The Higgs boson is a subatomic particle that apparently weighs about 130 times as much as an atom of hydrogen, the lightest gas.  Originally postulated in the 1970s, physicists Peter Higgs, Robert Brout and François Englert theorized that all particles had no mass just after the Big Bang. As the Universe cooled and the temperature fell below a critical value, an invisible force field called the ‘Higgs field’ was formed together with the associated ‘Higgs boson’.

The field prevails throughout the cosmos: any particles that interact with it are given a mass via the Higgs boson. The more they interact, the heavier they become, whereas particles that never interact are left with no mass at all.   In July of 2012, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, commonly known as CERN, announced that it had discovered the hypothetical Higgs boson (sometimes called the 'God Particle') or a particle that matches what Higgs, Brout & Englert had described. (Souce: CERN / Photo: Shutterstock)