Looking for mass?

Now this probably won't come as a shock to you, but I don't know much about particle physics. I did physics GCSE a long time ago and I have to confess most of my other knowledge comes from the TV show - The Big Bang Theory.

So when I saw that there was an event at the Edinburgh Science Festival entitled A Conversation with Peter Higgs, I decided now was the time to find out more.

So this is Peter Higgs at the Queens Hall talking about the Higgs Boson; a particle he and 5 other physicists theorised in 1964, which was discovered in July 2012 and verified in March 2013 at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). But as Higgs said tonight:

"Of course I knew I was right before the particle was discovered..."

Forgive my limited knowledge, but as far as I can see the Higgs particle is a boson that gives mass to other particles. It validates the Standard Model in physics (being the last particle in the Model to be discovered). This theory identifies the building blocks for matter and the particles that convey fundamental forces.

The Higgs boson is often called "the God particle" because it's said to be what caused the "Big Bang" that created our universe. Its what joins everything and gives it matter.

So what does this all mean? Well I'm afraid that's beyond me, but I've heard that there are lots of interesting discoveries ahead, including explaining dark matter. I don't know about you, but I've read enough Sci-Fi to know that's pretty damn interesting!