Peter Higgs

Peter Ware Higgs CH FRS FRSE  (29 May 1929 – 8 April 2024) was an English theoretical physicist, and emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh.Griggs, Jessica. "The Missing Piece" from Edit the University of Edinburgh Alumni Magazine Summer 2008, p17
Works
He was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson, the "most sought-after particle in modern physics".Griffiths, Martin 2007. physicsworld.com The Tale of the Blog's Boson Retrieved on 27 May 2008Fermilab Today (16 June 2005)  Fermilab results of the week. Top quarks are Higgs' best friend Retrieved on 27 May 2008 Higgs shared the prize with François Englert.Amos, Jonathan 2013. Higgs: Five decades of noble endeavour BBC News Science and Environmentt, Retrieved 8 October 2013 Higgs was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in 2013.

In the 1960s, he proposed broken symmetry in electroweak theory. This explains the origin of mass of elementary particles in general. It also shows the origin of the W and Z bosons. The theory known as Higgs mechanism was proposed by several physicists at the same time. It proposes the existence of a new particle, the Higgs boson. On 4 July 2012, CERN announced they had found a new particle much like the Higgs boson in experiments, but that more work was necessary to analyse its properties and see if it had the properties expected from the Standard Model Higgs boson.

The Higgs mechanism is generally accepted as an important part of the Standard Model of particle physics, without which particles would have no mass.Rincon, Paul 2004. Fermilab 'God Particle' may have been seen Retrieved on 2008-05-27

Higgs has received a number of awards. These include the 1997 Dirac Medal and Prize for outstanding contributions to theoretical physics, the 2004 Wolf Prize in Physics, and the 2010 Sakurai Prize.

Death
Higgs died after a short illness at home in Edinburgh, Scotland on 8 April 2024, at the age of 94.

References

Category:1929 births
Category:2024 deaths
Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh
Category:British Nobel Prize winners
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:People from Newcastle upon Tyne
Category:British theoretical physicists
Category:Wolf Prize winners
Category:Nobel Prize in Physics winners