The elusive Higgs Boson, the so-called 'God Particle' has been discovered by three schoolboys working with a home-made particle accelerator. The boys, all aged thirteen and from The Francis Howard Academy in York, built the accelerator from bits and pieces they scavenged from science labs around the country.
"We used all the bits they were throwing out", said Jeff Boff, one of the trio, "and built our accelerator, which we call Betsy, in the school hall."
Although their work has resulted in several assemblies being cancelled, their Head Teacher, Mr Ivor Whiteboard, says he is extremely proud of the boys. "This just shows what hard work and some Tesco's School Equipment vouchers can achieve," he said. And he claims the best is yet to come: "The same three lads are planning to build an entry for Robot Wars next year."
The other two boys in the team, Sayed Neherd and Duncan Geekie, worked with Jeff during playtimes and after school. They were also given special permission to use some of their P.E. lesson periods on the project. Even so, their discovery has been quite an upset for the scientific community.
Primary particle research laboratories Cern and Fermilab have analysed the boys' results and have grudgingly confirmed the result. However, an insider at the Large Hadron Collider facility told us: "Everyone is bloody furious." Project leader Lyn Evans is even said to be considering 'chucking it all in and starting a band'.
However, Cern may not have to give up just yet, because the months of data analysis revealed the possible presence of yet another new particle. Work will shortly begin on devising experiments to detect the presence of the even-more-elusive Higgs Boson's Mate.
