The particle bearing his name lives on
In a world dominated by instant gratification, Peter Higgs, who died earlier this week, had to wait more than half of his 94-year lifetime to see his theoretical predictions confirmed, thereby changing our understanding of the universe.
CERN, the European particle research organization, announced the discovery of the Higgs boson with great fanfare. However, Higgs seemed embarrassed by it and always emphasized that many others had contributed to the theory and published similar ideas. Initially, Higgs studied mathematics as an undergraduate before switching to physics and completing a degree, master's, and PhD at King's College London. Following several research posts, he settled as a lecturer at Edinburgh University from 1960 onward.
In 1964, the Physical Review Letters published his paper proposing a new type of massive boson – one type of subatomic particle. Other theorists had been working along the same lines at this time, but the particle became known as the Higgs boson, even though it only existed in theory.
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