The seven LHC winners of the Fundamental Physics Prize reflect on the Higgs boson discovery.
“The [Large Hadron Collider] is a fantastic machine. The people who designed and built it, as well as those exploiting it, should feel justly proud. It has enormous discovery potential. After the consolidation work, it will be able to go to full energy and I am confident that it will exceed its design luminosity. Then we shall see what surprises nature will bring at this new energy frontier.” —Lyn Evans, leader of LHC construction
“This discovery [of a new particle that seems to be the Higgs boson] came faster than even the most optimistic predictions of how the [Large Hadron Collider] and the experiments would work, and I hope this trend will continue with more discoveries. With that, there’s also a rich potential for precision measurements. It’ll take time and patience, but I’m sure we’ll see more great physics in the future.” —Peter Jenni, spokesperson for the ATLAS experiment until early 2009
“Going through my slides during the July 4 announcement [of a new particle thought to be the Higgs boson], I had such a feeling of pride for what the ATLAS collaboration accomplished. Each slide represented a huge amount of competent, high-quality work of many people in all components of the experiment. We've done our best, and it turned out so well.” —Fabiola Gianotti, spokesperson of ATLAS from early 2009 to early 2013
“Building a detector able to operate in the very intense beams of the LHC was a real challenge. We proposed goals that had never been reached before, and it wasn’t clear this detector would work. It was thought to be impossible, but with everyone working together and an intensive period of research and development, we succeeded.” —Michel Della Negra, spokesperson of the CMS experiment from 1992 through 2006
“In order for this kind of experiment to succeed, and this endeavor to maintain the tremendous momentum it has over such a long time, a strong collaboration is needed. CMS is very fortunate to have teams of people, whether they be scientific, technical or administrative, that have an overriding goal of making true advances in fundamental science in order to get a deeper understanding of nature’s workings.“ —Tejinder Jim Virdee, CMS spokesperson from 2007 to 2010
“The discovery [of a new particle thought to be the Higgs boson] was not in a single moment. The first hints appeared already at the end of 2011. Then, at the end of June, signals became strong enough to announce the discovery. In those seven months, physics changed forever. This discovery is a major breakthrough in understanding the thin fabric of our universe.” —Guido Tonelli, spokesperson of the CMS experiment from 2010 through 2011
“With such a complex instrument, there was always the potential to miss something that would come back to haunt you. We made enormous effort to hunt down and correct design and manufacturing flaws that might have led to widespread failures in key detectors, which would have been a disaster for CMS. In three years of running, we had no failures, and the whole system ran beautifully. I think that’s something everyone in CMS is proud of and shows how everyone contributed to the discovery [of a new particle that seems to be the Higgs boson].” —Joe Incandela, spokesperson of the CMS experiment since 2012