“If it exists, it has to be there. And if it’s not there, it will be known to be science fiction by December.” — Vivek Sharma, a physics professor at UC San Diego, talking about the as-yet elusive Higgs boson particle. The search for the Higgs boson has recently been narrowed down. Basically, we’ve gone from looking for a needle in a haystack, to looking for a needle inside a small, hay-stuffed pillow.