Obituary In a world dominated by instant gratification, Peter Higgs, who died earlier this week, had to wait more than half of his 94-year-old life to see his theoretical predictions confirmed, thereby changing our understanding of the universe.
Nobel-winning physicist Peter Higgs dies "peacefully at home" | DW News
Born in northeast England in 1929, Higgs, who passed away today, first proposed a particle that could give mass to other matter in 1964. The idea, along with work from other theorists, became part of the Standard Model of particle physics, and was confirmed by Europe's Large Hadron Collider between 2012 and 2013. In 2013 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, when his particle of the same name had become world famous.
CERN, the European Organization for Particle Research, announced the discovery of the Higgs boson with great fanfare. However, Higgs seemed embarrassed by it and always emphasized that many others had contributed to the theory and published similar ideas.
Higgs' early schooling was interrupted when his father moved around Britain during the Second World War. He settled in Bristol and attended Cotham Grammar School, where famous alumni include Paul Dirac, a pioneer of quantum mechanics who also won the Nobel Prize.
