In a CERN event entitled "Latest update in the search for the Higgs boson", at 9:00 AM UTC (3 AM EDT) on Wednesday, July 4, CERN director general Rolf Heuer announced the findings of a sub-atomic particle consistent with the expected properties of the Higgs boson.
"We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature," CERN director general Rolf Heuer announced from Geneva. "The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties, and is likely to shed light on other mysteries of our universe."
Both the ATLAS and CMS experiments declared a five-sigma (or five standard deviations) signal for the discovery, indicating that the probability of the particle's signal being due to fluctuation or statistical fluke is less than 3,500,000:1, thereby achieving a measure of general acceptance among particle physicists.
The event agenda can be found on CERN's Indico site.
Detailed coverage:
The announcement from CERN was broadcast live via CERN's Webcast service.