Monday 4 July 2022 marks the 10-year anniversary of that famous seminar at CERN when the discovery of a Higgs-like boson was confirmed. It was a shining example of the power of international collaboration and curiosity-driven research, and many hoped it would usher in a new era of discoveries beyond the Standard Model of particle physics.
In truth, the subsequent decade has been underwhelming for particle physics with few significant breakthroughs. But today the community is feeling energised once again as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has fired up after a three-year maintenance period. The upcoming third run of collisions will be at 13.6 trillion electron volts – close to the machine’s full capability.
This short film looks back at that historic moment in particle physics in 2012, and looks forward to the future of particle physics. Right now, LHC successor projects are looking precarious amid the turmoil of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
To find out more about the past, present and future of particle physics, take a look at July’s Physics World, a special issue devoted to the 10th anniversary of the Higgs boson discovery.
