Review It
Using the knowledge you have gained, continue reading and thinking about the most important idea that the author wants you to learn from this article.
Remember to ask yourself:
- What is the central idea?
- How has the central idea changed or become clearer from the last section I read?
- What evidence supports my growing understanding of this topic or concept?
As you continue synthesizing the evidence that supports the central idea, ask yourself:
- Is the evidence significant?
- Is the evidence relevant?
In the following activities, read the remainder of the article, synthesize the evidence presented and determine the author’s central idea.
Now read paragraphs 12 - 16 in the article, “The Last Piece of the Puzzle Opens a new window,” and then complete the activity that follows. The paragraphs are also provided below.
12 In the 1960s, physicists came up with the Standard Model, which theorized the existence of the smallest particles in the universe, like quarks and leptons, and also new forces and fields that keep all the new particles together.
13 Starting in the 1970s, physicists went straight down the list discovering all of the new subatomic particles theorized in the Standard Model, except one – the Higgs boson.
14 Going into this most recent run of the Large Hadron Collider, researchers had a pretty good idea of what the Higgs boson looked like, in theory. Last August, researchers excluded the existence of the Higgs boson in the mass region 145 to 466 GeV, the higher end of the mass range they suspected, and announced they suspected the particle to have a mass of 116 to 130 GeV.
15 They announced yesterday that the particle has a mass of 125 or so GeV with its predicted properties.
16 Finding Higgs boson-like particle may close the book on the Standard Model, and in doing so opens many other doors for discoveries in the areas of particle and theoretical physics.
- Michael Hess, “The Last Piece of the Puzzle: Celebrating the Higgs Boson”
Source: Energy.gov Opens a new window
