Why was the discovery of the Higgs boson important to the study of mass?

The discovery of the Higgs boson was a landmark achievement in physical science because it provided experimental evidence for the existence of the Higgs field. This field permeates the universe and is responsible for endowing elementary subatomic particles with mass through their interactions with it.12

Before this discovery, the Higgs mechanism served as a theoretical hypothesis to explain the origin of mass. The theory posits that as the universe cooled following the big bang, particles acquired their specific masses based on the strength of their interaction with the nonzero Higgs field.1

Furthermore, the Higgs mechanism is a fundamental component of electroweak theory. It explains why certain force carriers, such as the W and Z particles, possess mass, while others, like the photon, remain massless. Confirming the existence of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider in 2012–2013 validated this essential framework for understanding the structure of matter.12