Physicist Howard Haber: Hunting the Higgs

Among those popping the champagne when the discovery of the Higgs boson was announced in July 2012 was Howard Haber. And deservedly so. He'd been studying and theorizing about the Higgs for decades, long before it became headline fodder. Howie wrote about the then-notional particle in his 1978 doctoral dissertation and co-authored a definitive text on how to find it, “The Higgs Hunter's Guide,” in 1989. Though we've touched on the Higgs in previous shows, we've never gone into detail on the backstory and theoretical significance. I thought it was high time we did, especially as a new documentary film on the Higgs search – “Particle Fever” – is opening around the country.