Recently, I was reading about a particle called the Higgs Boson , it revolutionised quantum science. While doing so I came across a word which I kept reading as the moon for almost 3/4th of the article and then realised the word was muon.
A moon is a macroscopic object — a satellite, a celestial body, whereas a muon is a microscopic object, and an elementary particle like an electron but with a mass 207 times greater. In this article, I will present to you how a tiny invisible particle is related to the ‘Higgs Boson’, the particle which shook my worldview.
A Muon is a type of subatomic particle with a lifetime of only 2.2 microseconds, space is created by the collision of cosmic rays(which are high energy particles and nuclei ) with the atmosphere of the earth. It was initially believed to travel 660m/s through the atmosphere but as it goes under time dilation, we see it love 15 times slower than its actual speed and see it live longer than it’s actual lifetime.
The muon decays into two kinds of neutrinos and an electron, they travel nearly at the speed of light, almost as fast as a photon, and penetrates through a mile to the earth’s crust.
Now, I won’t go any deeper as we are her to talk about it’s implications.
This particle being detected in the Hadron collider led to proof of the existence of a Higgs like particle. The Higgs Boson is a particle without which life – the universe itself couldn’t exist.
You see, initially the universe was hot and dense and the HB was freer, but as the universe cooled down by around 3000K (Kelvin), the particle froze into empty space.
It slows down the speed of most elementary particles, except light as light doesn’t react with it, if the HB didn’t do this then all these particles would travel at the speed of light, atoms wouldn’t even be able to hold together and fall part and thus, anything made of atoms, including us, wouldn’t exist.
FACT:
Weak force (one of the fundamental forces of the universe), was once symmetrical to the Electromagnetic force, but due to the HB it has become a short-ranged force.
It is the only thing between us and….. no us. If it were to suddenly evaporate from the universe, everything would just go boom and start to spontaneously fall apart.
It sounds like it was taken right out of a science fiction novel, doesn’t it?
This discovery wowed the minds of many and sHoOK the field of quantum science as I would like to believe. No surprise that Prof. Higgs got a Nobel prize for it.
That’s all of what’s on my mind as of now. See you next time, byee.
…END…
Through my eyes 