The Higgs
Boson which was discovered by the most powerful particle accelerator in the
world, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Switzerland last year has won the
Nobel Prize in Physics for the theorists who initially proposed its existence
about 50 years ago.
The Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Peter Higgs and Francois Englert with the
Nobel Prize in Physics today. The 84 year old Peter Higgs is an emeritus
professor of theoretical physics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland while
the 80 year old Francois Englert is also an emeritus professor at the
University of Brussels, Belgium.
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| Englert (left) and Higgs in 2012. Img: AFP/Getty |
They both
published independent papers in 1964 giving details about how objects are able
to gain mass with the mass being determined by the number of Higgs Bosons
attached them. The Higgs Boson was nicknamed the “God particle”.
Englert
published his paper with Robert Brout who died in 2011. Other scientists
published their works on the particle. Three scientists; Gerald Guralnik, Tom
Kibble and Carl Hagen also worked on it but Nobel Prize rules doesn’t allow
more than three recipients for any prize category.
The two
scientists only met for the first time last year despite publishing similar
works since 1964. “The first time I saw him was at the Fourth of July
conference at CERN [in 2012],” Englert revealed at a news conference through a
phone call.
Higgs could
not be reached to inform him of his Nobel laureate. According to friends he
gave himself a break for a few days and doesn’t have a mobile phone with him.
He is expected to be back home by Friday.
The theorists
have claimed that this theory explains object have different masses because of
the amount of Higgs Bosons attached to them. Particles would attract a varying
number of Higgs Bosons and the more a particle attracts, the bigger its mass.
The particle
is invisible though and it is claimed that without these particles in the
universe, every object would have been moving at the speed of light.
“It has
consequences. If it wasn’t there, we wouldn’t be here.” Higgs once told
Guardian newspaper. Obviously the world would not be a possibility without this
theory. This theory is one of the theories that define how the world is
constructed.
The amount
awarded for the Prize win in each category is $1.2 million which will be shared
by the two recipients. The Nobel Prize was started by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish
inventor who invented Dynamite in 1895 to honour remarkable works in physics,
chemistry, literature and peace.
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“God particle” wins Nobel Prize for two scientists