diff --git a/_posts/2008-04-01-Higgs.md b/_posts/2008-04-01-Higgs.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..31a501f41 --- /dev/null +++ b/_posts/2008-04-01-Higgs.md @@ -0,0 +1,68 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "CGAL and the Higgs Boson" +description: "On the way to the Nobel prize." +category: "news" +tags: [] +--- +{% include JB/setup %} + + +

+Geneva, April 1st, 2008 +

+ +

+The Large Hadron Collider Together With the CGAL Periodic Triangulations +Prove the Existence of the Higgs Boson +

+ +

+The Higgs boson was a hypothetical massive scalar elementary particle +predicted to exist by the Standard Model of particle physics. +Until yesterday, the Higgs Boson was the only Standard Model particle +not yet observed. The proof of its existence is crucial to explain how +otherwise massless elementary particles still manage to construct mass +in matter. +

+ +

+What turned hypothetical existence in reality is the combination +of +

    +
  1. the photon collisions observed in the recently inaugurated +Large Hadron Collider (LHC) +together with +
  2. the Periodic Triangulation package of CGAL, which allows +to compute Delaunay triangulations of toroidal spaces in order to apply +finite difference simulations without dealing with artificial boundary +conditions. +
+

+ +

+"We knew that hardware alone, buried in a circular tunnel under the Alps, +and combined with a 128K triple-core processor grid, simply wouldn't do +the job,", +said Irene Eneri, the LHC project leader, "What it additionaly +needed were cleverly designed algorithms for complex shapes, and what we got +from the folks of the CGAL project was beyond the keenest expectations +of everybody -- even of the project officer of our EU funded Hicks project." +

+ +

+The downside of this breakthrough result is that the PhD student who worked +on the periodic triangulations stopped working, telling everybody, that whatever +he still finds out during his career is irelevant, as he expects to get the +Fields Medal in about 9, and the Nobel Prize for Physics in about 32 years. +

+ +

+Champagne !!!! (Higgs) +

+ +

+The directors, +
+Robert Aymar (CERN), Andreas Fabri (GeometryFactory), Sylvain Pion (cgal.org) +