Higgs Boson Question

“Now physicists at the Tevatron particle accelerator at Illinois’ Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory report hints in their data that suggest the particle may exist with a mass between 115 to 135 giga-electron volts, or GeV (for comparison, a proton has a mass of about 0.938 GeV).”

If the Higgs is somewhere between 122- 144x more massive than the proton (which I recall being much more massive than electrons), how come we have not found it yet? Wouldn’t it be easier to find?

How would the existance of such a particle factor into our view of the atom (a nucleus of protons and sometimes neutrons surrounded by an electron cloud)? If the Higgs gives matter mass, but are more themselves more massive than the subatomic particles that we are aware of, where do they exist (in the context of say a chunk of elemental matter)?

I know its more complex than this - that the Higgs is theorized to “convey” mass to other particles, but it seems odd to me that there is no transparent evidence of them, and the only way we seem to be able to generate them is in a manner in whch they can be detected is by smashing together protons, which they are believed to be more massive than.

It’s probably a stupid question and I know little about this sort of thing, aside from what I remember from college chemistry and physics.

We haven’t found it yet because unlike protons, Higgs bosons (if they exist) don’t hang out in nature. They decay into smaller particles very quickly. So in order to see one, we have to smash particles together at ridiculously high energies to see if we can get lucky and create one, then detect it before it decays. This strategy has worked for all sorts of other theorized heavy particles that we don’t see in nature, but the Higgs is the heaviest one yet.

We just had this question

Thanks chronos - did not see that.

No, no! Our OP here is asking about the Higgs Boson.

That other OP was asking about Higg’s Boson. Professor Higg apparently had his own personal Boson, which he embedded in a Lucite paperweight, prominently displayed on the desk in his office.

Also not to be confused with Bosun Higgs.