London – The Nobel-winning physicist Peter Higgswho proposed the existence of the “God particle”which would help explain how matter was formed after the big Bangdied at the age of 94, the Edinburgh University.
The university, where Higgs was professor emeritus, said he died Monday “peacefully at home after a brief illness.”
Higgs predicted the existence of a new particle, the so-called Higgs boson, in 1964. But it would be almost 50 years before the existence of said particle could be confirmed thanks to the Large Hadron Collider.
The Higgs theory referred to how subatomic particles, which are the constituent elements of matter, obtain their mass. This theoretical understanding is a central part of the so-called Standard Model, which describes the physics of the way the world is built.
The University of Edinburgh said Higgs' groundbreaking 1964 paper demonstrated how “elementary particles acquired mass through the existence of a new subatomic particle” that became known as the Higgs boson.
In 2012, in one of the biggest advances in physics in decades, scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, announced that they had finally found a Higgs boson using the $10 billion particle collider built in a 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel under the Franco-Swiss border.
Higgs won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013 for his work, along with the Belgian Francois Englertwho formulated the same theory independently.
Peter Mathiesonvice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, said that Higgs, born in the Scottish capital, was “a remarkable individual, a truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination have enriched our knowledge of the world around us.”
“His pioneering work has motivated hundreds of scientists, and his legacy will continue to inspire many more generations to come.”