On Monday, Hagen hopped on a jet for Geneva, with the hope a Wednesday news conference at the large research facility outside the Swiss city will mark a big step toward confirming a theory that he helped formulate 48 years ago.
Hagen was one of six scientists who, working in three teams in 1964, independently came up with a theory that could explain how fundamental particles that make up the universe got mass at the time that the Big Bang created a fiery ball almost 14 billion years ago.
Proving the theory actually showing how particles could get mass has been a monumental task and has become the missing link in what has become known as the Standard Model of how the universe developed.
STORY: Evidence of 'God particle' reportedly found
What's at stake is now easy to take for granted that there are particles that have mass. But at the time of the Big Bang everything was so hot that most particles with mass had an incredibly short life span. Only when the universe cooled down could nuclei and atoms form.
Researchers have been on a hunt for almost five decades to identify a particle that could only be created by the theory Hagen and the five other physicists formulated. Finding that particle would prove that a field spanning the universe but unable to be detected allows particles with mass to be created.
The information coming from Geneva prompted Hagen to leave for Europe on an optimistic note.
"It appears that the data finally will confirm the existence of this particle," said Hagen, 75, who came to UR in 1963 as a post-doctoral fellow and has been a member of the faculty since 1965.
He went on to say, "It's personally very satisfying that this thing is finally coming to fruition."
The game-changer in being able to validate their theory appears is the Large Hadron Collider a $10 billion complex at CERN, which is what the European Organization for Nuclear Research facility outside Geneva is commonly called. It has been fully operational for about two years.
By smashing protons together in an 18-mile underground circular tunnel, the collider using high-powered radio frequency waves creates conditions approaching those of the Big Bang.
The news release from CERN has a guarded tone, but notes the buzz in the scientific world. CERN Director for Research and Computing Sergio Bertolucci is quoted as saying these are "very exciting times," but the statement goes on to caution that more time would be needed to confirm any discovery.
But speculation has been rampant that the particle that would prove the theory has been identified. Scientists who have been following this hunt share in a sense of relief that a long journey is coming to a favorable conclusion.
"From all indications, the object we're looking for is there. The search is over," said Tom Ferbel, who is on the UR physics faculty but has been a visiting professor at the University of Maryland in recent years.
Ferbel is among the UR faculty, post-doctoral fellows and students who have worked with about 10,000 engineers and scientists around the globe on this detective story.
Credit due
Hagen, who lives in Perinton, has not been directly involved in the research needed to prove the particle he predicted must exist. He's a theoretical rather than experimental physicist.
He is joined on this week's trip to Geneva by Brown University physics professor Gerald Guralnik, who was one of his two collaborators in the paper they published in 1964.
Before booking his flight, Hagen wanted to make sure he and Guralnik wouldn't be slighted, as has happened in papers and at conferences over the years.
"In the past, we took umbrage at the way the way they would present their theoretical contributions. They were singling out certain people," said Hagen.
A Nobel Prize, after all, might eventually be awarded eventually awarded for the theory but is typically not given to more than three individuals doing similar work.
As it is, the particle now in the spotlight is often called the "Higgs boson," named after the Scottish physicist Peter Higgs, another of the six physicists. In a recent interview with Physics World, Higgs seemed to want to smooth over any hard feelings by giving credit to the five other theorists.
Particle hunt
To the chagrin of many scientists, the particle that researchers have been trying to identify is also sometimes called the "God particle," a name popularized by Nobel laureate and physicist Leon Lederman in a book, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?
For almost five decades, scientists have been trying to identify a particle that could only be created by the theory that Hagen and the others formulated. To do so, researchers have had to create high-energy collisions and sorting through all sorts of subatomic particles to identify a particle with mass like the one that the theory predicted.
Although some of the findings that are now being analyzed originated at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago, the Large Hadon Collider near Geneva gave physicists an umatched capability to create high-energy collisions.
Scientists, said Ferbel, are trying to find heavy particles in the range of 120 to 130 billion electron volts. Particles in this range would be like the ones that Hagen predicted would gain mass.
UR physicist faculty members have played a role not only in helping build the collider, whose 18-mile underground circular tunnel crosses into France, but also are helping to detect the particle.
"You see a huge number of particles going everywhere. You have to find this particular particle among the thousands of particles. They have very high energy," said UR physics professor Arie Bodek, who has worked in making sure the silicon detectors measure the particles properly.
The data collected by sensors is then plotted by computers.
UR physics professor Regina Demina, who is expected to return from a stint at the collider on Tuesday, has been involved in building these tracking devices, notes that that there is a lot of excitement but also cautioned against drawing conclusions.
"The experiments are in the final stages of approving results. Whatever is found in blogs is just speculation. Official results will only be made public on July 4," said Demina.
They just want to know how so they can manipulate the gift for reasons that benefit ghouls.
