[WATCH] The "God Particle" Explained in Layman's Terms

Above the din of patriotism - in the form of M-80s and Steve Miller Band - European scientists from the CERN research center in Switzerland announced something even more remarkable than your aunt's potato salad: The "God Particle" has been found.

Well, they're 99.999% sure it's the God Particle, anyway. Its less colloquial name is the Higgs Boson particle and it's so elusive, it took hundreds of the brightest scientific minds (who were armed with a multi-billion dollar atom smasher that recreated the Big Bang) years to find it.

Didn't pass physics in high school? Are you a liberal arts major? Check out the helpful video above by YouTube user MinutePhysics. It breaks down this discovery, which scientists are calling the most momentous scientific achievement of the decade.

What this means for you and the rest of the world will take some time to hash out, since it has the potential to radically change our understanding of physics, force textbooks to be burned and rewritten from scratch and - depending on who you ask - it could also scientifically refute the existence of God.

Heavy stuff, I know. Here's a celebratory tweet from NASA's Neil deGrasse Tyson to lighten things up:

VIA: Gizmodo

SOURCE: YouTube [MinutePhysics]