The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is undoubtedly the most ambitious science project ever undertaken by people. Its purpose is to look directly at the conditions that led to the formation of everything around us, and provide a firm confirmation for the Standard Model as well. But, other than the unfounded talk of black holes and other global calamities that may spring from the particle accelerator, physicists are beginning to wonder what will come next. Steven Weinberg believes, for example, that, if the Higgs boson is indeed discovered, then physics may come to a standstill.

Weinberg is the physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979, for his contribution to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles into a single theory. He believes that the main issue related to the new LHC tests is the fact that the Higgs boson may be discovered. Explaining this, he says that, if the boson is found in addition to other particles, then everything will be in order. But, if the boson alone is found, without anything else accompanying it, then this would put physics on its knees for the first time ever, NewScientist reports.

While the existence of the Higgs will certify the Standard Model – that spent more than 50 years in the making – it could also block all possible avenues of research in particle physics. If no other elements hint at a level beyond the quantum one, then all of the energies that the LHC could generate will be for nothing. Physicists will have nowhere to turn to for future studies. On the other hand, if other particles appear alongside the Higgs, then they could possibly hint at the supersymmetry theory, also known among physicists as SUSY. The theory would essentially double the number of particles needed to explain the Universe, and would set physics on a new path of research for years to come.

“I'm terrified. Discovering just the Higgs would really be a crisis,” the Nobel Laureate says. Supersymmetry, on the other hand, would essentially link most elementary particles of one spin to another class of particles that differs from the first by half a unit of spin. This symmetry, if it exists, has to be broken at this point, experts say, as superparticles (the partners of known elementary particles) appear to be heavier than the corresponding Standard Model particles. In an unbroken symmetry, every type of boson in the SM should correspond to a type of fermion (quark or lepton), of the same mass and internal quantum numbers, and vice-versa.