Historical Predicted Discoveries

[rochvelleth]

100 Historical Things, Number 27

Well, yesterday we had the wonderful announcement that the Higgs Boson particle has been discovered. Well, it needs confirming, but very probably. The existence of the particle was predicted in 1964, and for me the best part of the reporting on the discovery was the clip of Peter Higgs looking so chuffed that it

Comments

[rjw76]

Today I learned about laryngeals, and think this is awesome :D

[cartesiandaemon]

That's really cool, and does seem just like the missing fundamental particles or the missing elements that were later found.

The example which surprised me is one that's not very obscure at all, that quarks were predicted as constituents of neutrons and protons, but at first people weren't sure if they were actual things, or it was just a quirky mathematical trick for representing the possible masses and charges of protons and neutrons. But they were (apparently) physically discovered in much the same way as the nucleus of the atom, by firing smaller particles at neutrons and protons, and discovering that they scattered as if the neutron or proton were not uniform, but was made up of three small hard things :)