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The rumors were true! Both experiments at the LHC that were searching for the Higgs announced discovery-level evidence early this morning. This is a Big Deal, even if we did pretty much expect that the LHC would produce a result like this eventually. There's a lot to say (and lots of good discussions out there at various technical levels), but for a nice layman's overview I might recommend Bad Astronomy's Higgs post. The quotes near the beginning of this post by Tommaso Dorigo are good, too.
The very short version is this: a new particle has most definitely been discovered, and CERN found it by looking in all the places that one would look for the Higgs. Its properties aren't nailed down very well yet, but they appear to be broadly consistent with the properties we expect for the Standard Model Higgs. But, enticingly, there are tentative hints of some differences from that expectation, too. Further data over the next few years will (we hope) show us whether those differences are just random noise in the detection system or whether they reflect entirely new physics. (Most of us really, really hope it's the latter.)
Edit: I've seen some folks linking to a nice video explaining the Higgs from PhD Comics a couple of months ago. Also, since the topic of Comic Sans came up in my blog last week, I'm sad to see that the things I grumbled about last December were still a problem for the real announcement.
Edit2: Strassler's post lists a few more specifics in a nice, clean way.
The very short version is this: a new particle has most definitely been discovered, and CERN found it by looking in all the places that one would look for the Higgs. Its properties aren't nailed down very well yet, but they appear to be broadly consistent with the properties we expect for the Standard Model Higgs. But, enticingly, there are tentative hints of some differences from that expectation, too. Further data over the next few years will (we hope) show us whether those differences are just random noise in the detection system or whether they reflect entirely new physics. (Most of us really, really hope it's the latter.)
Edit: I've seen some folks linking to a nice video explaining the Higgs from PhD Comics a couple of months ago. Also, since the topic of Comic Sans came up in my blog last week, I'm sad to see that the things I grumbled about last December were still a problem for the real announcement.
Edit2: Strassler's post lists a few more specifics in a nice, clean way.