Question: What part did you play in the discovery of the Higgs-Boson?

Deepak Kar answered on 11 Mar 2014:

Thanks for asking.

It may seem a bit counter intuitive, but when you are trying to find a new particle, you need to have a general idea of what you are looking for. Plus most new particles we find or try to wont be detected by the experiment directly, since they decay into other, more stable particles very quickly. Our detectors will only measure the energy and angle of those stable particles – from those we have to infer what original particles were produced. Now to do these, we need what we call simulated events, prediction of what happens in a collision generated by computer programs, which helps us to plan our search strategy. I played a part in making sure these computer programs are working right.