Giant leaps for mankind

The recent Higgs boson revelation ranks as one of our greatest discoveries. Mark Evans looks at some of the others that can rival it

IT’S been a month since the known universe changed utterly. On July 4, scientists from all over the world waited with bated breath for the news they had all been waiting half a century to hear. Only a select few managed to cram into an auditorium at Cern’s headquarters in Switzerland; the vast majority watched eagerly online.

What they wanted to hear was that the most complex — and most expensive — machine ever built, the Large Hadron Collider, had detected the elusive Higgs boson. The man who predicted its existence, Peter Higgs, was near the front row. Finally, Cern director Rolf Heuer announced: “As a layman I would now say I think we have it.” Cue wild applause across the world.