Peter Higgs has died at the age of 94. The British physicist has received many awards for his contribution to the development of science. The most important one was, of course, the Nobel Prize. What do we owe to a scientist?
Peter Higgs was a famous British physicist. His claim to existence brought him worldwide fame and recognition the Higgs boson (the so-called God particle), a fundamental elementary particle that plays a key role in the mechanism of gaining mass by other particles. His work led to the development of the Higgs mechanism, which is an important element of the Standard Model of particle physics.
The Nobel Prize winner died on April 8, 2024. He lived to be 94 years old. His death saddened many researchers and representatives of the world of science. Professor Brian Cox (British presenter of science programs and book author) expressed condolences on social media.
– Peter was a unique person, an extremely inspiring figure for physicists around the world, a man of rare modesty, and a great teacher. Someone who he explained physics in a very simple yet profound way – CERN head Fabiola Gianotti told BBC News.
Higgs first proposed the existence of the Higgs boson in the 1960s along with other independent physicists such as François Englert and Robert Brout. The Higgs boson was finally discovered in 2012 by scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland. The discovery confirmed the existence of the particle and provided significant support for the Standard Model of particle physics.
For his contributions to theoretical physics, especially in predicting the existence of the Higgs boson, Peter Higgs received the Nobel Prize in 2013 in physics together with François Englert. His research work has had a profound impact on our understanding of the basic building blocks of the universe.
Peter Higgs was born on May 29, 1929 in Newcastle, England. From an early age he showed talent in mathematics and science. He obtained a degree in physics from King’s College London, where he developed an interest in theoretical physics. After completing his bachelor’s degree, Higgs went on to study for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh.
The breakthrough moment in Higgs’s career came in 1964, when he presented the concept new elementary particle. It was later called the Higgs boson. In a series of groundbreaking papers, Higgs and other distinguished physicists, including François Englert and Robert Brout, laid the foundations for what became one of the most important theoretical breakthroughs in modern physics. Their proposal assumed the existence of a field – now known as no Higgs – which permeates the Universe and gives mass to other particles through interactions with the hypothetical Higgs boson.
For decades, the existence of the Higgs boson remained a mystery. This prompted physicists around the world to make efforts to discover it. These efforts culminated in the announcement of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 2012. discovery of a particle corresponding to the long-sought Higgs boson. The monumental achievement, achieved thanks to the joint efforts of thousands of scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), confirmed the Higgs theory and thus the existence of the particle bearing his name.
