Question

The God Particle, explain it to me.

Answer 1

Journalistic hype

Answer 2

Awesome flowchart:
http://fakescience.tumblr.com/post/26629316738/do-you-understand-the-higgs-boson

Answer 3

The name is an unfortunate choice made by a scientist who was trying to capture the public's attention. The Higgs particle, as more serious people refer to it, is a particle
that was predicted to exist in the Standard Model of particle physics. All of the other particles predicted to exist by this model have been found. The higgs is particularly
important because, at least in the theory, it's interactions with the other particles are
responsible for giving the other particles their masses. The fact that these particles have (large) masses is important because some of these particles(the W's and Z's) are responsible for the weak force that plays a role in radioactive decays, notably the decay
of neutrons into protons. So, the discovery of the higgs particle is an important confirmation of our understanding of radioactivity, at the very least.

Answer 4

@fwizbang Actually he was going to title the paper "The Goddamn Particle" (on account of how frustrating it was to prove) but the journal doesn't allow for profanity so he just made it "God" instead, which got a lot of attention from God-fearing people around the world. I would agree it's part publicity stun, also part the stupidity of censorship.

And in fact, it's more profound than that. Take a look at this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/00/Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg/500px-Standard_Model_of_Elementary_Particles.svg.png

Out of all those particles (the quarks are what makes up your protons and neutrons for instance), they have different masses. The Higgs-boson particle ("boson" for short) helps explain that. They knew it had to exist to fit with the mathematics, but they couldn't prove it experimentally until just recently this summer.

Does that answer your question @Compassionate ?

Answer 5

PS: I think goddamn particle is a better nickname ;-)

Answer 6

The Higgs boson/ mechanism provides a means for giving particles masses without
destroying the symmetries of the theory that make it logically consistent and mathematically tractable, but it doesn't really explain why the masses are what they are.

P.S. Its only a goddam particle until you find it.