India’s Bose behind boson
City physicists were excited about the near discovery of the elusive God particle or Higgs boson on Wednesday. Dozens of Indian scientists have been involved over the years searching for this “missing cornerstone of particle physics” in laboratories in Europe, India and the US.
Researchers from Hyderabad played a crucial role in this near discovery by patiently searching a wide range of giga-electron volts (GeV) to find the Higgs boson, named after British scientist Peter Higgs and Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose.
Dr Bose, who taught at Dhaka and Calcutta universities, did pioneering research in mathematical physics and quantum mechanics. Although he did not win the Nobel, at least two scientists who carried forward his work, won the prize.
Even the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has a huge contribution from India. The 8,000-tonne magnet at LHC was made in India. Indian teams also contributed to LHC hardware in the form of circuits and software in analysing computer-generated data.
Incidentally, Indians have been associated with CERN for more than half a century, much before the LHC was fired up.
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