evidence: When it was first turned on in 2010, some feared it really would open the gates of Hell, or at the very least unleash a planet-guzzling black hole. Fortunately, the LHC didn’t destroy the world (far more energetic space particles already hit our atmosphere every day). But within the machine’s fiery collisions, the Higgs boson – that elusive "God particle" that gives things mass – was at last found in 2012. [...] The Higgs boson was originally known as the "goddamn particle", given, in the words of one physicist, it was so "goddamn hard to find". [...] When the field gets particularly excited, a ripple emerges we interpret as the Higgs boson, like the bump you get when you twitch a rope. One CERN scientist, suddenly facing down the world press at the announcement of the Higgs discovery in July 2012, described it like this: imagine the Higgs field as a waiting media pack. A celebrity (heavy particle) will be mobbed by the journalists, where someone unknown (i.e. lighter) would slip easily through. Likewise, a juicy rumour (the Higgs boson) will travel through that media scrum, drawing journalists together from one end to another in a bump.