Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Higgs Boson particle. One weekend in 1964 the Scottish scientist Peter Higgs was walking in the Cairngorm Mountains. On his return to his laboratory in Edinburgh the following Monday, he declared to his colleagues that he had just experienced his 'one big idea' and now had an answer to the mystery of how matter in the universe got its mass. That big idea took many years of refining, but it has now generated so much international interest and has such an important place in physics that well over one billion pounds is being spent in the hope that he was right. It's the biggest science project on Earth; the quest to find the 'Higgs Boson', a fundamental constituent of nature that - if it does exist - has such a central role in defining the universe that it's also known as the God Particle.What is the Higgs Boson? Why is it so important to scientists and how are they planning to find it?With Jim Al-Khalili, Senior Lecturer in Physics at the University of Surrey; David Wark, Professor of Experimental Physics at Imperial College London and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory; Professor Roger Cashmore, former Research Director at CERN and now Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | Thanks for downloading the In Our Time Podcast. |
| 0:39.0 | For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co. UK |
| 0:44.3 | forward slash radio for I hope you enjoy the program. |
| 0:48.0 | Hello one weekend in 1964 the Scottish scientist Peter Higgs was walking in the Kanghorn Mountains. |
| 0:54.5 | On his return to his laboratory in Edinburgh the following Monday he declared to his |
| 0:58.3 | colleagues that he just experienced his one big idea and now had an answer to the mystery of how matter in universe got its |
| 1:05.9 | mass. That big idea took many years of refining, but it's now generated so much international |
| 1:11.4 | interest and has such an important place in physics that well over |
| 1:14.5 | one billion pounds is being spent on a collider in Cern in the hope that he was right. |
| 1:19.6 | It's the biggest science project on Earth. |
| 1:21.5 | The question to find the Higgs boson, a fundamental |
| 1:24.4 | constituent of nature, that if it does exist, has such a central role in defining |
| 1:28.6 | the universe that it's also known as God's Particle. What is the Higgs boson? Why is it so important to scientists and how |
| 1:35.8 | are they planning to find it? We'd need to voyage into the quantum realm of the Higgs |
| 1:39.2 | Bosen is Professor Roger Cashmore, the former director of Research at Cern and now Principal |
| 1:44.0 | of Brasnows College Oxford. David Wark, Professor of Experimental Physics at Imperial College |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.