Peter Ware Higgs
The recent potential discovery of the Higgs boson prompted fellow
physicist Stephen Hawking to note that he thought that Higgs should receive the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work. |
The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle initially theorized in 1964 and tentatively confirmed to exist on 14 March 2013. The discovery has been called "monumental” because it appears to confirm the existence of the Higgs field, which is pivotal to the Standard Model and other theories within particle physics. In this discipline, it explains why some fundamental particles have mass when the symmetries controlling their interactions should require them to be massless, and—linked to this—why the weak force has a much shorter range than the electromagnetic force. Its existence and knowledge of its exact properties are expected to impact scientific knowledge across a range of fields, and should eventually allow physicists to determine whether the Standard Model or a competing theory is more likely to be correct, guide other theories and discoveries in particle physics, and—as with other fundamental discoveries of the past—potentially over time lead to developments
in "new" physics and new technologies. |
Higgs Boson Discovery Wins Nobel Prize for Physics
World Science Festival
Published on Oct 8, 2013
Peter Higgs and Francois Englert win Nobel Prize in Physics. Want to know what makes the Higgs Boson Nobel Prize-worthy? Brian Greene explains. |
|