Zahid Hasan of Princeton University in the US is the leader of a group that recently found the first clear evidence for the existence of Weyl fermions – massless particles predicted in 1929 as a solution of the Dirac equation. In this video, Hasan explains why semimetals containing Weyl fermions could be ideal materials for examining a variety of physical theories. He explains that, for instance, these so-called “Weyl semimetals” could be used to recreate the environment of the early universe and explore how the Higgs boson can imbue particles with mass.

This video is part of our 100 Second Science series, in which researchers give concise presentations covering the spectrum of physics.