(Bloomberg) — Peter Higgs, the British physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 2013 for discovering the theoretical mechanism that explains the origin of mass in the universe decades ago, has died. He was 94 years old.
He died at his home on April 8, where he was an emeritus professor, according to the University of Edinburgh. Peter Matheson, the university’s principal and vice-chancellor, said Mr Higgs was “an outstanding individual, a truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination enriched our knowledge of the world around us.” He was a person,” he said.
Higgs shared the Nobel Prize with the Belgian physicist François Unglert, who proposed the existence of what became known as the Higgs boson and the existence of an invisible field in the universe that gives matter mass. The discovery of this elemental particle was announced in 2012 by the European nuclear research agency CERN, after bosons were detected at the Large Hadron Collider, an underground laboratory near Geneva. The colliding particles collide protons at nearly the speed of light and record data about their interactions.
The breakthrough confirmed Higgs’ ideas published almost half a century earlier, when Physics Letters said they had “no obvious connection to physics.” It was rejected as.
His research, along with similar predictions made independently by Englert and his colleague Robert Braut, led to one of the most important scientific discoveries of the last century. “God Particle” is the term used to describe the creative nature of the bosonic field in American physicist Leon Liederman’s book of the same name, which makes up about 96% of the universe and remains a mystery. This could provide insight into the dark matter and dark energy encased in the dark matter. To cosmologists.
The Higgs boson, which decays almost instantly, completed particle physics’ Standard Model, which explains how matter bonds together. Without mass, particles would scatter into space and would be unable to form anything.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said after Higgs’ Nobel Prize was announced: “This remarkable achievement is a well-deserved recognition of Peter Higgs’ lifelong dedication to research and passion for science.” .
Confirmation of the existence of bosons was made through the work of thousands of scientists from CERN’s competing Atlas and CMS experimental teams. This involved colliding particles in a 27-kilometer (17-mile) circular supermagnetized tunnel to recreate conditions after the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago. The project cost at least $10 billion.
According to the Nobel Foundation, it is “probably the largest and most complex machine ever built by mankind.”
modest man
On July 4, 2012, Dr. Higgs shed tears as CERN scientists erupted in applause at a press conference announcing the discovery of the Higgs boson. The Higgs boson’s father was modest in the spotlight, as his modest lifestyle suggests. He lived in a small apartment in Edinburgh. According to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, they had no television and were using public transport.
“I saw it as a cheer for the home team, which was a double experiment with Atlas and CMS,” he said in an interview with the BBC. “Maybe they were rooting for me too, but that was a minor issue.”
Higgs said the credit for predicting the mass formation mechanism goes to six physicists who contributed three papers on the subject in 1964. Englert, Brodt, and Higgs, who wrote the first paper, followed by Gerald Guralnik, Carl Hagen, and Tom Kibble.
The Nobel Foundation does not recognize posthumous recipients among its three laureates, but chose Higgs and Englert as recipients.
Peter Ware Higgs was born on May 29, 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England to an English father and Scottish mother. His father was a sound engineer for the BBC and lived away from his family for most of Higgs’ childhood.
Higgs had asthma and was partly home-schooled by his mother, but lived in Birmingham and Bristol and attended Cotham Grammar School until 1946, when he became interested in the work of physicist Paul Dirac. Ta. He graduated with first class honors in physics from King’s College, University of London in 1950 and obtained a master’s degree and a doctorate in molecular vibrations.
Higgs held research fellowships in Edinburgh and London before becoming a lecturer in mathematical physics at the University of Edinburgh in 1960. He wrote his groundbreaking paper after developing his theory while walking in the hills around Edinburgh. Higgs was joined by five other physicists who held similar views about the application of quantum field theory, then considered obsolete in physics, in his quest to solve the problem of particle mass. Joined the.
In 1980, Mr. Higgs became professor of theoretical physics at the university, a position he held for 16 years.
Higgs, Braut, and Englert, along with five other scientists who contributed to the study of the Higgs mechanism, received the Wolf Prize, administered by Israel’s Wolf Foundation, in 2004 and the American Physical Society’s Theoretical Fundamentals Award in 2010. Received the Particle Physics Prize.
After winning the Nobel Prize, Higgs said, “Sometimes being right is a very nice thing.”
The Higgs boson was the subject of Particle Fever, a documentary that follows CERN scientists in the lead up to their breakthrough discovery.
Higgs married American linguist Jodie Williamson, whom he met at a university staff conference in Edinburgh. The couple had two sons, Christopher and Jonathan, before divorcing in the early 1970s.
©2024 Bloomberg LP
