By the end of this year we will know whether Higgs bosons exist, as the director of CERN claimed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on 28/07/2011. Since my youth, when I graduated in the field of particle physics, I have been aware of the hypothesis that such a particle should exist. It was at the time when the importance of so-called gauge theories was realized. These play a crucial role in the famous standard model of the quantum field theory of electromagnetic and weak interactions. The only catch was that in such theories the particles associated with the quantum fields cannot possess a mass, which they should however have for physical reasons. (More)

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In studying the history of physics, especially the formation of physical theories and concepts, one will discover that development always takes place on two different layers — on a formal, mathematical level on the one hand, and as a conceptual, verbal formulation on the other. In my book, ‘Die Entdeckung des Unvorstellbaren’ [1], this is explained in detail.

The layers are not only different in their language — mathematical here, upscale vernacular there — but also in their development. New theories arise only on the first layer, in the form of tangible mathematical relationships between experimentally accessible quantities. But thereby, further quantities requiring interpretation also come into play. Often, a satisfying understanding of the significance of these additional variables lags behind, such as in the perception of the electromagnetic field or the probability amplitude in quantum mechanics. (More)

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