Evidence of elusive ‘God particle’ found

Scientists working at the world’s biggest atom smasher plan to announce tomorrow that they have gathered enough evidence to show that the long-sought ‘God particle’ answering fundamental questions about the universe almost certainly does exist.

However, despite decades of work and billions of dollars, researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Cern, are not quite ready to say they have “discovered” the particle.

Experts familiar with the research at Cern’s complex on the Swiss-French border say the massive amounts of data they have obtained will essentially show the footprint of the key particle known as the Higgs boson — all but proving it exists — but does not allow them to say it has actually been glimpsed.