Remembering Peter Higgs: The Man Behind the ‘God Particle’ and Nobel Laureate
“Peter Higgs”, a famous name among physicists and the world as well, who is responsible for one of the greatest scientific discoveries in the last century, has died at 94.
The Higgs boson, often called the “God particle,” is a tiny particle that helps give mass to other particles. It was predicted in 1964 by ‘Peter Higgs’ and discovered experimentally in 2012 at CERN with a big machine called the Large Hadron Collider.
This discovery was a huge deal because it helped explain why things in the universe have mass and filled a big gap in our understanding of how particles behave. Scientists were so excited about finding the Higgs boson that it won a Nobel Prize in 2013.
Who is ‘Peter Higgs’?
Peter Higgs was a significant British scientist who made a groundbreaking discovery in physics. He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. His research aided in our understanding of how matter, or mass, is acquired by objects in the cosmos.
After graduating from King’s College, London, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, among other institutions. His breakthrough came in 2012 when he and other CERN scientists discovered the Higgs boson. It was what he had long since anticipated in 1964. He received numerous honors for this discovery, including the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics.
In addition to the Nobel, Peter Higgs’s other accolades, such as the Copley Medal in 2015, demonstrated the high regard that other scientists held for him. In addition to discovering the Higgs boson, he is credited with contributing to the understanding of the universe’s great mystery and developing theories regarding how particles acquire mass.
The students he mentored and the numerous ways his work improved science are among his legacies.
What is Higgs Boson?
Imagine the universe as a huge party where all particles are dancing around. Now, there’s a special guest at this party called the Higgs boson. It’s a very tiny particle, so small that you can’t see it, but it plays a big role in the party.
The Higgs boson is part of something called the Higgs field, which is like an invisible field that fills up the whole universe. You can think of it as a kind of sticky jelly that’s everywhere. When other particles, like electrons or quarks, try to move through this jelly, they get slowed down a bit. This slowing down is how particles get their mass, which is just a fancy word for how much stuff is in something.
Without the Higgs boson and its field, all the other particles would be like super-fast party crashers zipping around with no mass, meaning they wouldn’t stick together to form atoms, molecules, or anything else. So, without the Higgs boson, there wouldn’t be stars, planets, or people.
Scientists had been looking for the Higgs boson for a long time because finding it would help them understand more about how the universe works.
In 2012, they finally found it using a giant machine that smashes particles together at a big science center called CERN. This was a big deal because it confirmed their theories and helped them understand more about the universe’s biggest secrets.
So, the Higgs boson is a tiny but mighty particle that helps give everything in the universe mass. It’s like the life of the party at the universe’s party, making sure everything sticks together just right.
Why it is called God Particle?
The nickname “God particle” for the Higgs boson comes from a book. A scientist named Leon Lederman wrote a book about this particle. He wanted to call it the “goddamn particle” because it was so hard to find. But, his publisher thought “God particle” sounded better. So, they went with that name instead.
This nickname isn’t liked by many scientists. They think it makes the Higgs boson sound more mysterious or powerful than it is. The Higgs boson is super important in physics, but it’s not mystical. It’s just a particle that helps us understand how other particles get their mass.
So, when people say “God particle,” they’re just using a catchy nickname. What’s really cool is what the Higgs boson does and how it helps us understand the universe. It’s like a key piece in the puzzle of how everything in the universe sticks together.
