Particle Physics, the Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs Boson

Synopsis

In particle physics, we study the elementary constituents of matter and their interactions. A century of discoveries at experiments and laboratories around the world have lead to an incredible successful theory called the Standard Model of particle physics. Within the Standard Model, the visible universe can be explained by a small number of fundamental fermions and bosons that mediate interactions. This talk will review some of the key observations that allowed physicists to uncover this simple realization of the universe and I will highlight the recent discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.