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Originally Posted by donovan
Thanks for sharing and clearing it up with me 
I think I was a little apprehensive because they called it God particle lol. |
I'd try and explain to you what it is but I'd have a hard time. The youtube above does it pretty well without a post-undergraduate understanding.
Basically, the particles you've heard of (protons, neutrons, electrons that make up atoms, and maybe photons that make up radio, micro waves, and light) interact via other, even smaller particles. These interactions vary in nature (different forces act between different types of these smaller particles).
The theory behind all of these subatomic particles acting together to make up the components of atoms, and subsequently, matter that everything is made of (as well as the E+M waves which allow you to read this with your eyes), is called the Standard Model, which has been around and widely accepted for about 50 years.
Most of the subatomic particles which make up this model have been discovered decades ago. The sort of setups required to experimentally isolate them and record evidence for their existence were around back then. The more temperamental particles, including this Higgs Boson, required advanced experimental setups to detect.
These particle experiment labs take 10-20 years from design to operation and hundreds of millions to few billions of dollars to construct. They are only built about every 20 years somewhere in the world, and all the scientists working on an area which could benefit usually collaborate with that project since it gives them access to results not found anywhere else. Then they're phased out, typically after a few upgrades, after another 20 years as a new one begins operation.
Anyway, the LHC started operation 2 years ago, and was designed and built with experimental discovery of the Higgs Boson as one of the key goals. It's a huge circular particle collider 17 miles long, in a tunnel carved into the Alps. Pretty cool place.
I used to work on a mechanism of interaction between two other subatomic particles, neutrinos, with a pretty large experimental setup in Japan.