For instance, scientists need to use pi when calculating how "loops" -- particles that transform themselves into other particles, and then come back together to make the original particle again -- contribute to a particle's mass.

CNN: Scientists more certain that particle is Higgs boson

The search for Higgs got its biggest boost in December when researchers at the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, near Geneva, Switzerland, said that data from two independent experiments had narrowed the range of the would-be particle's likely mass to between 124 and 126 gigaelectronvolts, or GeV.

WSJ: Physicists Find Signs of Higgs Boson, or 'God Particle'

An analysis of these smash-ups indicates the mass of the particle being sought.

WSJ: New Data Boosts Case for Higgs Boson Find

The frequency at which it happens is related to a small but significant difference between the mass of the particle and its antiparticle.

ECONOMIST: Cosmology and particle physics

Certain particles will attract larger clusters of Higgs bosons -- and the more Higgs bosons a particle attracts, the greater its mass will be.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The humor can get a little deeper once we understand that the Higgs particle is responsible for all things having mass.

CNN: Higgs Boson humorists get mass following

Because nobody knows what the mass of a Higgs boson might be, the particle must be hunted indirectly, typically in giant machines that propel particles to near-light speed, then smash them together and generate an array of other subatomic particles.

WSJ: Physicists Find Signs of Higgs Boson, or 'God Particle'

In these events, one elementary particle "decays", or transforms, into another with a smaller mass.

BBC: Higgs boson 'hints' also seen by US lab

Their work, for example, has helped to focus the search for the Higgs particle, the entity which, according to current theory, gives matter its mass.

ECONOMIST: The 1999 Nobel prizes