Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the 'God particle', has died at the age of 94

The University of Edinburgh has announced that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the Higgs boson, has died at the age of 94.

Sean Dempsey/AP

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Sean Dempsey/AP

The University of Edinburgh has announced that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the Higgs boson, has died at the age of 94.

Sean Dempsey/AP

LONDON – Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of a so-called “God particle” that helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang, has died at the age of 94, the University of Edinburgh said Tuesday.

The university, where Higgs was an honorary professor, said that he died on Monday “peacefully at home after a short illness.”

The existence of a new particle – the so-called Higgs boson – was predicted by the Higgs in 1964. But it may take almost 50 years before the existence of the particle is confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider.

The Higgs theory concerns how the subatomic particles that form the building blocks of matter obtain their mass. This theoretical understanding is a key part of the so-called Standard Model, which describes the physics of how the world is structured.

The University of Edinburgh said his pioneering 1964 research showed how “elementary particles achieved mass through the existence of a new subatomic particle” which became known as the Higgs boson.

In 2012, in one of the biggest breakthroughs in physics in decades, scientists at CERN, the European organization for nuclear research, announced that they had finally found the Higgs boson using a $10 billion particle collider built 17 miles (27 kilometers) away. . ) A tunnel under the Swiss-French border.

Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work, along with François Englert of Belgium, who independently came up with the same theory.

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, Peter Matheson, said Higgs, who was born in Newcastle, was “a remarkable person – a truly gifted scholar whose vision and imagination have enriched our knowledge of the world around us”.

“His pioneering work has galvanized thousands of scientists, and his legacy will continue to inspire many for generations to come.”

The Higgs' work helps solve one of the universe's most important mysteries: how the Big Bang created something from nothing 13.7 billion years ago.

Finding support wasn't easy. It took more than two decades, thousands of scientists and mountains of data from trillions of colliding protons.

It needed CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest atom smasher, to produce a massive burst of energies that mimics the 1 trillion to 2 trillionths of a second after the Big Bang.

One of the highlights of the Higgs' illustrious career came during a 2013 presentation at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, where scientists presented in complex terms — unfathomable to most laypeople and based on statistical analysis — that the existence of the boson had been confirmed. He burst into tears as he wiped his glasses in the lecture hall.

Higgs was born in Newcastle, north-east England on 29 May 1929, and studied at King's College, University of London, receiving his PhD in 1954. He spent most of his career in Edinburgh, becoming the personal chair of theoretical physics at the Scottish university. 1980. He retired in 1996.

Higgs has received honorary degrees from more than a dozen universities, including Edinburgh (1998), Swansea (2008), Cambridge (2012), St Andrews and Manchester (2013).

In 2013, he was appointed a Companion of Honor by Queen Elizabeth II.