Around 1970, Peter Higgs imagines that all of space is uniformly filled with an invisible substance that’s sort of like molasses. When a particle, like an electron, tries to move through this molasses, the resistance it encounters is what we interpret as the mass of the particle.  In fact, the idea is that different particles would have different degrees of stickiness which means they would experience a different amount of resistance as they try to borrow through this pervasive molasses. Higgs’s theory, if proven, would rewrite the very meaning of nothingness because the field, or molasses, is essentially an unremoveable occupant of space.

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Geneva, is about 18 miles around. Protons are sent cycling around the collider in opposite directions, near the speed of light, so fast that they can traverse that 18-mile race track more than 11,000 times each second. And these particles engage in head-on collisions. It’s a monumental challenge to carry out this procedure. “It’s like trying to hear a tiny, delicate whisper over the thundering, deafening din of a NASCAR race,” says Greene.

Fundamental discovery can have a profound impact on the way we live our lives, but we must wait for theoretical discoveries to turn into practical applications. Confirming the existence of the Higgs particle in 2012 substantiated 30 years of theoretical science. In short, the Higgs discovery put the bang in the Big Bang Theory.