8.

11 Enquiry
How Science work
Inside sub atomic particles
 ◂ What is a proton?

“ ◂ By 1920, scientists knew that most

of the ass of an atom is in its
nucleus.
◂ The nucleus contains protons.
◂ Electrons move around an atom,
outside its nucleus.
 ◂ Scientist continued to ask quest
“ ions.
◂ What makes up protons and
electrons?
◂ Are they made up of even
smaller particles?
 Suggesting explanations
◂ Scientists use creative thoughts to suggest
explanations.
◂ They use maths to support their ideas.
◂ Satyendra Nath Bose through about sub-atomic
particle and energy.
◂ He wrote to Albert Einstein about his ideas.
◂ Together, Bose and Einstein predicted new state of
mat ter.
◂ They called it the Bose -Einstein condensate.
◂ The new state would exist only at very low
temperatures.
 Suggesting explanations
◂ Other scientists built on the ideas of
◂ Bose and Einstein.
◂ In1964, six scientists, including Peter Higgs,
suggested an explanation.
◂ There is a particle, they said, that gives sub-
atomic particle their mass.
◂ They called this particle the Higgs boson, in
The honour of Satyendra Nath Bose.
Mohammed Abdus Salam
◂ I n Pakistan, Mohammed Abdus Salam used
ideas about the Higgs boson to develop
explanation about force between sub­atomic
particles.
 Testing the Explanation
◂ Scientists look for evidence to test
explanations.
◂ They started looking for the Higgs boson.
◂ In Europe, 10 000 scientists from more than
100 countries worked together.
◂ They had one purpose.
◂ To design and build apparatus to detect the
Higgs boson.
◂ The result of their work - the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) - was ready to use by 2010.
Testing the Explanation
◂ The LHC is a 27 km long
circular tunnel, deep
underground.
◂ It produces beam of high
energy protons.
◂ Inside the tunnel, huge magnets
guide the proton around the
circle, in both directions.
Testing the Explanation
◂ The protons travel faster and faster.
◂ 'They collide ' with each other, and break up.
Four huge detectors follow the collisions.
◂ They detect the particles made in the
collisions.
◂ Teams of scientists from India made
important part s of these detectors.
 Testing the
Explanation

◂ The detectors send data to computers all over the world.

◂ The computers process the data.
◂ Scientists in many countries study the evidence.
◂ Does the evidence support the explanation?
◂ Do Higgs bosons exist, and do they give sub­atomic particles their
mass?
 Evidence for the Higgs boson
◂ On 4 July 2012 LHC scientists made an
exciting announcement.
◂ They had detected a new boson.
◂ The boson, they said, behaved as they had
predicted a Higgs boson would.
◂ Their evidence supported the explanation put
forward nearly 50 years earlier.
◂ There is a particle that gives sub­atomic
particles their mass.
◂ This particle is the Higgs boson.
 Evidence for the Higgs boson
◂ Of course, scientists cannot be sure that the
evidence supports the explanation.
◂ They need to spend many more years studying
the data that they already have.
◂ They also need to do more experiments, to
collect more evidence.
◂ Will the new evidence support the explanation,
or not?