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Turns out Homer Simpson calculated Higgs boson particle before scientists

Homer Simpson reacts to news he discovered the mass of the Higgs boson particle 14 years before scientists. All rights reserved./courtesy Everett Collection

TORONTO – Homer Simpson has travelled to space, won a Grammy and a Pulitzer and even spoken to God. But what most of us didn’t know is that he also discovered the Higgs boson particle, 14 years before scientists made the announcement.

The Higgs boson particle, often referred to as the “God particle” is a subatomic particle that explains how certain elements in our universe have mass.

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According to The Independent, Simon Singh, the author of the book The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets said that Homer made the calculation in the 1998 episode titled “The Winter of Evergreen Terrace.”

Homer is seen standing in front of a blackboard with a complicated equation. Singh said that if you work out the calculation, you get a mass just a bit larger than the nano-mass of a Higgs boson.

Singh knows a thing or two about particle physics — completed a PhD in particle physics at Cambridge and at CERN, where the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012.

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