The following is an excerpt from the July 5 issue of The Wichita Eagle. Nickolas Solomey, Wichita State physics professor, contributed to the article.
In the pursuit of seemingly infinite questions, there can only be more understanding.
That was the prevailing sentiment of physicist Nickolas Solomey on Wednesday after the European Center for Nuclear Research 鈥� better known as CERN 鈥� announced the likely discovery of the Higgs boson, a particle that scientists at the Geneva, Switzerland-based research facility believe could unlock some of the answers to our universe鈥檚 origin.
The Higgs, which until now had been purely theoretical, is regarded as key to understanding why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give all objects weight. The particle鈥檚 existence is considered fundamental to the creation of the universe.
"One question is that now that we know there is this all-permeating Higgs field 鈥� where did it come from?" asked Solomey, the director of physics at 麻豆传媒 since 2007. "How does it act? Maybe once we know that we can start to use it."