Peter Higgs Dies at 94: Late Nobel Prize Physicist Was Behind the 'God Particle'

Another brilliant scientist had passed away. Professor Peter Higgs, the man behind the Higgs boson or mass-giving particle theory, died on Monday.

Peter Higgs Dies at 94

The University of Edinburgh announced the passing of Higgs on its website. He was 94. According to the statement released, the British physicist "passed away peacefully at home" on Monday (April 8) following a short illness.

It did not elaborate on Higgs' condition. Another report quoted Higgs' close friend and fellow physicist Alan Walker, who said that the physicist and Nobel laureate passed away due to a blood disorder.

The world knows Higgs for his 1964 proposal and subsequent prediction of a new particle, the so-called Higgs boson.

It would take nearly 50 years for the existence of the particle to be established. Higgs' theory was only validated in 2012 by studies conducted at CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Together with Francois Englert, he shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for this research.

In 1964, Dr. Higgs, an assistant professor at the university, proposed the creation of a new particle that would explain how other particles gain mass. He was 35 years old at the time.

The Higgs boson, dubbed "the God particle," would go on to become the cornerstone of a body of theories called the Standard Model, which contained all of the knowledge that has been discovered thus far about elementary particles and the forces that have molded the universe and nature.

Higgs was considered a superb mentor and instructor who inspired a number of generations of young scientists.

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Higgs' Reaction To Discovery of 'God's Particle'

In 1964, Higgs made the first indications about the Higgs particle. For many years, the majority of scientists -- including Higgs himself -- were unaware of the prediction's significance. Eventually, it became clear that the Higgs boson was not just a strange sideshow but also the main attraction of the particle circus.

It was found that the particle and its accompanying Higgs field, which gave all other particles mass, generated the structure of galaxies, stars, and planets that define our universe and sustain our species.

Physicists believed this idea to be valid for a long time. However, it wasn't until 2012 that scientists from two LHC experiments announced their findings, supporting Higgs' prediction from decades earlier.

When the LHC started running in 2008, the only information scientists had about the Higgs boson, according to CERN, was that its mass needed to be greater than 114 billion eV. If not, the previous generation of particle accelerators would have found it.

Fortunately, the LHC proved capable of meeting the challenge, yielding additional discoveries that hint at a potentially Higgs-like particle at 125 billion eV. On July 4, 2012, there was no question left, and amidst a tremendous media frenzy, an official announcement was made. Five decades after he had made the prediction, the Higgs boson was finally found.

According to Higgs, he never thought the Higgs boson would be found during his lifetime. Higgs was profoundly moved by the revelation that this was how nature operated and he came to terms with the particle's existence.

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