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64-594: Peter Ware Higgs (29 May 1929 – 8 April 2024) was a British theoretical physicist , professor at the University of Edinburgh , and Nobel laureate in Physics for his work on the mass of subatomic particles . In 1964, Higgs was the single author of one of the three milestone papers published in Physical Review Letters ( PRL ) that proposed that spontaneous symmetry breaking in electroweak theory could explain

128-435: A mathematical theory , in the sense that the word "theory" has a different meaning in mathematical terms. R i c = k g {\displaystyle \mathrm {Ric} =kg} The equations for an Einstein manifold , used in general relativity to describe the curvature of spacetime A physical theory involves one or more relationships between various measurable quantities. Archimedes realized that

192-504: A working hypothesis . Fellow of the Institute of Physics Fellowship of the Institute of Physics ( FInstP ) is "the highest level of membership attainable" by physicists who are members of the Institute of Physics (IoP), "for those with a degree in physics or related subject (or equivalent knowledge gained in the workplace) and who have made a significant impact on their sector"; it

256-404: A certain economy and elegance (compare to mathematical beauty ), a notion sometimes called " Occam's razor " after the 13th-century English philosopher William of Occam (or Ockham), in which the simpler of two theories that describe the same matter just as adequately is preferred (but conceptual simplicity may mean mathematical complexity). They are also more likely to be accepted if they connect

320-401: A chair of theoretical physics in the name of Peter Higgs. On 8 October 2013, it was announced that Higgs and François Englert would share the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by

384-500: A form of protoscience and others are a form of pseudoscience . The falsification of the original theory sometimes leads to reformulation of the theory. "Thought" experiments are situations created in one's mind, asking a question akin to "suppose you are in this situation, assuming such is true, what would follow?". They are usually created to investigate phenomena that are not readily experienced in every-day situations. Famous examples of such thought experiments are Schrödinger's cat ,

448-766: A good example. For instance: " phenomenologists " might employ ( semi- ) empirical formulas and heuristics to agree with experimental results, often without deep physical understanding . "Modelers" (also called "model-builders") often appear much like phenomenologists, but try to model speculative theories that have certain desirable features (rather than on experimental data), or apply the techniques of mathematical modeling to physics problems. Some attempt to create approximate theories, called effective theories , because fully developed theories may be regarded as unsolvable or too complicated . Other theorists may try to unify , formalise, reinterpret or generalise extant theories, or create completely new ones altogether. Sometimes

512-555: A musician. Higgs and Williamson separated in 1972 but remained friends until she died in 2008. Higgs was an activist in the CND while in London and later in Edinburgh but resigned his membership when the group extended its remit from campaigning against nuclear weapons to campaigning against nuclear power, too. He was a Greenpeace member until the group opposed genetically modified organisms . Higgs

576-493: A new branch of mathematics: infinite, orthogonal series . Modern theoretical physics attempts to unify theories and explain phenomena in further attempts to understand the Universe , from the cosmological to the elementary particle scale. Where experimentation cannot be done, theoretical physics still tries to advance through the use of mathematical models. Mainstream theories (sometimes referred to as central theories ) are

640-518: A new centre named after Professor Higgs to support future research in theoretical physics . The Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics brings together scientists from around the world to seek "a deeper understanding of how the universe works". The centre is currently based within the James Clerk Maxwell Building , home of the university's School of Physics and Astronomy and the iGEM 2015 team (ClassAfiED). The university has also established

704-498: A ship floats by displacing its mass of water, Pythagoras understood the relation between the length of a vibrating string and the musical tone it produces. Other examples include entropy as a measure of the uncertainty regarding the positions and motions of unseen particles and the quantum mechanical idea that ( action and) energy are not continuously variable. Theoretical physics consists of several different approaches. In this regard, theoretical particle physics forms

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768-575: A student in 1949. He was promoted to Reader , became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 1974 and was promoted to a personal chair of Theoretical Physics in 1980. On his retirement in 1996, he became an emeritus professor . Higgs was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1983 and Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP) in 1991. He was awarded the Rutherford Medal and Prize in 1984. He received an honorary degree from

832-520: A theory known as spontaneous symmetry breaking based on what was known to happen in superconductivity in condensed matter, which incorrectly predicted massless particles (the Goldstone's theorem ). Higgs reportedly developed the fundamentals of his theory after returning to his Edinburgh New Town apartment from a failed weekend camping trip to the Highlands. He stated that there was no "eureka moment" in

896-610: A unique Higgs Medal from the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2012; and the Royal Society awarded him the 2015 Copley Medal , the world's oldest scientific prize. Higgs was the recipient of the Edinburgh Award for 2011. He was the fifth person to receive the Award, which was established in 2007 by the City of Edinburgh Council to honour an outstanding individual who has made a positive impact on

960-463: A wide range of phenomena. Testing the consequences of a theory is part of the scientific method . Physical theories can be grouped into three categories: mainstream theories , proposed theories and fringe theories . Theoretical physics began at least 2,300 years ago, under the Pre-socratic philosophy , and continued by Plato and Aristotle , whose views held sway for a millennium. During

1024-497: Is a model of physical events. It is judged by the extent to which its predictions agree with empirical observations. The quality of a physical theory is also judged on its ability to make new predictions which can be verified by new observations. A physical theory differs from a mathematical theorem in that while both are based on some form of axioms , judgment of mathematical applicability is not based on agreement with any experimental results. A physical theory similarly differs from

1088-560: Is for "distinguished physicists in recognition of their accomplishments". Honorary Fellowship ( HonFInstP ) is for "exceptional individuals" who can be nominated in recognition of having "contributed to physics generally or to the work of the IOP", working in fields including business, education, research, and policy relating to physics. The Institute's bye-laws limit the number of fellows in this category to being not more than 100 living Honorary Fellows at any one time. Fellows are entitled to use

1152-525: The 1964 PRL symmetry breaking papers are noteworthy. The mechanism had been proposed in 1962 by Philip Anderson although he did not include a crucial relativistic model. On 4 July 2012, CERN announced the ATLAS and Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiments had seen strong indications for the presence of a new particle, which could be the Higgs boson, in the mass region around 126 gigaelectronvolts ( GeV ). Speaking at

1216-551: The CH after his name stands for, he replies "it means I'm an honorary Swiss." He received the order from the Queen at an investiture at Holyrood House on 1 July 2014. Higgs was awarded honorary degrees from the following institutions: A portrait of Higgs was painted by Ken Currie in 2008. Commissioned by the University of Edinburgh, it was unveiled on 3 April 2009 and hangs in the entrance of

1280-532: The EPR thought experiment , simple illustrations of time dilation , and so on. These usually lead to real experiments designed to verify that the conclusion (and therefore the assumptions) of the thought experiments are correct. The EPR thought experiment led to the Bell inequalities , which were then tested to various degrees of rigor , leading to the acceptance of the current formulation of quantum mechanics and probabilism as

1344-638: The Institute of Physics ; the 1997 Dirac Medal and Prize for outstanding contributions to theoretical physics from the Institute of Physics ; the 1997 High Energy and Particle Physics Prize by the European Physical Society ; the 2004 Wolf Prize in Physics ; the 2009 Oskar Klein Memorial Lecture medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ; the 2010 American Physical Society J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics ;

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1408-753: The James Clerk Maxwell Building of the School of Physics and Astronomy and the School of Mathematics . A large portrait by Lucinda Mackay is in the collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh. Another portrait of Higgs by the same artist hangs in the birthplace of James Clerk Maxwell in Edinburgh; Higgs was the Honorary Patron of the James Clerk Maxwell Foundation . A portrait by Victoria Crowe

1472-497: The Qur'an and Buddhist scriptures . In a 2013 interview with Decca Aitkenhead , Higgs was quoted as saying: I'm not a believer. Some people get confused between the science and the theology. They claim that what happened at CERN proves the existence of God. The church in Spain has also been guilty of using that name as evidence for what they want to prove. [It] reinforces confused thinking in

1536-513: The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 , and performed his doctoral research in molecular physics under the supervision of Charles Coulson and Christopher Longuet-Higgins . He was awarded a PhD degree in 1954 with a thesis entitled Some problems in the theory of molecular vibrations from the university. After finishing his doctorate, Higgs was appointed a Senior Research Fellow at

1600-557: The Scientific Revolution gathered pace, the concepts of matter , energy, space, time and causality slowly began to acquire the form we know today, and other sciences spun off from the rubric of natural philosophy . Thus began the modern era of theory with the Copernican paradigm shift in astronomy, soon followed by Johannes Kepler 's expressions for planetary orbits, which summarized the meticulous observations of Tycho Brahe ;

1664-570: The Standard Model of particle physics , without which certain particles would have no mass. For this work, Higgs received the Nobel Prize in Physics , which he shared with François Englert in 2013. Higgs was born in the Elswick district of Newcastle upon Tyne , England, to Thomas Ware Higgs (1898–1962) and his wife Gertrude Maude née Coghill (1895–1969). His father worked as a sound engineer for

1728-608: The University of Bristol in 1997. In 2008, he received an Honorary Fellowship from Swansea University for his work in particle physics. At Edinburgh, Higgs first became interested in mass , developing the idea that particles – massless when the universe began – acquired mass a fraction of a second later as a result of interacting with a theoretical field (which became known as the Higgs field ). Higgs postulated that this field permeates space, giving mass to all elementary subatomic particles interacting with it. The Higgs mechanism postulates

1792-538: The University of Edinburgh (1954–56). He then held various posts at Imperial College London , and University College London (where he also became a temporary lecturer in mathematics). He returned to the University of Edinburgh in 1960 to take up the post of Lecturer at the Tait Institute of Mathematical Physics, allowing him to settle in the city he had enjoyed while hitchhiking to the Western Highlands as

1856-478: The origin of mass of elementary particles in general and of the W and Z bosons in particular. This Higgs mechanism predicted the existence of a new particle, the Higgs boson , the detection of which became one of the great goals of physics. In 2012, CERN announced the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider . The Higgs mechanism is generally accepted as an important ingredient in

1920-454: The post-nominal letters FInstP , and receive a number of minor benefits such as a subscription to Physics World magazine (like other members of the IOP). As of 2022 fellows include: See also Category:Fellows of the Institute of Physics The designation of Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, as an honorary title . The award of Honorary Fellowship is "the highest accolade presented by

1984-457: The two-fluid theory of electricity are two cases in this point. However, an exception to all the above is the wave–particle duality , a theory combining aspects of different, opposing models via the Bohr complementarity principle . Physical theories become accepted if they are able to make correct predictions and no (or few) incorrect ones. The theory should have, at least as a secondary objective,

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2048-459: The "goddamn particle". Higgs died after a short illness at home in Edinburgh on 8 April 2024, aged 94. Theoretical physicist The advancement of science generally depends on the interplay between experimental studies and theory . In some cases, theoretical physics adheres to standards of mathematical rigour while giving little weight to experiments and observations. For example, while developing special relativity , Albert Einstein

2112-429: The 19th century. Another important event in the 19th century was the discovery of electromagnetic theory , unifying the previously separate phenomena of electricity, magnetism and light. The pillars of modern physics , and perhaps the most revolutionary theories in the history of physics, have been relativity theory and quantum mechanics . Newtonian mechanics was subsumed under special relativity and Newton's gravity

2176-554: The ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider". Higgs admitted he had gone out to avoid the media attention so he was informed he had been awarded the prize by an ex-neighbour on his way home, since he did not have a mobile phone. Higgs turned down a knighthood in 1999, but in 2012, he accepted membership of the Order of the Companions of Honour . He later said that he only accepted

2240-552: The BBC, and as a result of childhood asthma, together with the family moving around because of his father's job and later World War II , Higgs missed some early schooling and was taught at home. When his father relocated to Bedford , Higgs stayed behind in Bristol with his mother, and was largely raised there. He attended Cotham Grammar School in Bristol from 1941 to 1946, where he was inspired by

2304-469: The Dutchmen Snell and Huygens. In the 18th and 19th centuries Joseph-Louis Lagrange , Leonhard Euler and William Rowan Hamilton would extend the theory of classical mechanics considerably. They picked up the interactive intertwining of mathematics and physics begun two millennia earlier by Pythagoras. Among the great conceptual achievements of the 19th and 20th centuries were the consolidation of

2368-579: The Earth ) or may be an alternative model that provides answers that are more accurate or that can be more widely applied. In the latter case, a correspondence principle will be required to recover the previously known result . Sometimes though, advances may proceed along different paths. For example, an essentially correct theory may need some conceptual or factual revisions; atomic theory , first postulated millennia ago (by several thinkers in Greece and India ) and

2432-413: The Institute of Physics to reflect an individual's exceptional services to physics". Awardees are entitled to use the post-nominal letters HonFInstP . No more than 100 living Honorary Fellows are permitted to be elected at any one time under the IOP's byelaws. Recipients have included: This award -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This science awards article

2496-419: The applications of relativity to problems in astronomy and cosmology respectively . All of these achievements depended on the theoretical physics as a moving force both to suggest experiments and to consolidate results — often by ingenious application of existing mathematics, or, as in the case of Descartes and Newton (with Leibniz ), by inventing new mathematics. Fourier's studies of heat conduction led to

2560-514: The body of knowledge of both factual and scientific views and possess a usual scientific quality of the tests of repeatability, consistency with existing well-established science and experimentation. There do exist mainstream theories that are generally accepted theories based solely upon their effects explaining a wide variety of data, although the detection, explanation, and possible composition are subjects of debate. The proposed theories of physics are usually relatively new theories which deal with

2624-624: The city and gained national and international recognition for Edinburgh . Higgs was presented with an engraved loving cup by the Rt Hon George Grubb , Lord Provost of Edinburgh , in a ceremony held at the City Chambers on Friday, 24 February 2012. The event also marked the unveiling of his handprints in the City Chambers quadrangle, where they had been engraved in Caithness stone alongside those of previous Edinburgh Award recipients. Higgs

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2688-575: The development of the theory. He wrote a short paper exploiting a loophole in Goldstone's theorem (massless Goldstone particles need not occur when local symmetry is spontaneously broken in a relativistic theory) and published it in Physics Letters , a European physics journal edited at CERN , in Switzerland, in 1964. Higgs wrote a second paper describing a theoretical model (the Higgs mechanism ), but

2752-481: The existence of the Higgs field, which confers mass on quarks and leptons; this causes only a tiny portion of the masses of other subatomic particles, such as protons and neutrons. In these, gluons that bind quarks together confer most of the particle mass. The original basis of Higgs's work came from the Japanese-born theorist and Nobel Prize laureate Yoichiro Nambu from the University of Chicago . Nambu had proposed

2816-599: The heads of people who are already thinking in a confused way. If they believe that story about creation in seven days, are they being intelligent? The nickname for the Higgs boson is usually attributed to Leon M. Lederman , the author of the book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? but the name is the result of the suggestion of Lederman's publisher; Lederman had initially intended to refer to it as

2880-416: The highest order, writing Principia Mathematica . In it contained a grand synthesis of the work of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler; as well as Newton's theories of mechanics and gravitation, which held sway as worldviews until the early 20th century. Simultaneously, progress was also made in optics (in particular colour theory and the ancient science of geometrical optics ), courtesy of Newton, Descartes and

2944-455: The idea of energy (as well as its global conservation) by the inclusion of heat , electricity and magnetism , and then light . The laws of thermodynamics , and most importantly the introduction of the singular concept of entropy began to provide a macroscopic explanation for the properties of matter. Statistical mechanics (followed by statistical physics and Quantum statistical mechanics ) emerged as an offshoot of thermodynamics late in

3008-667: The late 1920s. In the aftermath of World War 2, more progress brought much renewed interest in QFT, which had since the early efforts, stagnated. The same period also saw fresh attacks on the problems of superconductivity and phase transitions, as well as the first applications of QFT in the area of theoretical condensed matter. The 1960s and 70s saw the formulation of the Standard model of particle physics using QFT and progress in condensed matter physics (theoretical foundations of superconductivity and critical phenomena , among others ), in parallel to

3072-418: The order because he was wrongly assured that the award was in the gift of the Queen alone. He also expressed cynicism towards the honours system , and the way the system "is used for political purposes by the government in power". The order confers no title or precedence, but recipients of the order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters CH . In the same interview he also stated that when people ask what

3136-489: The paper was rejected (the editors of Physics Letters judged it "of no obvious relevance to physics"). Higgs wrote an extra paragraph and sent his paper to Physical Review Letters , another leading physics journal, which published it later in 1964. This paper predicted a new massive spin-zero boson (later named the Higgs boson ). Other physicists, Robert Brout and François Englert and Gerald Guralnik , C. R. Hagen and Tom Kibble had reached similar conclusions at about

3200-419: The process of becoming established and some proposed theories. It can include speculative sciences. This includes physics fields and physical theories presented in accordance with known evidence, and a body of associated predictions have been made according to that theory. Some fringe theories go on to become a widely accepted part of physics. Other fringe theories end up being disproven. Some fringe theories are

3264-590: The rise of medieval universities , the only acknowledged intellectual disciplines were the seven liberal arts of the Trivium like grammar , logic , and rhetoric and of the Quadrivium like arithmetic , geometry , music and astronomy . During the Middle Ages and Renaissance , the concept of experimental science, the counterpoint to theory, began with scholars such as Ibn al-Haytham and Francis Bacon . As

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3328-424: The same time. In the published version, Higgs quotes Brout and Englert, and the third paper quotes the previous ones. The three papers written on this boson discovery by Higgs, Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble, Brout, and Englert were each recognised as milestone papers by Physical Review Letters 50th-anniversary celebration. While each of these famous papers took similar approaches, the contributions and differences between

3392-466: The seminar in Geneva , Higgs commented "It's really an incredible thing that it's happened in my lifetime." Ironically, this probable confirmation of the Higgs boson was made at the same place where the editor of Physics Letters rejected Higgs's paper. Higgs was honoured with several awards in recognition of his work, including the 1981 Hughes Medal from the Royal Society ; the 1984 Rutherford Medal from

3456-484: The study of physics which include scientific approaches, means for determining the validity of models and new types of reasoning used to arrive at the theory. However, some proposed theories include theories that have been around for decades and have eluded methods of discovery and testing. Proposed theories can include fringe theories in the process of becoming established (and, sometimes, gaining wider acceptance). Proposed theories usually have not been tested. In addition to

3520-472: The theories like those listed below, there are also different interpretations of quantum mechanics , which may or may not be considered different theories since it is debatable whether they yield different predictions for physical experiments, even in principle. For example, AdS/CFT correspondence , Chern–Simons theory , graviton , magnetic monopole , string theory , theory of everything . Fringe theories include any new area of scientific endeavor in

3584-539: The vision provided by pure mathematical systems can provide clues to how a physical system might be modeled; e.g., the notion, due to Riemann and others, that space itself might be curved. Theoretical problems that need computational investigation are often the concern of computational physics . Theoretical advances may consist in setting aside old, incorrect paradigms (e.g., aether theory of light propagation, caloric theory of heat, burning consisting of evolving phlogiston , or astronomical bodies revolving around

3648-411: The work of one of the school's alumni , Paul Dirac , a founder of the field of quantum mechanics . In 1946, at the age of 17, Higgs moved to City of London School , where he specialised in mathematics, then in 1947 to King's College London , where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in physics in 1950 and achieved a master's degree in 1952. He was awarded an 1851 Research Fellowship from

3712-521: The works of these men (alongside Galileo's) can perhaps be considered to constitute the Scientific Revolution. The great push toward the modern concept of explanation started with Galileo , one of the few physicists who was both a consummate theoretician and a great experimentalist . The analytic geometry and mechanics of Descartes were incorporated into the calculus and mechanics of Isaac Newton , another theoretician/experimentalist of

3776-502: Was an atheist . He described Richard Dawkins as having adopted a " fundamentalist " view of non-atheists. Higgs expressed displeasure with the nickname the "God particle". Although it has been reported that he believed the term "might offend people who are religious", Higgs stated that this is not the case, lamenting the letters he has received which claim the God particle was predicted in the Torah ,

3840-594: Was awarded the 2004 Wolf Prize in Physics (sharing it with Robert Brout and François Englert ) but declined to attend the awards ceremony in Jerusalem in protest of Israel's treatment of Palestinians . Higgs was actively involved in the Edinburgh University branch of the Association of University Teachers , through which he agitated for greater staff involvement in the management of the physics department. Higgs

3904-713: Was awarded the Freedom of the City of Bristol in July 2013. The Dirac-Higgs Science Centre in Bristol is also named in his honour. In April 2014, he was also awarded the Freedom of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was also honoured with a brass plaque installed on the Newcastle Quayside as part of the Newcastle Gateshead Initiative Local Heroes Walk of Fame. On 6 July 2012, Edinburgh University announced

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3968-503: Was commissioned by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and unveiled in 2013. Higgs married Jody Williamson, an American lecturer in linguistics at Edinburgh and a fellow activist with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), in 1963. Their first son was born in August 1965. Higgs had two sons: Christopher and Jonny, a jazz musician. He also had two grandchildren: Jo, a writer, and Bonnie (Kemplay),

4032-505: Was concerned with the Lorentz transformation which left Maxwell's equations invariant, but was apparently uninterested in the Michelson–Morley experiment on Earth 's drift through a luminiferous aether . Conversely, Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for explaining the photoelectric effect , previously an experimental result lacking a theoretical formulation. A physical theory

4096-422: Was given a kinematic explanation by general relativity . Quantum mechanics led to an understanding of blackbody radiation (which indeed, was an original motivation for the theory) and of anomalies in the specific heats of solids — and finally to an understanding of the internal structures of atoms and molecules . Quantum mechanics soon gave way to the formulation of quantum field theory (QFT), begun in

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