Why is it in the news?
- Peter Higgs, the Nobel prize-winning physicist, recently passed away.
More about the news
- Born in England on May 29, 1929, Higgs proposed the existence of the Higgs boson in 1964, along with François Englert and four other theorists, to explain the origin of mass in certain particles.
- He postulated that there must be a subatomic particle, the Higgs boson, that imparts mass to other particles, thus contributing to the formation of stars, planets, and other celestial bodies.
- The existence of the Higgs boson was confirmed in 2012 through experiments conducted at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland, specifically through the ATLAS and CMS experiments.
- Higgs’ groundbreaking work helps scientists unravel one of the fundamental mysteries of the universe: how the Big Bang generated mass approximately 13.8 billion years ago.
- In recognition of his contributions, Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013, sharing the honour with François Englert, who independently developed a similar theory.
| · According to modern physics, matter comprises particles acting as fundamental building blocks, with forces mediated by other particles.
· A crucial property of many particles is their mass, which is explained by the Higgs mechanism proposed by Higgs and his colleagues.
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