Sunday, 7. August 2016

New particle hopes fade as LHC data 'bump' disappears


Hopes for the imminent discovery of a particle that might fundamentally change our understanding of the Universe have been put on hold. Results from the Large Hadron Collider show that a "bump" in the machine's data, previously rumoured to represent a new particle, has gone away. The discovery of new particles, which could trigger a paradigm shift in physics, may still be years away. All the latest LHC results are being discussed at a conference in Chicago. David Charlton of Birmingham University, leader of the Atlas experiment at the LHC, told BBC News that everyone working on the project was disappointed. "There was a lot of excitement when we started to collect data. But in the [latest results] we see no sign of a bump, there's nothing. "It is a pity because it would have been a really fantastic thing if there had been a new particle."

bbc.co.uk atlas.cern

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