Standard model of particle physics could not explain why matter had mass.
Matter is largely made up of empty space so where does its mass come from?
The Higgs Boson was found by CERN after 40 years! The detection of the boson is a very rare event – it takes around 1 trillion (1012) proton-proton collisions for each observed event.
The Higgs Boson is an excitation of the Higgs field. In quantum mechanics an excited state of a system (such as an atom, molecule or nucleus) is any quantum state of the system that has a higher energy than the ground state (its absolute minimum). The lifetime of this excited state is usually short. Shortly after the system is promoted to the excited state, it returns to its ground state. This return is often loosely described as decay.
The Higgs field is what "gives" matter mass. Once the field has endowed a formerly massless particle (through interactions), it slows down because it has become heavier, therefore giving other particles the chance to latch onto it using the electromagnetic force. Matter with greater mass interacts with the Higgs field more. Matter with lesser mass interacts with the Higgs field less.
Matter with mass have the 'luxury' of staying still through its interaction with the Higgs field but cannot travel faster than the speed of light. Conversely, matter without mass have no choice but to travel at the speed of light. Therefore we have to thank the Higgs field for being able to sit still...imagine daily routines (like trying to fall asleep, eating etc) whilst travelling at the speed of light!
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