Credit: Lucy Glover/COSMOS

I'M A PHYSICIST. I study particles and scalars and the tiny little pieces that make up everything. My whole career I've been searching for the Higgs boson, that which gives mass and meaning to existence.

In 40 years it's the only puzzle piece predicted by the Standard Model which has never been observed. Yet the first time I saw the Higgs I wasn't in the lab or reviewing data or conducting an experiment, I was coming out of Locarno's with a belly full of bolognaise.

Locarno's, of course, being the best Italian restaurant downtown.

It was raining and it was dark, the streetlamps giving everything an unreal glow. It was only by accident I saw it, out of the corner of my eye. There it was, brooding under a great black umbrella and with a grey woolen coat thrown across its shoulders. It passed me in the street and went into the restaurant.

I ran back inside but there was no sign of it.

The Maître D' coughed softly. "Did you forget something, Sir?"

"Did you just see..." I caught myself. "Who just came in here?" I asked.

"A number of parties have joined us since you left. Could you be more specific?"

I looked around the room. Nothing. "No," I said. "Never mind, thank you."

Naturally I drove straight back to the lab. It was almost midnight, but Andrew was still sitting in front of his computer, feet on his desk and his keyboard on his lap. Impossible equations burned into the screen in front of him.

"Hey Tom," he said, not even bothering to look up.

I closed the door and leaned against it, taking a deep breath. "I saw it," I said. "Going for Italian."

Andrew craned his neck towards me. He yawned. "Saw what?"

"The Higgs."

"Excuse me?"

"The Higgs boson," I said. "I saw it."

He laughed, sitting up. "Right," he said. "No one's ever seen it. Not Fermilab, not CERN, and certainly not us." He waved his arm around the lab. "I'm beginning to think half of this equipment does nothing."