Peter Higgs, the esteemed theoretical physicist who made the groundbreaking prediction of the Higgs boson, passed away at age 94. The University of Edinburgh confirmed his death on April 8 following a brief illness. Higgs was a professor at the university from 1960 to 1996 and was best known for his revolutionary work in predicting the masses of subatomic particles. In 2013, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics alongside François Englert for their discovery of the Higgs boson.
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England in 1929, Higgs earned his doctoral degree from King’s College London in 1954. In a seminal paper published in 1964, he proposed that there exists a particle known as the Higgs boson that gives mass to other particles through interaction with what is now known as the Higgs field. Detecting this elusive particle proved to be an arduous task due to its rarity and rapid decay, but it was finally achieved using the Large Hadron Collider in France and Switzerland in 2012.
The discovery of the Higgs boson served as confirmation of Higgs’ theory and its significance in our understanding of particle physics. Without this particle, other particles would not have mass. The news of this breakthrough deeply moved Higgs himself, who witnessed firsthand the emotional response of those present during the announcement in 2012. His contributions to physics have left an indelible mark on our understanding of subatomic particles and have cemented his legacy as one of the most influential physicists of our time.
