Higgs Boson, Very Expensive When Bought by the Gram

Higgs boson may be a mirage, scientists hint

Scientists chasing a particle they believe may have played a vital role in creation of the universe indicated on Monday they were coming to accept it might not exist after all.

But they stressed that if the so-called Higgs boson turns out to have been a mirage, the way would be open for advances into territory dubbed "new physics" to try to answer one of the great mysteries of the cosmos.

The CERN research center, whose giant Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been the focus of the search, said it had reported to a conference in Mumbai that possible signs of the Higgs noted last month were now seen as less significant.

A number of scientists from the center went on to make comments that raised the possibility that the mystery particle might not exist.

"Whatever the final verdict on Higgs, we are now living in very exciting times for all involved in the quest for new physics," Guido Tonelli, from one of the two LHC detectors chasing the Higgs, said as the new observations were announced. 

Which bring to mind the Chinese curse "May you live in exciting times".  I've always thought that finding the Higgs Boson could probably wait a while longer.  I would say that it's OK, because it's just the European spending money they don't have to discover the Higgs boson, but the US has a parallel effort at Fermilab in Chicago that's been looking for the elusive boson for 30 years, with the same result.

Can we get our money back?