By Peter Harmsen
Peter Higgs of Britain and Francois Englert of Belgium have won the Nobel Prize for Physics for conceiving of the so-called "God particle" which confers mass.
Higgs, 84, and Englert, 80, were honoured for theorising a particle - discovered last year after an agonising quest - that explains why the Universe has any substance at all.
"This particle originates from an invisible field that fills up all space. Even when the Universe seems empty this field is there," the jury said in a statement.
"Without it, we would not exist, because it is from contact with the field that particles acquire mass."
Shortly after the announcement, the University of Edinburgh posted a statement from Higgs saying he was "overwhelmed" by the honour.
"I would also like to congratulate all those who have contributed to the discovery of this new particle," Higgs said.
"I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research."
Englert said in a brief comment: "I'm very happy to have received the prize."
- VIDEO: Prof Steve Pointing of the AUT Institute for Applied Ecology talks about the award on Firstline - watch in the player above
Known as a boson, the discovery was popularly dubbed the "God Particle" on the grounds that it is everywhere yet bafflingly elusive.
Without it, say theorists, we and all the other joined-up atoms in the Universe would not exist.
The presumed particle was discovered last year by a mega-scale physics lab near Geneva operated by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), after a decades-long search.
"As an achievement, it ranks alongside the confirmation that the Earth is round or Man's first steps on the Moon," Canadian particle physicist Pauline Gagnon said.
Higgs and Englert, the latter of the Free University of Brussels, received the world's most prestigious award for excellence in physics nearly a half century after they and others set down the theoretical groundwork.
The history of the discovery dates back to 1964, when six physicists, working independently in three groups, published a flurry of papers.
The first were Belgians Robert Brout, who died in 2011, and Englert, who proposed a mechanism by which a mass-giving field of particles invaded the early Universe, which until then was filled only with mass-less particles.
This was followed by Higgs, who was the first to suggest that mass could only occur through the existence of a hitherto unknown particle.
Because of this, the particle has been named after him, although Higgs has always been swift to acknowledge vital contributions from others.
AFP
source: newshub archive
