Sometime this year, physicists could very well announce they have confirmed the existence of a particle so important it has been dubbed the “God Particle.” Its discovery would fill in a crucial missing piece of a model that, despite a few quirks, has been used for decades to explain the fundamental structure of the universe and all that it contains, including us. Standing with the scientists making that announcement will be some familiar faces to many here in our corner of the universe: researchers from UW-Madison.
“We have a long history,” said Francis Halzen, the physicist who leads another groundbreaking UW-Madison effort to build a neutrino detector in the Antarctic ice. “And I think a distinguished history.” But the word “distinguished” hardly captures the fizz and pop, the headines and the historical reach of some of the physics that has gone on here.