atoms were once thought to consist 101 00:06:21,315 --> 00:06:23,148 of just three basic particles-- 102 00:06:23,183 --> 00:06:28,053 neutrons, protons and electrons-- 103 00:06:28,088 --> 00:06:31,456 physicists now know some of these are made 104 00:06:31,492 --> 00:06:35,594 of even more fundamental stuff-- 105 00:06:35,629 --> 00:06:38,964 the basic building blocks of our universe. 106 00:06:40,634 --> 00:06:42,134 JON BUTTERWORTH: The big question then is 107 00:06:42,169 --> 00:06:43,935 where did those building blocks come from? 108 00:06:43,971 --> 00:06:47,539 The answer to all that lies in the first second. 109 00:06:49,376 --> 00:06:51,309 NARRATOR: In the first instant of existence, 110 00:06:51,345 --> 00:06:55,547 when the universe was unimaginably hot, 111 00:06:55,582 --> 00:06:58,917 the cosmos was filled with identical bundles of energy 112 00:06:58,952 --> 00:07:01,486 moving at the speed of light, 113 00:07:01,522 --> 00:07:03,789 all indistinguishable from one another. 114 00:07:03,824 --> 00:07:08,326 But then something changed. 115 00:07:08,362 --> 00:07:10,262 Distinct types of particles emerged 116 00:07:10,297 --> 00:07:16,168 with different properties, like electric charge... 117 00:07:16,203 --> 00:07:20,372 and mass, what we experience as weight. 118 00:07:20,407 --> 00:07:25,610 Now we live in a universe full of tangible stuff. 119 00:07:25,646 --> 00:07:30,315 And while that monumental shift from nothing to something 120 00:07:30,350 --> 00:07:32,984 must have happened almost immediately, 121 00:07:33,020 --> 00:07:34,486 how it happened 122 00:07:34,521 --> 00:07:38,557 was one of the biggest unanswered questions in physics. 123 00:07:38,592 --> 00:07:41,526 The mysteries of existence lie within this second. 124 00:07:41,562 --> 00:07:44,095 Certainly we understand the science, 125 00:07:44,131 --> 00:07:45,764 we understand the physics. 126 00:07:45,799 --> 00:07:47,299 Work backwards into this second, 127 00:07:47,334 --> 00:07:48,667 but at some point we just run out of knowledge. 128 00:07:51,104 --> 00:07:54,172 And the Large Hadron Collider is allowing us to see 129 00:07:54,208 --> 00:08:01,480 right back to ten to the minus 12 seconds after the Big Bang. 130 00:08:01,515 --> 00:08:04,950 Beyond that, here be dragons or dinosaurs. 131 00:08:04,985 --> 00:08:05,984 (laughs) 132 00:08:10,958 --> 00:08:14,726 NARRATOR: The Large Hadron Collider is a massive particle accelerator, 133 00:08:14,761 --> 00:08:17,796 the largest machine in the world, 134 00:08:17,831 --> 00:08:21,132 designed to simulate the universe as it was 135 00:08:21,168 --> 00:08:24,936 a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. 136 00:08:24,972 --> 00:08:28,974 To solve the mystery of mass, it smashes protons together 137 00:08:29,009 --> 00:08:30,609 at energy so high... 138 00:08:34,014 --> 00:08:38,517 that it is capable of testing an idea first suggested in 1964 139 00:08:38,552 --> 00:08:41,486 by several scientists around the world, 140 00:08:41,522 --> 00:08:46,224 including a young theoretical physicist named Peter Higgs. 141 00:08:46,260 --> 00:08:50,295 His mathematics suggestethat right after the Big Bang, 142 00:08:50,330 --> 00:08:56,301 an invisible energy field was somehow switched on 143 00:08:56,336 --> 00:08:59,304 and now fills the entire universe. 144 00:09:00,741 --> 00:09:04,242 Just the way that a magnetic field affects some materials 145 00:09:04,278 --> 00:09:08,680 but not others, he suggested that this new field 146 00:09:08,715 --> 00:09:12,551 selectively affects some fundamental particles, 147 00:09:12,586 --> 00:09:15,420 causing some of them to take on mass. 148 00:09:15,455 --> 00:09:19,257 Very massive particles 149 00:09:19,293 --> 00:09:22,827 like the quarks that make up protons and neutrons 150 00:09:22,863 --> 00:09:25,297 interact strongly with this field. 151 00:09:25,332 --> 00:09:29,801 Electrons, which form the outer shells of atoms, 152 00:09:29,836 --> 00:09:34,739 interact less strongly and are very lightweight. 153 00:09:34,775 --> 00:09:38,910 And still others, like photons, particles of light, 154 00:09:38,946 --> 00:09:44,616 have no mass, because they don't interact with the field at all. 155 00:09:47,754 --> 00:09:51,523 The theory implied that a universe without a Higgs field 156 00:09:51,558 --> 00:09:55,560 might not be a very friendly place. 157 00:09:55,596 --> 00:09:58,063 And that got people's attention. 158 00:09:58,098 --> 00:09:59,831 If there were no Higgs mechanism, 159 00:09:59,866 --> 00:10:02,400 elementary particles wouldn't have mass. 160 00:10:02,436 --> 00:10:04,569 If electrons didn't have mass, 161 00:10:04,605 --> 00:10:06,905 that means they would move at the speed of light. 162 00:10:06,940 --> 00:10:09,174 And if electrons moved at the speed of light, 163 00:10:09,209 --> 00:10:12,077 electrons do not settle down into atoms. 164 00:10:12,112 --> 00:10:14,012 And if electrons do not settle down into atoms, 165 00:10:14,047 --> 00:10:16,081 there e no atoms, there are no molecules, 166 00:10:16,116 --> 00:10:17,916 there's no chemistry, there's no life. 167 00:10:17,951 --> 00:10:19,084 Nothing. 168 00:10:19,119 --> 00:10:20,552 It would look nothing like what we see today. 169 00:10:20,587 --> 00:10:21,853 We wouldn't be here, 170 00:10:21,888 --> 00:10:24,956 and there would be no physicists to ask these questions. 171 00:10:30,230 --> 00:10:32,731 NARRATOR: When Higgs submitted his theory to a journal, 172 00:10:32,766 --> 00:10:36,401 the editors based at CERN rejected it. 173 00:10:36,436 --> 00:10:37,969 HIGGS: My reaction was 174 00:10:38,005 --> 00:10:42,374 that they clearly hadn't understood what I was saying. 175 00:10:43,910 --> 00:10:45,810 NARRATOR: Undeterred, he revised the paper, 176 00:10:45,846 --> 00:10:48,880 adding a paragraph saying, in effect, 177 00:10:48,915 --> 00:10:52,384 that if the field exists, we should find evidence of it 178 00:10:52,419 --> 00:10:57,322 in the form of a particle that would turn up in an accelerator. 179 00:10:58,792 --> 00:11:02,594 In other words, if you smash particles together 180 00:11:02,629 --> 00:11:09,134 energetically, you'll make a ripple in the field. 181 00:11:09,169 --> 00:11:12,303 And if you apply enough energy, 182 00:11:12,339 --> 00:11:19,210 you just might be able to detect it in the form of a particle. 183 00:11:21,515 --> 00:11:23,848 The second time around, 184 00:11:23,884 --> 00:11:25,884 an American journal published the paper 185 00:11:25,919 --> 00:11:28,887 and Peter Higgs got a lot of credit. 186 00:11:28,922 --> 00:11:32,824 But in reality, the idea was cooked up independently 187 00:11:32,859 --> 00:11:35,026 by a bunch of scientists: 188 00:11:35,062 --> 00:11:39,831 Philip Anderson, Robert Brout, François Englert, 189 00:11:39,866 --> 00:11:42,834 Gerry Guralnik, Carl R. Hagen, 190 00:11:42,869 --> 00:11:47,105 Peter Higgs, Tom Kibble, Gerard 't Hooft. 191 00:11:47,140 --> 00:11:51,443 Some have suggested that it really should be called this. 192 00:11:51,478 --> 00:11:54,379 But since that's impossible to pronounce, 193 00:11:54,414 --> 00:11:58,216 it's simply called the Higgs field. 194 00:12:00,687 --> 00:12:02,387 Gradually, the theory gained support, 195 00:12:02,422 --> 00:12:05,457 but without the evidence of a particle, 196 00:12:05,492 --> 00:12:09,794 now called the Higgs boson, it remained unproven. 197 00:12:11,298 --> 00:12:13,565 To be honest, we weren't sure that the Higgs existed. 198 00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:16,835 Mr. Higgs and his collaborators were saying that there was 199 00:12:16,870 --> 00:12:19,370 an invisible energy field everywhere in the universe. 200 00:12:19,406 --> 00:12:21,706 So the "invisible" sounds a little odd, 201 00:12:21,742 --> 00:12:23,708 and the "everywhere in the universe" also sounds 202 00:12:23,744 --> 00:12:26,745 kind of far-fetched. 203 00:12:26,780 --> 00:12:28,680 So that was a lot for people to swallow. 204 00:12:28,715 --> 00:12:29,814 There were many people who thought 205 00:12:29,850 --> 00:12:31,049 this can't be the answer. 206 00:12:31,084 --> 00:12:34,819 I've heard people describe it as a trick, 207 00:12:34,855 --> 00:12:38,123 a mathematical trick to make the equations work out. 208 00:12:39,860 --> 00:12:41,526 NARRATOR: Finding something that's all around us 209 00:12:41,561 --> 00:12:43,728 is surprisingly tricky. 210 00:12:43,764 --> 00:12:48,600 Because the Higgs boson doesn't actually exist. 211 00:12:48,635 --> 00:12:52,504 At least not in any form that we can easily detect. 212 00:12:52,539 --> 00:12:57,709 So in 1998, scientists from around the world came together 213 00:12:57,744 --> 00:13:01,746 at CERN, the Center for European Nuclear Research, 214 00:13:01,782 --> 00:13:05,683 located on the border of France and Switzerland, 215 00:13:05,719 --> 00:13:08,853 to build a particle accelerator that would have enough power 216 00:13:08,889 --> 00:13:15,093 to create such a profound disturbance in the Higgs field 217 00:13:15,128 --> 00:13:18,663 that the predicted Higgs bosons would pop into existence 218 00:13:18,698 --> 00:13:20,632 and present themselves. 219 00:13:23,770 --> 00:13:26,905 But easier said than done. 220 00:13:31,144 --> 00:13:34,012 FABIOLA GIANOTTI: In order to find this particle, 221 00:13:34,047 --> 00:13:40,618 we had to build this complex, cutting-edge accelerator. 222 00:13:40,654 --> 00:13:42,687 The work is the work of thousands of people. 223 00:13:45,225 --> 00:13:46,925 20 years of effort went into building these detectors. 224 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:50,395 GIANOTTI: 20 years of efforts of the international community. 225 00:13:50,430 --> 00:13:53,832 NARRATOR: From dozens of nations, 226 00:13:53,867 --> 00:13:57,802 with the U.S. contributing $500 million. 227 00:14:00,907 --> 00:14:05,543 It took $10 billion and ten years 228 00:14:05,579 --> 00:14:09,914 to complete the Large Hadron Collider, 229 00:14:09,950 --> 00:14:13,651 a massive masterpiece of engineering, 230 00:14:13,687 --> 00:14:17,655 to find one of the tiniest pieces of the cosmos. 231 00:14:18,825 --> 00:14:21,359 It's a very cool and expensive eye 232 00:14:21,394 --> 00:14:24,529 that can look at very, very small distances 233 00:14:24,564 --> 00:14:26,831 like about a billionth of a billionth of a meter. 234 00:14:28,768 --> 00:14:30,969 LYN EVANS: We designed this machine 235 00:14:31,004 --> 00:14:33,872 so that wherever the Higgs boson would be, 236 00:14:33,907 --> 00:14:35,006 we would be able to find it. 237 00:14:37,077 --> 00:14:38,910 NARRATOR: Flushing the Higgs out of hiding 238 00:14:38,945 --> 00:14:43,982 begins in a modest little red bottle full of hydrogen atoms, 239 00:14:44,017 --> 00:14:46,918 the smallest and most abundant element in the universe. 240 00:14:46,953 --> 00:14:50,288 All the protons that we use at CERN are taken 241 00:14:50,323 --> 00:14:53,091 from a bottle that size. 242 00:14:53,126 --> 00:14:58,429 They start their journey here and they continue 243 00:14:58,465 --> 00:15:02,467 down this orange line, and that is the linear accelerator. 244 00:15:02,502 --> 00:15:06,304 NARRATOR: Trillions of hydrogen atoms stripped of their electrons 245 00:15:06,339 --> 00:15:07,972 are injected into the collider. 246 00:15:11,378 --> 00:15:13,177 STORR: Every 1.2 seconds... 247 00:15:16,116 --> 00:15:20,385 ten to the power 14 protons are being accelerated 248 00:15:20,420 --> 00:15:22,954 down that line. 249 00:15:22,989 --> 00:15:27,025 NARRATOR: The protons accelerate around larger and larger loops 250 00:15:27,060 --> 00:15:30,261 until they are finally directed into the main ring. 251 00:15:33,199 --> 00:15:37,035 To keep the increasingly energetic particles confined, 252 00:15:37,070 --> 00:15:41,339 the LHC relies on immensely powerful magnetic fields 253 00:15:41,374 --> 00:15:47,145 generated by 1,232 primary superconducting magnets, 254 00:15:47,180 --> 00:15:51,449 cooled to just a few degrees above absolute zero 255 00:15:51,484 --> 00:15:55,253 by 120 tons of liquid helium. 256 00:15:55,288 --> 00:15:58,790 After about 20 minutes of acceleration, 257 00:15:58,825 --> 00:16:03,361 each bunch of protons is moving at nearly the speed of light, 258 00:16:03,396 --> 00:16:07,098 with as much energy as an onrushing locomotive. 259 00:16:09,235 --> 00:16:12,503 Finally the protons are carefully steered 260 00:16:12,539 --> 00:16:14,272 into violent head-on collisions... 261 00:16:18,745 --> 00:16:21,746 converting the huge energy into showers of exotic, 262 00:16:21,781 --> 00:16:25,717 energetic particles, scattering in all directions, 263 00:16:25,752 --> 00:16:28,786 many decaying into showers of even more particles, 264 00:16:28,822 --> 00:16:34,625 setting the stage for the hard work of detecting the Higgs. 265 00:16:34,661 --> 00:16:36,260 STEVEN WEINBERG: Trying to figure out what happens 266 00:16:36,296 --> 00:16:41,065 in the collision of two protons at very high energy 267 00:16:41,101 --> 00:16:42,800 is like analyzing what happens 268 00:16:42,836 --> 00:16:46,170 in the high-speed collision of two garbage trucks. 269 00:16:49,142 --> 00:16:51,743 Garbage is spread all over everything, 270 00:16:51,778 --> 00:16:55,947 and most of it is garbage in the sense that it's not interesting. 271 00:16:55,982 --> 00:16:58,616 It's old stuff that we already knew about. 272 00:16:58,651 --> 00:17:01,486 And in all this garbage that's spraying out 273 00:17:01,521 --> 00:17:03,454 in all directions on the highway, 274 00:17:03,490 --> 00:17:07,058 you have to find the golden needle, 275 00:17:07,093 --> 00:17:11,996 the rare artifact that you're looking for, the Higgs boson, 276 00:17:12,032 --> 00:17:14,165 something entirely new. 277 00:17:16,202 --> 00:17:18,069 NARRATOR: To the scientists at CERN, 278 00:17:18,104 --> 00:17:21,472 a collection of physicists from all over the world, 279 00:17:21,508 --> 00:17:24,475 the stuff produced in these powerful collisions 280 00:17:24,511 --> 00:17:28,379 is anything but garbage. 281 00:17:28,415 --> 00:17:32,483 Each particle has a well-understood identity, 282 00:17:32,519 --> 00:17:34,585 described with great precision 283 00:17:34,621 --> 00:17:37,655 in one of the most accurate theories ever devised 284 00:17:37,690 --> 00:17:42,026 to explain the workings of the universe. 285 00:17:42,062 --> 00:17:45,163 It's called the Standard Model, 286 00:17:45,198 --> 00:17:48,433 and one of its key contributors is Frank Wilczek. 287 00:17:48,468 --> 00:17:49,934 Hi, welcome. 288 00:17:49,969 --> 00:17:53,871 Come on in. 289 00:17:53,907 --> 00:17:55,807 A lot of what I do is really just play. 290 00:17:55,842 --> 00:17:59,110 I mean, I play with the equations and ideas. 291 00:18:01,314 --> 00:18:03,481 NARRATOR: All that playing won Frank a Nobel Prize 292 00:18:03,516 --> 00:18:05,817 for his contribution to the Standard Model. 293 00:18:05,852 --> 00:18:08,820 Well, what have we got here? 294 00:18:08,855 --> 00:18:13,157 It looks like an instrument of torture for the mind. 295 00:18:13,193 --> 00:18:16,260 NARRATOR: The Standard Model is essentially an understanding 296 00:18:16,296 --> 00:18:20,264 of how all the known pieces of the universe fit together, 297 00:18:20,300 --> 00:18:23,267 except for the mechanism of gravity, 298 00:18:23,303 --> 00:18:26,838 creating a mind-boggling tapestry. 299 00:18:26,873 --> 00:18:29,507 WILCZEK: This is going to be a hell of a puzzle 300 00:18:29,542 --> 00:18:31,342 to figure out. 301 00:18:31,377 --> 00:18:34,145 All right, now, a promising start. 302 00:18:37,851 --> 00:18:40,818 We think the Standard Model contains all you need 303 00:18:40,854 --> 00:18:45,523 in principle to describe how molecules behave, 304 00:18:45,558 --> 00:18:50,261 all of chemistry, how stars work, all of astrophysics-- 305 00:18:50,296 --> 00:18:54,699 not only how things behave, but what can exist. 306 00:18:54,734 --> 00:18:56,467 These are the rules of the game. 307 00:19:01,407 --> 00:19:08,279 The ingredients of the Standard Model are of three basic sorts. 308 00:19:08,314 --> 00:19:11,916 There's what you might broadly call matter. 309 00:19:15,855 --> 00:19:18,422 That's sort of lumps of stuff 310 00:19:18,458 --> 00:19:19,924 that have a certain degree of permanence. 311 00:19:19,959 --> 00:19:25,129 And these are, on the one hand, quarks. 312 00:19:25,165 --> 00:19:28,065 They include the building blocks of protons and neutrons 313 00:19:28,101 --> 00:19:31,402 and atomic nuclei. 314 00:19:31,437 --> 00:19:33,571 And leptons. 315 00:19:36,609 --> 00:19:39,410 Most prominent lepton in everyday life 316 00:19:39,445 --> 00:19:41,179 is certainly the electron. 317 00:19:41,214 --> 00:19:46,984 So those are matter particles. 318 00:19:47,020 --> 00:19:51,756 On the other side, we have what you might call force particles 319 00:19:51,791 --> 00:19:53,324 or force mediators. 320 00:19:53,359 --> 00:19:55,059 NARRATOR: Called "bosons," 321 00:19:55,094 --> 00:19:59,363 some of these particles are more like lumps of energy. 322 00:19:59,399 --> 00:20:01,032 They transmit the forces 323 00:20:01,067 --> 00:20:04,101 that bring the matter particles to life. 324 00:20:04,137 --> 00:20:06,170 They include the photon, 325 00:20:06,206 --> 00:20:09,073 which carries the electromagnetic force; 326 00:20:09,108 --> 00:20:11,542 the gluons that carry the strong force 327 00:20:11,578 --> 00:20:15,213 which holds protons and neutrons together; 328 00:20:15,248 --> 00:20:19,150 and the W and Z bosons that are responsible 329 00:20:19,185 --> 00:20:23,154 for the weak force governing radioactivity. 330 00:20:23,189 --> 00:20:25,656 With just this small list of ingredients, 331 00:20:25,692 --> 00:20:28,859 the Standard Model explains the physical properties 332 00:20:28,895 --> 00:20:32,463 of the elementary building blocks of nature. 333 00:20:32,498 --> 00:20:35,499 The Standard Model is just a handful of particles and forces, 334 00:20:35,535 --> 00:20:38,069 and it explains every experiment ever done 335 00:20:38,104 --> 00:20:40,805 by every human being in the history of science. 336 00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:43,708 So it's quite impressive in what it's managed to do. 337 00:20:43,743 --> 00:20:46,410 It explains how stars burn. 338 00:20:46,446 --> 00:20:49,080 It explains how radioactivity occurs. 339 00:20:49,115 --> 00:20:50,881 It explains how chemistry works. 340 00:20:50,917 --> 00:20:52,250 It explains how light works. 341 00:20:52,285 --> 00:20:53,351 It's an amazing theory. 342 00:20:55,521 --> 00:20:58,623 NARRATOR: The first particles were discovered in experiments 343 00:20:58,658 --> 00:21:00,291 and became the foundation for the Standard Model. 344 00:21:02,495 --> 00:21:05,263 But then the theorists took over 345 00:21:05,298 --> 00:21:08,065 and all the particles discovered in the last 40 years 346 00:21:08,101 --> 00:21:10,468 were first predicted by the mathematics 347 00:21:10,503 --> 00:21:13,738 of the Standard Model and then found experimentally. 348 00:21:17,310 --> 00:21:21,012 The Higgs boson, a force particle, was the last 349 00:21:21,047 --> 00:21:24,749 and most challenging piece of the puzzle. 350 00:21:24,784 --> 00:21:27,952 That's why finding it was such an obsession among theorists 351 00:21:27,987 --> 00:21:30,121 and experimentalists alike. 352 00:21:39,098 --> 00:21:43,701 In September 2008, with much fanfare... 353 00:21:43,736 --> 00:21:46,504 (applause) 354 00:21:46,539 --> 00:21:49,006 ...the giant accelerator was switched on. 355 00:21:52,211 --> 00:21:55,513 The LHC was ready to go to work. 356 00:21:58,251 --> 00:22:03,487 It was an exciting time, full of high expectations. 357 00:22:03,523 --> 00:22:05,489 Designing and building this machine, 358 00:22:05,525 --> 00:22:07,892 it's just incredible to see it come to life. 359 00:22:07,927 --> 00:22:12,229 NARRATOR: But then, just nine days after start-up... 360 00:22:12,265 --> 00:22:14,565 disaster struck. 361 00:22:16,736 --> 00:22:18,669 It was 11:00 in the morning, 362 00:22:18,705 --> 00:22:22,606 and I got a call to come over, something looks serious. 363 00:22:22,642 --> 00:22:27,044 And when I got over there, I had never seen such carnage. 364 00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:29,480 NARRATOR: A short circuit burned a hole 365 00:22:29,515 --> 00:22:33,484 in a giant container of liquid helium used to cool the magnets. 366 00:22:33,519 --> 00:22:38,389 Six tons of helium was released into the tunnel 367 00:22:38,424 --> 00:22:42,460 and more than 50 of the giant magnets were fried. 368 00:22:45,732 --> 00:22:51,535 The $10 billion LHC was dead in the water. 369 00:22:53,306 --> 00:22:57,908 Undaunted, engineers worked to repair the machine 370 00:22:57,944 --> 00:23:00,311 and physicists continued to refine the computer programs 371 00:23:00,346 --> 00:23:03,514 that would analyze the vast amount of data 372 00:23:03,549 --> 00:23:05,516 that the LHC would produce 373 00:23:05,551 --> 00:23:08,185 once it was running at full power. 374 00:23:08,221 --> 00:23:11,922 WOMAN: Three, two, one... 375 00:23:11,958 --> 00:23:13,624 (beeping) 376 00:23:13,659 --> 00:23:16,460 (applause) 377 00:23:16,496 --> 00:23:21,332 NARRATOR: By late 2009, after 14 months of repair work and reengineering, 378 00:23:21,367 --> 00:23:25,369 the LHC was more robust than ever 379 00:23:25,405 --> 00:23:28,372 and finally ready to begin the hunt in earnest. 380 00:23:31,244 --> 00:23:34,478 Now, protons are whizzing both ways around the ring 381 00:23:34,514 --> 00:23:36,847 at nearly the speed of light. 382 00:23:39,652 --> 00:23:45,189 At the center of the two Higgs detectors, the beams cross 383 00:23:45,224 --> 00:23:50,227 inside ATLAS, a massive machine the size of a cathedral 384 00:23:50,263 --> 00:23:56,000 and also within its smaller cousin, CMS. 385 00:23:56,035 --> 00:23:59,603 Even though the beams are microscopically small, 386 00:23:59,639 --> 00:24:02,907 the vast majority of particles contained in them 387 00:24:02,942 --> 00:24:06,243 whiz past each other without incident. 388 00:24:06,279 --> 00:24:10,014 FRANKLIN: When you collide 100 billion protons and 100 billion protons, 389 00:24:10,049 --> 00:24:12,383 most of the protons are just seeing each other 390 00:24:12,418 --> 00:24:14,318 and going, "Hello," and going on. 391 00:24:15,988 --> 00:24:18,989 NARRATOR: But about 800 million times every second, 392 00:24:19,025 --> 00:24:22,226 pairs of protons meet head-on. 393 00:24:22,261 --> 00:24:23,828 FRANKLIN: What's called a "hard collision." 394 00:24:23,863 --> 00:24:27,231 When the proton breaks up so it's no longer a pron, 395 00:24:27,266 --> 00:24:29,333 that's an interesting collision. 396 00:24:29,368 --> 00:24:31,368 And that happens only about 20 times 397 00:24:31,404 --> 00:24:33,737 out of all these billions of protons crossing. 398 00:24:35,641 --> 00:24:37,475 NARRATOR: In each of these powerful collisions, 399 00:24:37,510 --> 00:24:40,911 dozens of new particles flash into existence 400 00:24:40,947 --> 00:24:44,081 and spray outward, their unique signatures tracked 401 00:24:44,116 --> 00:24:46,050 by the huge detectors, 402 00:24:46,085 --> 00:24:50,421 capturing the action 40 million times a second. 403 00:24:50,456 --> 00:24:55,526 Incredibly fast, but still not able to spot the Higgs directly. 404 00:25:02,201 --> 00:25:05,369 CARROLL: The Higgs is actually kind of a difficult particle to find. 405 00:25:05,404 --> 00:25:06,837 It's kind of subtle in how you look for it. 406 00:25:06,873 --> 00:25:09,807 As soon as you create it, it decays very, very quickly. 407 00:25:09,842 --> 00:25:13,010 The lifetime of a Higgs is about one zeptosecond, 408 00:25:13,045 --> 00:25:15,746 which is like ten to the minus 21 seconds. 409 00:25:15,781 --> 00:25:17,515 So, in fact, you'll never even see it 410 00:25:17,550 --> 00:25:19,116 in a particle accelerator. 411 00:25:19,151 --> 00:25:20,985 It doesn't move that far, 412 00:25:21,020 --> 00:25:22,720 enough for you to see any track left behind. 413 00:25:25,892 --> 00:25:30,694 NARRATOR: And so, the only way to detect the Higgs would be by spotting 414 00:25:30,730 --> 00:25:32,496 the more familiar particles 415 00:25:32,532 --> 00:25:35,032 that the quickly vanishing Higgs decays into. 416 00:25:39,639 --> 00:25:41,205 The math predicted 417 00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:44,742 about a dozen different possible decay modes, as they're called. 418 00:25:47,780 --> 00:25:49,813 But the relative likelihood of any of them 419 00:25:49,849 --> 00:25:51,815 depended on the mass of the Higgs... 420 00:25:54,186 --> 00:25:57,021 which was a total mystery. 421 00:26:02,495 --> 00:26:06,564 It must have seemed like a cosmic joke on the theorists. 422 00:26:06,599 --> 00:26:09,433 JOSEPH LYKKEN: The irony, if you like, is that 423 00:26:09,468 --> 00:26:11,936 although the Higgs field that's related to the Higgs boson 424 00:26:11,971 --> 00:26:13,571 gives other particles mass, 425 00:26:13,606 --> 00:26:16,173 the one property of the Higgs boson that was not predicted 426 00:26:16,208 --> 00:26:17,841 by Professor Higgs and his colleagues 427 00:26:17,877 --> 00:26:20,277 was the mass of the Higgs boson itself. 428 00:26:20,313 --> 00:26:22,379 So its mass could have been anything 429 00:26:22,415 --> 00:26:24,815 from very, very light by our standards to very, very heavy. 430 00:26:28,654 --> 00:26:30,688 NARRATOR: Since the Higgs could theoretically decay 431 00:26:30,723 --> 00:26:32,990 in so many different ways, 432 00:26:33,025 --> 00:26:35,259 the Higgs hunters had to be willing to sift 433 00:26:35,294 --> 00:26:38,028 through all of the collision debris, 434 00:26:38,064 --> 00:26:39,897 looking for slight increases 435 00:26:39,932 --> 00:26:42,199 in the number of detectable particles, 436 00:26:42,234 --> 00:26:44,568 with very specific characteristics, 437 00:26:44,604 --> 00:26:47,738 into which the Higgs could possibly decay. 438 00:26:49,542 --> 00:26:51,609 CARROLL: So it's not like looking for a needle in a haystack, 439 00:26:51,644 --> 00:26:54,244 when at least you know that you found a needle. 440 00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:56,480 It's like looking for hay in a haystack. 441 00:26:56,515 --> 00:26:58,716 You're looking for a little bit more hay with certain properties 442 00:26:58,751 --> 00:26:59,883 than certain other properties. 443 00:27:01,554 --> 00:27:03,988 NARRATOR: That daunting challenge meant 444 00:27:04,023 --> 00:27:06,590 building enormously complicated detectors 445 00:27:06,626 --> 00:27:10,394 to track and count every bit of debris 446 00:27:10,429 --> 00:27:13,130 coming out of those collisions. 447 00:27:13,165 --> 00:27:14,965 FRANKLIN: And then we have to somehow, 448 00:27:15,001 --> 00:27:17,401 with all of the particles that come out of this event, 449 00:27:17,436 --> 00:27:20,170 we have to reconstruct them and find if there are new particles 450 00:27:20,206 --> 00:27:21,605 that are happening. 451 00:27:24,110 --> 00:27:26,744 NARRATOR: The mathematics predicts that the Higgs should often decay 452 00:27:26,779 --> 00:27:31,615 into particles that are also maddeningly hard to detect-- 453 00:27:31,651 --> 00:27:35,119 like quarks, the particles that make up protons and neutrons 454 00:27:35,154 --> 00:27:38,188 in the nuclei of atoms. 455 00:27:38,224 --> 00:27:40,057 They looked in every possible way they can look. 456 00:27:40,092 --> 00:27:42,226 In the end, 457 00:27:42,261 --> 00:27:44,762 they looked for the Higgs boson decaying into photons. 458 00:27:44,797 --> 00:27:48,666 NARRATOR: Out of every thousand Higgs bosons created, 459 00:27:48,701 --> 00:27:52,503 a few should decay in a way that produces a pair of photons-- 460 00:27:52,538 --> 00:27:54,004 light particles 461 00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:58,509 which can be measured very precisely in the detectors. 462 00:28:00,780 --> 00:28:05,616 By knowing the energy and angle between pairs of photons, 463 00:28:05,651 --> 00:28:09,987 scientists can tell if they were likely produced by a Higgs. 464 00:28:10,022 --> 00:28:14,158 And by looking for unexpectedly high concentrations 465 00:28:14,193 --> 00:28:18,028 of certain photons over billions of collisions, 466 00:28:18,064 --> 00:28:22,399 scientists hoped to zero in on the Higgs and, as a consequence, 467 00:28:22,435 --> 00:28:25,569 pinpoint its exact mass-- 468 00:28:25,604 --> 00:28:28,972 the one missing value in the theory. 469 00:28:31,811 --> 00:28:34,478 It proved to be a statistical sifting process 470 00:28:34,513 --> 00:28:37,014 of dizzying complexity. 471 00:28:37,049 --> 00:28:40,451 Luckily, they had a head start. 472 00:28:40,486 --> 00:28:43,687 Years of experiments in other colliders had ruled out 473 00:28:43,723 --> 00:28:46,423 many possible masses for the Higgs, 474 00:28:46,459 --> 00:28:51,795 measured in units called gigaelectronvolts, or GEV. 475 00:28:51,831 --> 00:28:54,898 So on this line of what the mass of the Higgs might be, 476 00:28:54,934 --> 00:28:58,635 we can draw on what previous experiments have... 477 00:28:58,671 --> 00:29:00,637 have tried and where they've been able 478 00:29:00,673 --> 00:29:02,806 to exclude it from being. 479 00:29:02,842 --> 00:29:07,177 NARRATOR: A less powerful accelerator, the LEP Collider at CERN, 480 00:29:07,213 --> 00:29:09,413 a predecessor of the LHC, 481 00:29:09,448 --> 00:29:12,616 had already ruled out the Higgs being at the bottom end 482 00:29:12,651 --> 00:29:14,451 of potential masses. 483 00:29:14,487 --> 00:29:18,622 In fact they were able to say that the mass of the Higgs 484 00:29:18,657 --> 00:29:25,596 is, with 95% confidence, 114 GEV or more. 485 00:29:25,631 --> 00:29:28,899 So after LEP, the next major milestone in the... 486 00:29:28,934 --> 00:29:33,403 in the Higgs search was limits set by another collider 487 00:29:33,439 --> 00:29:34,872 in the U.S., the Tevatron. 488 00:29:34,907 --> 00:29:38,175 The Tevatron was able to exclude 489 00:29:38,210 --> 00:29:43,547 a range here around 160 GEV here. 490 00:29:43,582 --> 00:29:49,052 NARRATOR: In 2011, CERN moved that upper boundary still lower. 491 00:29:49,088 --> 00:29:52,122 DAVISON: The LHC has been able to rule out a big region 492 00:29:52,158 --> 00:29:56,994 from 145, quite far up. 493 00:29:59,532 --> 00:30:01,598 NARRATOR: But this last remaining energy range 494 00:30:01,634 --> 00:30:04,468 was also the trickiest to search. 495 00:30:04,503 --> 00:30:07,838 It's the area in which the unique signature of the Higgs 496 00:30:07,873 --> 00:30:11,008 would be mostly deeply buried under the background noise 497 00:30:11,043 --> 00:30:14,578 of other particles created in the collider. 498 00:30:19,652 --> 00:30:21,852 MAN: If I was to bet, 499 00:30:21,887 --> 00:30:23,987 I would probably put it at 130 GEV. 500 00:30:24,023 --> 00:30:26,523 Probably somewhere around 120 GEV. 501 00:30:26,559 --> 00:30:29,393 Somewhere between 120 and 130 GEV. 502 00:30:29,428 --> 00:30:33,630 114 GEV because it's the most difficult place to look 503 00:30:33,666 --> 00:30:35,732 and we haven't found it yet. 504 00:30:35,768 --> 00:30:37,334 Ah, that's a good question, 505 00:30:37,369 --> 00:30:39,803 because you know you are assuming that the Higgs 506 00:30:39,839 --> 00:30:43,373 actually exists, which I'm-I'm starting to believe 507 00:30:43,409 --> 00:30:45,275 it probably does not exist. 508 00:30:48,514 --> 00:30:51,281 NARRATOR: As data piled up at the LHC, 509 00:30:51,317 --> 00:30:55,485 scientists narrowed the range even further. 510 00:30:55,521 --> 00:30:58,522 It seemed that they were either about to close in 511 00:30:58,557 --> 00:31:05,028 on the Higgs particle or prove that it didn't exist at all. 512 00:31:05,064 --> 00:31:06,563 People were beginning to worry a little bit 513 00:31:06,599 --> 00:31:08,031 that we hadn't found the Higgs yet 514 00:31:08,067 --> 00:31:09,733 and maybe weren't going to find it. 515 00:31:09,768 --> 00:31:11,702 And that would've been a complete shock 516 00:31:11,737 --> 00:31:14,938 because we know that something is doing the job of the Higgs. 517 00:31:14,974 --> 00:31:16,073 You start to get a little nervous 518 00:31:16,108 --> 00:31:17,541 because either it's there 519 00:31:17,576 --> 00:31:19,309 or there isn't a Higgs boson at all. 520 00:31:19,345 --> 00:31:24,448 NARRATOR: By the end of 2011, the window narrowed even further. 521 00:31:24,483 --> 00:31:28,118 The LHC, with the new data from the whole of 2011, 522 00:31:28,153 --> 00:31:31,622 is able to expand the area that it can exclude the Higgs from. 523 00:31:32,892 --> 00:31:37,394 NARRATOR: The new lower limit had risen to 115 GEV, 524 00:31:37,429 --> 00:31:42,833 and the new upper limit dropped to 127 GEV. 525 00:31:42,868 --> 00:31:45,736 And within that range, 526 00:31:45,771 --> 00:31:48,872 interesting things were showing up in the data. 527 00:31:48,908 --> 00:31:50,774 DAVISON: So the really exciting thing 528 00:31:50,809 --> 00:31:53,377 was that the reason the LHC experiments weren't able 529 00:31:53,412 --> 00:31:55,946 to exclude anything inside this remaining window 530 00:31:55,981 --> 00:31:58,048 is that in fact they see an excess of events, 531 00:31:58,083 --> 00:32:01,718 the early signs of the Higgs boson, if it's there. 532 00:32:04,256 --> 00:32:07,557 NARRATOR: An eess of events means that the LHC was producing 533 00:32:07,593 --> 00:32:12,863 more particles of interest-- in particular, pairs of photons. 534 00:32:12,898 --> 00:32:14,898 RANDALL: So, what you're looking for is called a bump 535 00:32:14,934 --> 00:32:16,967 because at that particular energy, 536 00:32:17,002 --> 00:32:18,502 you should see a lot more decays... 537 00:32:20,973 --> 00:32:24,141 if there is a Higgs boson. 538 00:32:24,176 --> 00:32:27,644 So if you see a bump, that's a clue that something's going on. 539 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:32,282 NARRATOR: Those excess photon pairs were showing up in not just one... 540 00:32:36,221 --> 00:32:41,491 but in both detectors, and at practically the same mass. 541 00:32:43,862 --> 00:32:46,930 CMS was seeing a spike in the number of photons 542 00:32:46,966 --> 00:32:52,502 which could be the signal of a Higgs with a mass of 124 GEV. 543 00:32:54,039 --> 00:32:59,343 And ATLAS was seeing a similar spike near 125. 544 00:33:03,749 --> 00:33:07,484 Now with the hunt finally closing in, 545 00:33:07,519 --> 00:33:12,456 the LHC continued smashing protons, 546 00:33:12,491 --> 00:33:17,327 sorting through the debris and piling up the data 547 00:33:17,363 --> 00:33:21,098 for another six months. 548 00:33:21,133 --> 00:33:27,938 We saw a signal growing, growing every week, every day. 549 00:33:32,277 --> 00:33:43,787 NARRATOR: Until at last, on July 4, 2012, the heads of ATLAS and CMS, 550 00:33:43,822 --> 00:33:50,193 Fabiola Gianotti and Joe Incandela, called a meeting. 551 00:33:50,229 --> 00:33:53,764 DIETER HEUER: Two presentations from the two experiments, ATLAS and CMS. 552 00:33:53,799 --> 00:33:59,102 NARRATOR: There to hear the news firsthand: Peter Higgs himself. 553 00:33:59,138 --> 00:34:02,706 It was standing room only. 554 00:34:02,741 --> 00:34:04,808 HEUER: Good afternoon, everybody in Melbourne. 555 00:34:04,843 --> 00:34:09,846 NARRATOR: But it was also beamed live around the world. 556 00:34:09,882 --> 00:34:11,114 FRANKLIN: So, of course, 557 00:34:11,150 --> 00:34:13,350 everyone's heard lots of rumors at this point, 558 00:34:13,385 --> 00:34:15,185 within the collaborations. 559 00:34:15,220 --> 00:34:16,520 But there are these two collaborations, 560 00:34:16,555 --> 00:34:18,855 the CMS collaboration and the ATLAS collaboration. 561 00:34:18,891 --> 00:34:23,026 And we aren't supposed to know what they have, and I didn't. 562 00:34:23,062 --> 00:34:26,196 You know, you'd heard stories, but I hadn't seen their data. 563 00:34:26,231 --> 00:34:27,831 So that's kind of exciting. 564 00:34:27,866 --> 00:34:33,036 So, today is a special day on a search for a certain particle. 565 00:34:33,072 --> 00:34:35,038 NARRATOR: But no one was quite prepared 566 00:34:35,074 --> 00:34:38,809 for the short, definitive announcement that was to come. 567 00:34:38,844 --> 00:34:42,412 And I ask Joe Incandela from CMS to take the floor. 568 00:34:42,448 --> 00:34:45,182 NARRATOR: This was about to become one of the defining moments 569 00:34:45,217 --> 00:34:49,586 in the history of physics and science. 570 00:34:49,621 --> 00:34:52,022 INCANDELA: And the energy was so incredible. 571 00:34:52,057 --> 00:34:53,256 It was like a big party. 572 00:34:53,292 --> 00:34:55,025 People were really excited. 573 00:34:55,060 --> 00:34:58,061 And it was just then I think I started to really appreciate 574 00:34:58,097 --> 00:35:00,430 where we were and that this was a major discovery. 575 00:35:00,466 --> 00:35:04,000 This slide shows you one event taken just a few weeks ago. 576 00:35:04,036 --> 00:35:06,536 I put the slide up and before I could say anything, 577 00:35:06,572 --> 00:35:11,942 there was a gasp across the whole audience. 578 00:35:11,977 --> 00:35:13,777 Now, a major result like this 579 00:35:13,812 --> 00:35:15,345 from one experiment could still be wrong. 580 00:35:15,380 --> 00:35:17,414 Now we go immediately to ATLAS. 581 00:35:17,449 --> 00:35:20,050 Fabiola Gianotti, please. 582 00:35:20,085 --> 00:35:22,085 Thank you. 583 00:35:22,121 --> 00:35:24,621 But Fabiola brought the same confidence for her results. 584 00:35:24,656 --> 00:35:26,490 You can already see here the compatibility between 585 00:35:26,525 --> 00:35:33,497 what we observed: one big spike, here in this region here. 586 00:35:33,532 --> 00:35:35,799 FRANKLIN: If you look at these plots that were shown, 587 00:35:35,834 --> 00:35:37,134 first thing you want to see is 588 00:35:37,169 --> 00:35:40,470 did CMS and ATLAS find the bump in the same place? 589 00:35:40,506 --> 00:35:43,140 NARRATOR: And in fact they had. 590 00:35:43,175 --> 00:35:47,244 GIANOTTI: An excess at a mass of 126.5 GEV. 591 00:35:47,279 --> 00:35:50,347 NARRATOR: Both teams had found an excess of photons 592 00:35:50,382 --> 00:35:52,883 pointing to the same mass. 593 00:35:52,918 --> 00:35:54,651 FRANKLIN: And that was pretty convincing. 594 00:35:54,686 --> 00:35:57,120 So you're going, "Wow," like, "we rock." 595 00:35:57,156 --> 00:36:02,292 As a layman I would now say I think we have it. 596 00:36:02,327 --> 00:36:04,294 You agree? 597 00:36:04,329 --> 00:36:07,497 (cheers and applause) 598 00:36:07,533 --> 00:36:11,801 NARRATOR: The LHC had found the Higgs particle. 599 00:36:11,837 --> 00:36:15,805 HEUER: We have observed a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson. 600 00:36:15,841 --> 00:36:17,307 INCANDELA: It's like running a marathon. 601 00:36:17,342 --> 00:36:18,642 Suddenly you realize you crossed the finish line. 602 00:36:25,817 --> 00:36:30,120 Maybe one more round of applause to all the guys 603 00:36:30,155 --> 00:36:34,958 who took part in the project for more than 25 years. 604 00:36:34,993 --> 00:36:37,127 LYN EVANS: It comes as a big surprise to me, I must say. 605 00:36:37,162 --> 00:36:40,764 I went into that seminar expecting good results. 606 00:36:41,900 --> 00:36:44,367 But I was gobsmacked, as they say. 607 00:36:47,105 --> 00:36:51,708 NARRATOR: The hunt that spanned half a century was over. 608 00:36:51,743 --> 00:36:53,677 The Higgs boson hid for 50 years. 609 00:36:53,712 --> 00:36:56,980 But, you know, like they said with the Canadian Mounties, 610 00:36:57,015 --> 00:36:58,281 "They'll get their man." 611 00:36:58,317 --> 00:37:00,116 It could run, but it couldn't hide forever. 612 00:37:00,152 --> 00:37:01,518 (applause) 613 00:37:03,789 --> 00:37:07,057 NARRATOR: It appeared Higgs and his colleagues had been right. 614 00:37:07,092 --> 00:37:11,595 The mysty of how particles gain mass had been solved. 615 00:37:11,630 --> 00:37:15,966 The last piece of the Standard Model had been found. 616 00:37:16,001 --> 00:37:20,870 For me it's really an incredible thing 617 00:37:20,906 --> 00:37:23,006 that it's happened in my lifetime. 618 00:37:30,649 --> 00:37:32,816 GIANOTTI: I had the pleasure to meet Peter Higgs 619 00:37:32,851 --> 00:37:34,884 at the end of the seminar and exchange a hug. 620 00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:36,019 He told me, 621 00:37:36,054 --> 00:37:38,521 "Congratulations to you and your experiment 622 00:37:38,557 --> 00:37:40,824 for this incredible achievement." 623 00:37:40,859 --> 00:37:43,860 And of course, I replied, "Congratulations to you! 624 00:37:43,895 --> 00:37:45,729 You are the first person to be congratulated." 625 00:37:45,764 --> 00:37:48,932 I think it's not appropriate for me to answer 626 00:37:48,967 --> 00:37:50,867 any detailed questions at this stage. 627 00:37:50,902 --> 00:37:55,905 This is an occasion celebrating an experimental achievement 628 00:37:55,941 --> 00:38:00,377 and I simply congratulate the people involved. 629 00:38:08,487 --> 00:38:12,422 NARRATOR: Ironically, the achievement took place at the very same institute 630 00:38:12,457 --> 00:38:15,358 where nearly 50 years earlier, 631 00:38:15,394 --> 00:38:18,328 an editor had rejected Higgs' initial paper. 632 00:38:20,699 --> 00:38:22,432 MAN: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences... 633 00:38:22,467 --> 00:38:25,201 NARRATOR: In a fitting end to the saga, 634 00:38:25,237 --> 00:38:30,240 Peter Higgs and Belgian physicist François Englert, 635 00:38:30,275 --> 00:38:31,941 who had independently come up with the idea 636 00:38:31,977 --> 00:38:38,815 for the Higgs field, won the 2013 Nobel Prize. 637 00:38:42,521 --> 00:38:44,554 Englert's colleague, Robert Brout, 638 00:38:44,589 --> 00:38:46,823 certainly would have been honored as well 639 00:38:46,858 --> 00:38:49,759 had he lived to see the day. 640 00:38:53,765 --> 00:38:57,534 So why is all this important? 641 00:38:57,569 --> 00:39:00,870 Why does proving the existence of the Higgs field matter? 642 00:39:03,842 --> 00:39:06,910 Building an enormous Big Bang machine to recreate conditions 643 00:39:06,945 --> 00:39:10,013 in the universe near the beginning of time 644 00:39:10,048 --> 00:39:12,248 and completing the Standard Model 645 00:39:12,284 --> 00:39:15,618 is a tremendous scientific achievement. 646 00:39:15,654 --> 00:39:19,789 FRANKLIN: Finding the Higgs sheds light on all of particle physics 647 00:39:19,825 --> 00:39:21,791 and cosmology. 648 00:39:21,827 --> 00:39:23,226 It's all connected. 649 00:39:23,261 --> 00:39:28,098 All our models of how the universe began, how it expanded, 650 00:39:28,133 --> 00:39:32,969 everything, is, you know, affected by the Higgs field 651 00:39:33,004 --> 00:39:35,839 and by how we understand the universe. 652 00:39:38,377 --> 00:39:42,612 NARRATOR: Perhaps discovering the Higgs boson and the field it proves 653 00:39:42,647 --> 00:39:44,514 will open new doors... 654 00:39:44,549 --> 00:39:48,017 GIANOTTI: The discovery of the Higgs is just the first step. 655 00:39:48,053 --> 00:39:50,353 In science you make a step forward-- 656 00:39:50,389 --> 00:39:54,991 you answer a question, but then other questions open up. 657 00:39:55,026 --> 00:39:58,762 NARRATOR: ...into even greater mysteries that still remain 658 00:39:58,797 --> 00:40:01,231 beyond the Standard Model. 659 00:40:01,266 --> 00:40:02,699 INCANDELA: The Standard Model can't be the final thing. 660 00:40:02,734 --> 00:40:05,535 There is something beyond the Standard Model; we know that. 661 00:40:05,570 --> 00:40:07,937 Hopefully the Higgs can give us some guidance in that direction. 662 00:40:09,908 --> 00:40:12,308 Yes, we do know the Standard Model works. 663 00:40:12,344 --> 00:40:14,043 It works incredibly well. 664 00:40:14,079 --> 00:40:16,413 But we know it's not the whole story. 665 00:40:16,448 --> 00:40:17,981 And any time in the history of physics 666 00:40:18,016 --> 00:40:21,584 where people thought they had the whole story they were wrong. 667 00:40:21,620 --> 00:40:24,821 And so we're looking for what is the next piece, 668 00:40:24,856 --> 00:40:26,489 not just in terms of one particle 669 00:40:26,525 --> 00:40:29,859 but in terms of forces, in terms of understanding nature. 670 00:40:29,895 --> 00:40:32,362 The number of mysteries in the Standard Model is huge, 671 00:40:32,397 --> 00:40:34,497 which is fine because, as a scientist, 672 00:40:34,533 --> 00:40:36,533 I'm drawn to mysteries. 673 00:40:40,138 --> 00:40:42,872 NARRATOR: One mystery that the Standard Model can't answer 674 00:40:42,908 --> 00:40:45,575 is perhaps the most fundamental of them all. 675 00:40:47,979 --> 00:40:52,348 Why isn't our universe empty? 676 00:40:57,422 --> 00:40:58,855 Because according to the mathematics 677 00:40:58,890 --> 00:41:06,162 behind the Standard Model, it should be. 678 00:41:06,198 --> 00:41:09,332 Science has given us a set of laws that describe the world 679 00:41:09,367 --> 00:41:12,669 so accurately that we can predict the motion of a coin 680 00:41:12,704 --> 00:41:16,105 tossed in the air because we understand the law of gravity. 681 00:41:16,141 --> 00:41:18,942 We understand electromagnetism so well 682 00:41:18,977 --> 00:41:22,312 that we can use our GPS satellites to locate your car 683 00:41:22,347 --> 00:41:25,281 to within a few inches. 684 00:41:25,317 --> 00:41:27,484 And we understand the nuclear force so well 685 00:41:27,519 --> 00:41:31,087 that we can predict the future evolution of the sun itself. 686 00:41:35,193 --> 00:41:38,761 NARRATOR: Those mathematical equations that work so well 687 00:41:38,797 --> 00:41:42,332 to describe the laws of the physical world 688 00:41:42,367 --> 00:41:46,469 are bound together by something that we see around us every day. 689 00:41:48,607 --> 00:41:53,710 Something that characterizes our faces... 690 00:41:53,745 --> 00:41:56,546 and the natural world... 691 00:41:56,581 --> 00:42:03,086 even the tiniest structures like viruses and our DNA-- 692 00:42:03,121 --> 00:42:04,387 symmetry. 693 00:42:04,422 --> 00:42:08,925 WILCZEK: In the Standard Model, symmetry rules. 694 00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:14,931 The laws are dictated, really, in their form 695 00:42:14,966 --> 00:42:17,734 by requiring tremendous amounts of symmetry. 696 00:42:17,769 --> 00:42:19,168 That's how we found them. 697 00:42:22,173 --> 00:42:26,075 NARRATOR: The equations of the Standard Model seem to predict a universe 698 00:42:26,111 --> 00:42:30,580 in perfect balance, formless and without structure... 699 00:42:30,615 --> 00:42:32,782 (explosion) 700 00:42:32,817 --> 00:42:35,285 as it was at the very beginning. 701 00:42:37,389 --> 00:42:42,191 And if it had remained that way, nothing would exist. 702 00:42:42,227 --> 00:42:45,595 If the laws of science are framed in their most perfect, 703 00:42:45,630 --> 00:42:49,866 most symmetrical form, then life cannot exist at all. 704 00:42:56,841 --> 00:42:59,842 There'd be no mountains, rivers, valleys, 705 00:42:59,878 --> 00:43:02,645 no DNA, no people, nothing. 706 00:43:16,428 --> 00:43:20,330 NARRATOR: A universe created along absolutely symmetric principles 707 00:43:20,365 --> 00:43:22,532 would be in perfect balance. 708 00:43:26,271 --> 00:43:30,640 The Higgs field is the first clue to what broke the symmetry 709 00:43:30,675 --> 00:43:34,110 of that completely uniform early universe. 710 00:43:36,281 --> 00:43:38,448 The state of perfect symmetry is very similar 711 00:43:38,483 --> 00:43:40,516 to the state of perfect balance. 712 00:43:40,552 --> 00:43:42,785 Think of a spinning top. 713 00:43:42,821 --> 00:43:46,589 It exists in a state of perfect rotational symmetry. 714 00:43:46,625 --> 00:43:50,259 No matter how you rotate, everything looks the same. 715 00:43:50,295 --> 00:43:53,763 NARRATOR: Even more so than the symmetry of a spinning top, 716 00:43:53,798 --> 00:43:56,499 at this instant of creation, 717 00:43:56,534 --> 00:43:59,435 every place in the universe would have been symmetrical, 718 00:43:59,471 --> 00:44:03,072 identical to every other place. 719 00:44:03,108 --> 00:44:06,109 But perfection isn't stable. 720 00:44:06,144 --> 00:44:10,246 The slightest imperfection, the slightest little defect 721 00:44:10,281 --> 00:44:13,082 will cause it to vrate, perturb, 722 00:44:13,118 --> 00:44:15,351 and fall to a lower energy state. 723 00:44:15,387 --> 00:44:18,221 Symmetry has been broken. 724 00:44:18,256 --> 00:44:21,758 NARRATOR: Within a fraction of a second of the Big Bang, 725 00:44:21,793 --> 00:44:25,395 physicists believe the absolute symmetry of the universe 726 00:44:25,430 --> 00:44:29,332 was shattered by a tiny fluctuation. 727 00:44:29,367 --> 00:44:33,503 The Higgs field appeared in all of space. 728 00:44:33,538 --> 00:44:35,672 The forces split apart. 729 00:44:35,707 --> 00:44:38,875 The particles of the Standard Model became distinct. 730 00:44:38,910 --> 00:44:41,177 Structure emerged. 731 00:44:41,212 --> 00:44:45,548 This fall from perfection was what allowed us 732 00:44:45,583 --> 00:44:48,551 to come into being. 733 00:44:48,586 --> 00:44:51,554 KAKU: Everything we see around us is nothing but fragments 734 00:44:51,589 --> 00:44:53,523 of this original perfection. 735 00:44:53,558 --> 00:44:58,094 Whenever you see a beautiful snowflake, a beautiful crystal, 736 00:44:58,129 --> 00:45:02,398 or even the symmetry of stars in the universe, that's a fragment. 737 00:45:02,434 --> 00:45:05,201 That's a piece of the original symmetry 738 00:45:05,236 --> 00:45:07,003 at the beginning of time. 739 00:45:13,111 --> 00:45:15,912 NARRATOR: Finding and studying the Higgs is a vital first step 740 00:45:15,947 --> 00:45:17,947 in the quest to understand that early state 741 00:45:17,982 --> 00:45:22,251 when the particles that make up what we can perceive 742 00:45:22,287 --> 00:45:26,422 came into being, as well as a much greater quantity 743 00:45:26,458 --> 00:45:29,726 of mysterious stuff that we know is out there 744 00:45:29,761 --> 00:45:34,597 but that we can't directly detect, called dark matter. 745 00:45:38,103 --> 00:45:40,603 What are these missing pieces? 746 00:45:43,007 --> 00:45:45,541 When James Gates came to study at MIT, 747 00:45:45,577 --> 00:45:49,479 he was determined to unlock the secrets of the early universe 748 00:45:49,514 --> 00:45:56,419 and understand what happened to the unity that was once there. 749 00:45:57,989 --> 00:46:00,690 GATES: The universe and we are intricately tied together. 750 00:46:03,595 --> 00:46:05,695 This idea of unity turns out to be 751 00:46:05,730 --> 00:46:09,766 one of the most powerful driving themes in physics 752 00:46:09,801 --> 00:46:11,634 and it keeps getting us to look 753 00:46:11,669 --> 00:46:14,137 for deeper and deeper connections. 754 00:46:14,172 --> 00:46:16,706 So ultimately, perhaps, we exist 755 00:46:16,741 --> 00:46:20,109 because the universe had no other choice. 756 00:46:22,147 --> 00:46:24,547 NARRATOR: He looked at the Standard Model, 757 00:46:24,582 --> 00:46:27,817 the matter particles and the bosons, the force particles, 758 00:46:27,852 --> 00:46:29,585 that hold everything together. 759 00:46:29,621 --> 00:46:33,022 He wondered if these two groups of particles 760 00:46:33,057 --> 00:46:36,092 that seem so different could be related 761 00:46:36,127 --> 00:46:39,362 in some profound and hidden way. 762 00:46:39,397 --> 00:46:41,197 This question-- 763 00:46:41,232 --> 00:46:44,667 why is there a fundamental asymmetry of forces and matter-- 764 00:46:44,702 --> 00:46:47,303 led him to a powerful mathematical theory 765 00:46:47,338 --> 00:46:50,039 called supersymmetry. 766 00:46:50,074 --> 00:46:52,942 It was the asking of this "what if?" question 767 00:46:52,977 --> 00:46:56,479 that drove the construction of supersymmetry, 768 00:46:56,514 --> 00:46:59,348 which had an incredible resonance for me 769 00:46:59,384 --> 00:47:01,017 when I was a graduate student. 770 00:47:01,052 --> 00:47:04,153 I saw one more beautiful balance that we could put in nature. 771 00:47:07,125 --> 00:47:09,826 NARRATOR: One of the pioneers of supersymmetry, 772 00:47:09,861 --> 00:47:12,895 Jim Gates saw in the mathematics a possible hidden world 773 00:47:12,931 --> 00:47:16,532 of new particles no one had suspected. 774 00:47:19,037 --> 00:47:22,672 GATES: Mathematics leads us to find things we didn't know 775 00:47:22,707 --> 00:47:24,106 were there before. 776 00:47:24,142 --> 00:47:26,609 Supersymmetry is an example of that. 777 00:47:26,644 --> 00:47:28,744 We know about ordinary matter. 778 00:47:28,780 --> 00:47:31,113 The mass leads you on 779 00:47:31,149 --> 00:47:33,349 to discover supermatter and superenergy. 780 00:47:39,023 --> 00:47:42,525 NARRATOR: The theory gives every matter particle a force partner 781 00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:47,730 and every force particle a matter partner. 782 00:47:49,767 --> 00:47:54,837 These heavier supersymmetric twins are labeled sparticles. 783 00:47:57,508 --> 00:47:59,742 So once you believe this math 784 00:47:59,777 --> 00:48:02,678 that says there's more to existence, 785 00:48:02,714 --> 00:48:04,780 then you have to wonder what these other things are. 786 00:48:04,816 --> 00:48:06,449 You have to name them, at a very... 787 00:48:06,484 --> 00:48:08,117 you know, at the very first step. 788 00:48:08,152 --> 00:48:11,087 So in nature there is a thing called the electron. 789 00:48:11,122 --> 00:48:12,989 The math says it has a superpartner 790 00:48:13,024 --> 00:48:14,991 called the selectron. 791 00:48:15,026 --> 00:48:17,560 Muon, it'd have to be a smuon; 792 00:48:17,595 --> 00:48:20,596 photon, there'd have to be a photino; 793 00:48:20,632 --> 00:48:23,466 quark, there'd have to be squarks; 794 00:48:23,501 --> 00:48:26,702 Z particle, there'd have to be zino; 795 00:48:26,738 --> 00:48:30,172 the W particle, there'd have to be a wino. 796 00:48:30,208 --> 00:48:33,109 And that's how supersymmetry works. 797 00:48:35,179 --> 00:48:37,213 NARRATOR: According to supersymmetry, 798 00:48:37,248 --> 00:48:40,950 matter and forces aren't so distinct after all. 799 00:48:40,985 --> 00:48:44,186 There's a grand symmetry between them 800 00:48:44,222 --> 00:48:48,758 but we can currently see only e partner from each pair. 801 00:48:52,230 --> 00:48:54,163 However strange it seems, 802 00:48:54,198 --> 00:48:56,766 this theory has gained widespread support 803 00:48:56,801 --> 00:48:59,702 from theoretical physicists. 804 00:48:59,737 --> 00:49:03,539 (clanging) 805 00:49:03,574 --> 00:49:06,375 Not just for the beauty of its equations 806 00:49:06,411 --> 00:49:09,412 but for what it might help explain. 807 00:49:09,447 --> 00:49:13,182 GATES: When supersymmetry began as a topic of discussion, 808 00:49:13,217 --> 00:49:16,152 no one realized what it can do. 809 00:49:16,187 --> 00:49:18,521 It turns out that studying the mathematics, 810 00:49:18,556 --> 00:49:22,525 we get a firm foundation for the existence of everything. 811 00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:32,868 NARRATOR: Supersymmetry could shed light on dark matter-- 812 00:49:32,904 --> 00:49:35,104 the missing particles that aren't included 813 00:49:35,139 --> 00:49:38,607 in the Standard Model-- and even help to explain 814 00:49:38,643 --> 00:49:42,044 how symmetry was broken in the first place. 815 00:49:44,182 --> 00:49:46,682 WILCZEK: I very much want supersymmetry 816 00:49:46,718 --> 00:49:49,452 because it's a beautiful thing by any standard 817 00:49:49,487 --> 00:49:53,622 and would take our understanding of nature to a new level. 818 00:49:53,658 --> 00:49:55,291 So I want that. 819 00:50:04,535 --> 00:50:07,903 NARRATOR: Finding the Higgs pushed the LHC to the limit 820 00:50:07,939 --> 00:50:11,507 of what it could do. 821 00:50:11,542 --> 00:50:13,676 So, a few months after the Higgs announcement... 822 00:50:16,814 --> 00:50:19,615 the scientists at CERN shut down the giant collider... 823 00:50:24,422 --> 00:50:26,989 and began a planned two-year upgrade. 824 00:50:33,197 --> 00:50:35,731 As it begins its second act, 825 00:50:35,767 --> 00:50:40,002 it will smash protons even more energetically. 826 00:50:40,038 --> 00:50:42,772 FRANKLIN: So when the LHC turns back on in 2015, 827 00:50:42,807 --> 00:50:44,874 we will be at twice the energy we were before. 828 00:50:47,311 --> 00:50:51,113 NARRATOR: The increased power will help physicists to study the Higgs 829 00:50:51,149 --> 00:50:56,352 with more precision, but the real hope is that they will find 830 00:50:56,387 --> 00:50:59,188 something entirely new. 831 00:50:59,223 --> 00:51:01,624 Every single experimentalist is only thinking this: 832 00:51:01,659 --> 00:51:05,127 Is there a massive particle we can now make with this energy, 833 00:51:05,163 --> 00:51:08,097 with these energetic protons, that we haven't seen before? 834 00:51:11,135 --> 00:51:13,035 NARRATOR: For the theorists, too, 835 00:51:13,071 --> 00:51:18,307 it is an exciting and nerve-wracking time. 836 00:51:18,342 --> 00:51:22,545 If we find supersymmetry in experiments, for me personally 837 00:51:22,580 --> 00:51:26,982 it will mean that I have not wasted my entire research career 838 00:51:27,018 --> 00:51:30,820 because this is the one question as a young scientist 839 00:51:30,855 --> 00:51:34,423 I decided had my name on it to study. 840 00:51:38,563 --> 00:51:39,895 I'm starting to get nervous. 841 00:51:39,931 --> 00:51:43,699 (laughs) 842 00:51:43,734 --> 00:51:46,735 You know... 843 00:51:46,771 --> 00:51:48,938 So there were a lot of people who predicted 844 00:51:48,973 --> 00:51:53,175 that supersymmetry was just around the corner 845 00:51:53,211 --> 00:51:55,578 or something else, that as soon as LHC turned on 846 00:51:55,613 --> 00:51:57,847 they'd see spectacular effects on the one hand, 847 00:51:57,882 --> 00:52:00,349 or that the Higgs particle would be heavy on the other hand. 848 00:52:00,384 --> 00:52:01,584 Those are all wrong. 849 00:52:01,619 --> 00:52:03,819 Now it's make or break time. 850 00:52:09,560 --> 00:52:12,695 NARRATOR: For the thousands of scientists who have come together 851 00:52:12,730 --> 00:52:14,063 in this great quest, 852 00:52:14,098 --> 00:52:17,666 pushing the frontiers of knowledge 853 00:52:17,702 --> 00:52:19,502 has been a wild rollercoaster ride. 854 00:52:23,574 --> 00:52:25,307 And with the Large Hadron Collider... 855 00:52:25,343 --> 00:52:28,711 MULTIPLE VOICES: Three, two, one... 856 00:52:28,746 --> 00:52:29,678 zero. 857 00:52:29,714 --> 00:52:33,015 NARRATOR: The fun has only just begun. 858 00:52:42,293 --> 00:52:44,226 The exploration continues online, 859 00:52:44,262 --> 00:52:46,996 where you can watch this and ot NOVA programs. 860 00:52:47,031 --> 00:52:49,298 Journey beneath the Alps 861 00:52:49,333 --> 00:52:52,701 to explore the world's largest particle accelerator. 862 00:52:52,737 --> 00:52:56,472 Also, what are gravitons, what is dark energy 863 00:52:56,507 --> 00:52:59,675 and what is the smallest particle? 864 00:52:59,710 --> 00:53:03,245 Watch original video shorts, explore in-depth reporting 865 00:53:03,281 --> 00:53:05,214 and dive into interactives. 866 00:53:05,249 --> 00:53:08,017 Find us at pbs.org/nova. 867 00:53:08,052 --> 00:53:10,152 Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. 868 00:53:28,573 --> 00:53:31,307 This NOVA program is available on DVD. The Costa Concordia disaster... 869 00:53:31,342 --> 00:53:37,179 To order, visit shopPBS.org, or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS. 870 00:53:37,215 --> 00:53:37,179 NOVA is also available for download on iTunes.