The three jewels in the crown of the LHC

TL;DR

This paper discusses three major discoveries at the LHC—an elementary particle, the weak interaction mechanism, and fermion mass generation—highlighting how these advances deepen our understanding of fundamental physics.

Contribution

It explains the key discoveries made by ATLAS and CMS experiments and how they advanced knowledge of the basic laws of Nature.

Findings

Discovery of an elementary spin-zero particle

Identification of the mechanism for short-range weak interactions

Understanding of how third generation fermions acquire mass

Abstract

The ATLAS and CMS experiments have made three major discoveries: The discovery of an elementary spin-zero particle, the discovery of the mechanism that makes the weak interactions short-range, and the discovery of the mechanism that gives the third generation fermions their masses. I explain how this progress in our understanding of the basic laws of Nature was achieved.