The "particle of God"

Scientists said Wednesday they had discovered a new particle whose characteristics match the of the Higgs boson, popularly known as the "particle of God", that could help reveal some of the deepest secrets of the universe. "We have reached a milestone in our understanding of the nature," said Rolf Heuer, director-general of the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN), which has been carrying out experiments in the search for the Higgs boson in the large Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle accelerator. The discovery of a particle that is consistent with the

Higgs boson not only opens the way to more detailed studies, but it is essential to explain why there is matter as we know it.

The particle has been so difficult to define that the physicist Leon Lederman reports that he wanted to call his book "La Maldita particle". Find the Higgs boson would help explain the origin of mass, one of the open questions of current physicists on the understanding of the way the universe works. Announcements by the CERN researchers occur two days after scientists in Illinois said they were closer to prove the existence of the "God particle", but had not been able to reach a definitive conclusion.

Announcements of the scientists about analysis of data generated by billions of particle collisions at the LHC pulled applause at a seminar in Geneva, Switzerland, expected Wednesday. "A fuller picture of the observations leave at the end of this year once the LHC provides more data from the experiments," said CERN, in his statement. But despite the words of warning, scientists mood and many of his comments were full of enthusiasm for the possible scope of what they had discovered. "It is difficult to not get excited with these results," said Sergio Bertolucci, director of research at CERN.