- Peter Higgs
Infobox_Scientist
name = Peter Higgs
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birth_date = birth date and age|1929|5|29|df=y
birth_place =Newcastle upon Tyne ,England
nationality =United Kingdom
field =Physics
work_institutions =
alma_mater =King's College London
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doctoral_students =
known_for =Broken symmetry inelectroweak theory
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influenced =
prizes =Wolf Prize in Physics (2004)Dirac Medal Peter Ware Higgs, FRS, FRSE, (born
May 29 ,1929 ), is a British theoretical physicist and anemeritus professor at theUniversity of Edinburgh .He is best known for his 1960s proposal of
broken symmetry inelectroweak theory , explaining the origin ofmass ofelementary particles in general and of theW and Z bosons in particular. This so-calledHiggs mechanism , which had several inventors besides Higgs, predicts the existence of a new particle, theHiggs boson (often described as "the most sought-after particle in modern physics" [Griffiths, Martin (20070501) [http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/27731 physicsworld.com The Tale of the Blog's Boson] Retrieved on 2008-05-27] [Fermilab Today (20050616) [http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive_2005/today05-06-16.html Fermilab Results of the Week. Top Quarks are Higgs' best Friend] Retrieved on 2008-05-27] ). Although this particle has not turned up in accelerator experiments so far, the Higgs mechanism is generally accepted as an important ingredient in theStandard Model ofparticle physics , without which particles would have no mass [Rincon, Paul (20040310) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3546973.stm Fermilab 'God Particle' may have been seen] Retrieved on 2008-05-27] .Dr. Higgs has been honored with a number of awards in recognition of his work, including the 1997
Dirac Medal and Prize for outstanding contributions to theoretical physics from theInstitute of Physics , the 1997 High Energy and Particle Physics Prize by theEuropean Physical Society , and the 2004Wolf Prize in Physics .__TOC__
Early life, education and career
Higgs was born in
Newcastle upon Tyne .Sample, Ian. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,2210858,00.html "The god of small things"] , "The Guardian", November 17, 2007, weekend section.] His father was a sound engineer with the BBC, and as a result of childhood asthma, together with the family moving around because of his father's job, and later theSecond World War , Higgs missed some early schooling and was taught at home. When his father relocated toBedford , Higgs stayed behind with his mother inBristol , and was largely raised there. He attended that city's Cotham Grammar School, [The Cotham Grammar School building now houses [http://www.cotham.bristol.sch.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=1 Cotham School, a specialist performing arts school.] ] where he was inspired by the work of one of the school's alumni,Paul Dirac , a founder of the field ofquantum mechanics .At the age of 17, Higgs moved to
City of London School , where he specialized in mathematics, then toKing's College London where he graduated with a first class honours degree in Physics, a masters degree, and Ph.D. He became a Senior Research Fellow at theEdinburgh University , then held various posts atUniversity College London andImperial College London before becoming a temporary lecturer in Mathematics atUniversity College London . He returned toEdinburgh University in 1960 to take up the post of Lecturer inMathematical physics , allowing him to settle in the city he had fallen in love with after hitch-hiking to theEdinburgh Fringe festival as a student.Dr. Higgs was promoted to a personal chair of
Theoretical Physics at Edinburgh in 1980. He became a fellow of theRoyal Society in 1983 and a fellow of theInstitute of Physics in 1991. He retired in 1996 and becameEmeritus professor at theUniversity of Edinburgh .Theoretical work in physics
It was at Edinburgh that he first became interested in
mass , developing the idea that particles were massless when the universe began, acquiring mass a fraction of a second later, as a result of interacting with a theoretical field now known as theHiggs field . Higgs postulated that this field permeates space, giving all elementary subatomic particles that interact with it their mass. [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9040396/Higgs-particle "Higgs particle"] , "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007.] While the Higgs field is postulated to confer mass on quarks and leptons, it represents only a tiny portion of the masses of other subatomic particles, such as protons and neutrons. In these, gluons that bind quarks together confer most of the particle mass.The original basis of Higgs' work came from the Japanese-born theorist and
Nobel Prize winnerYoichiro Nambu , from theUniversity of Chicago . Professor Nambu had proposed a theory known asSpontaneous symmetry breaking based on what was known to happen inSuperconductivity in condensed matter. However, the theory predicted massless particles (theGoldstone's theorem ), a clearly incorrect prediction.Higgs wrote a short paper evading the
Goldstone's theorem and it was published in Physics Letters, a European physics journal and edited atCERN in 1964.Higgs wrote a second paper describing a theoretical model (now called the
Higgs mechanism ) but the paper was rejected (the editors felt that "it was of no obvious relevance to physics"). Higgs wrote an extra paragraph and sent his paper toPhysical Review Letters , a leading Physics journal where it was published later that year. Other physicists,Robert Brout andFrancois Englert [ [http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v13/i9/p321_1 Broken Symmetry and the Mass of Gauge Vector Mesons] ] andGerald Guralnik ,C. R. Hagen , and Tom Kibble [ [http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v13/i20/p585_1 Global Conservation Laws and Massless Particles] ] had reached the same conclusion independently about the same time. The three papers written on this boson discovery by Higgs, Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble, Brout, and Englert were each recognized as milestone papers byPhysical Review Letters 50th anniversary celebration. [ [http://prl.aps.org/50years/milestones Physical Review Letters - 50th Anniversary Milestone Papers] ] NobelistPhilip Anderson also claims to have "invented" the "Higgs" boson as far back as 1962.Higgs is reported to be displeased that the particle is nicknamed the "God particle"--although Higgs is an
atheist , he is afraid the term "might offend people who are religious"." [http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19926732.100-interview-the-man-behind-the-god-particle.html Interview: the man behind the 'God particle'] ",New Scientist 13 Sept., 2008, pp. 44-5] [ [http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL0765287220080407?sp=true Key scientist sure "God particle" will be found soon] Reuters news story.7 April 2008 .] This nickname for the Higgs boson is usually attributed toLeon Lederman , but it is actually the result of Lederman's publisher's censoring. Originally Lederman intended to call it "the goddamn particle", because of its elusiveness.It is expected that the
Large Hadron Collider which opened atCERN inSwitzerland in September 2008 will have the best chance of finding theHiggs boson because it is the biggest and highest energyparticle accelerator built to date. If theHiggs boson is found atCERN (ironically, home to the editor who famously rejected his initial paper), Professor Higgs and others may be awarded theNobel Prize [ “The Missing Piece” Page 17] .Family
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