October 8, 2013

expert reaction to the awarding of physics Nobel prize

The physics Nobel has been awarded to Prof Francoise Englert and Prof Peter Higgs “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 the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider”.

Ian Blatchford, Director of the Science Museum, comments:

“That it has taken decades to validate the existence of the Higgs Boson illustrates the remarkable vision of the theoretical work that Higgs, Francois Englert and others did with pen and paper half a century ago, one that launched an effort by  thousands of scientists and inspired a staggering feat of engineering in the guise of the Large Hadron Collider.”

John Pethica, Physical Secretary and Vice-President of the Royal Society, said:

“Peter Higgs and Francois Englert are deserving winners of the Nobel Prize. Their work has helped shape our fundamental understanding of the world around us.  The search for and finding of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider in CERN has captured the public imagination in a spectacular way that will help inspire the next generation of physicists. Their ideas have helped drive a truly international undertaking in the pursuit of a key part of the standard model. We should be proud of another success for a British scientist.”

Professor John Womersley, Chief Executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council and a particle physicist himself, said:

“I’m extremely proud that this huge honour has been given to Professor Peter Higgs and François Englert for their work in predicting the existence of the Higgs boson. Today is a celebration of their genius, and it’s something everyone in the UK can share in.  It took several decades and the construction of the world’s largest science experiment to prove them right – and that investment didn’t just teach us something new about the universe, it transformed our everyday lives.  Particle Physics has brought us the World Wide Web, touch screens, superconducting magnets and medical imaging detectors, and it’s an area of science where the UK is world-leading.  STFC congratulates the winners of this well-deserved award, together with all of the scientists, engineers and industry partners involved in the world–wide collaborations that confirmed that their insight was correct.”

Dr Craig Buttar, University of Glasgow

“We congratulate Peter Higgs and François Englert on being awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics.  The work by Higgs and Englert has been an inspiration for four decades of scientific endeavour.   This has culminated in the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which the Glasgow particle physics group was proud to be part of.” 

Dr Aidan Robson, University of Glasgow:

“The work by Peter Higgs and the Scottish experimental groups at CERN has had a huge impact on Scottish science, inspiring young people to become the next generation of scientists and engineers, and giving rise to the development of new detector and computing technologies.” 

Dr. Richard St. Denis, University of Glasgow:

“This prize is well-deserved by Higgs and François Englert as it represents a highpoint of human thought.  The concept they put forward synthesizes a very simple explanation for an enormous number of phenomena in fundamental physics and points the way forward to the edge of our understanding.  The experimental confirmation has taken the Glasgow group alone on a journey spanning 30 years from CERN to Fermilab and back to CERN again.  It is the end of one understanding and profoundly points to that which we have yet to understand.”

Professor Doyle, University of Glasgow:

 “When the Higgs discovery papers were submitted last year, it marked a defining point in the evolution of particle physics. An intense period of analysis required the combined efforts of two large international collaborations. All of that effort followed the inspiring work of Peter Higgs and François Englert, so it’s wonderful to hear their work being celebrated and recognised in the company of collaborators of all cultures from all around the world.”

Professor Alan Barr, University of Oxford:

“To dream up a theory that can explain the masses of the fundamental particles of nature is a truly remarkable intellectual achievement.

“No less impressive is the achievement of the experimental physicists – who had the vision to imagine, and the dedication to build, a machine that could test that idea.

“Personally, I won’t even start to feel satisfied until the Large Hadron Collider reaches full energy – then we can *really* start exploring!”

Professor Dan Tovey, ATLAS, University of Sheffield:

“The theory which Englert, Higgs and colleagues developed in 1964 is the bedrock on which our current understanding of the universe at the smallest scales is built. The discovery by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations last year of the particle associated with this theory, now called the Higgs boson, provides the final conclusive proof that this idea was correct. This represents a triumph of human thought.

“The key task for particle physicists now is to measure precisely the properties of the Higgs boson to establish whether they coincide with the predictions of current state-of-the-art theory, or whether new theories, possibly incorporating multiple Higgs bosons, need to be developed.”

Dave Newbold, CMS, University of Bristol

“The work of Peter Higgs was at the centre of a series of profound insights in theoretical physics in 1960s and 70s, which revolutionised our understanding of matter, space and time. For decades, the confirmation of Higgs’ prediction of a new particle with unique properties remained the ‘holy grail’ of particle physics – its discovery now tells us that we are probably on the right track in our pursuit of the fundamental laws of nature.

“I’m sure the whole UK physics community wishes to congratulate Peter Higgs on this richly deserved recognition of his work. The award of a second Nobel Prize in five years to a UK physicist will be another big boost to the field”.

Phil Allport, ATLAS and ATLAS Upgrade Coordinator, University of Liverpool:

“A highly deserved recognition of a very bold hypothesis that many of us doubted but which turned out to be true.Now we’ve got our work cut out to measure the properties of this completely new sort of fundamental particle.”

Prof Tara Shears, LHCb (used to work on ATLAS), University of Liverpool:

“The Higgs mechanism explains why fundamental particles have mass, and shows us that the forces describing electricity, magnetism and radioactivity are connected at a very deep level. Without the Higgs, stable atoms could not form – there wouldn’t be planets or galaxies and we certainly couldn’t exist. It is a vital, integral part of the universe’s structure.

“I’m so excited that this year’s prize has been awarded for the Higgs theory, and that Peter Higgs and François Englert have been recognised. Predicting, and then discovering, the Higgs boson is one of the very greatest achievements of modern physics. It’s a wonderful idea that opens our eyes to the deepest nature of the universe. That it has turned out to be true has been one of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed. We shouldn’t forget that it’s fantastic, and important, that this work could happen in the UK too. The very best science happens here, as long as we can keep supporting it.”

Professor Stefan Soldner-Rembold, University of Manchester

“Rarely has the award of a Nobel Prize been so universally expected. The journey from   Peter Higgs’ original prediction 50 years ago to the discovery of the Higgs particle   last year has been a triumph of theoretical and experimental physics.    The discovery of the Higgs boson answers one of the most fundamental questions    about the properties of matter in the Universe.    Physicists from the UK have played a leading role    in building the large experiments that have made this triumph of Higgs’ theory possible.”

Professor Vayla Khoze, Director of Institute for Physics and Phenomenology, University of Durham:

“The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics recognises a truly fundamental conceptual achievement in particle physics.

 “The search for the elusive Higgs boson predicted by the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism was ongoing for almost 50 years until scientists at the Large Hadron Collider experiment at CERN announced a spectacular discovery of a particle consistent with the long-sought Higgs boson, thus confirming their groundbreaking theoretical work.

“The Higgs particle generates masses for other elementary particles and without it the Universe would not remotely look like anything we see today.

“The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism and the Higgs boson play an absolutely vital role in our very understanding of fundamental physics.

“This brings us closer to uncovering new physics phenomena, explaining dark matter and other mysteries of the Universe.”

Professor Roger Jones, University of Lancaster:

“This award is truly well deserved; when proposed, the Higgs mechanism seemed like a very contrived way to save an otherwise incredibly successful theory, the Standard Model of particle physics. Now that we have discovered the particle Higgs predicted, their prescience seems uncanny.”

Dr Harald Fox, who works directly on Higgs searches on ATLAS at Cern, University of Lancaster:

“The more we study the new object the more like the predicted particle it seems. It seems safe to say it plays the role expected; but it could be part of a bigger and more natural picture. Our own search for its predicted decays to tau leptons might reveal part of that picture. It is great to be around at one if those significant moments in physics, and to be able to play a part of these developments.”

Andy Parker, Head of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge and instigator of the ATLAS project at Cern:

“It is a great pleasure to read that Peter Higgs and François Englert  have been awarded the Nobel Prize for the prediction of the Higgs boson. One of the most surprising things about Nature is that it can be understood at all. Peter and François have shown the amazing power of mathematical physics by predicting the existence of the boson behind the weak interaction in 1964, based only on the low energy data of the day and their own powers of reasoning. Working at CERN over the years to build and operate one of the experiments which finally discovered the Higgs boson has been an amazing experience, and all the team at the Cavendish are delighted to congratulate Peter and François on the award today. We will be raising a glass of champagne in their honour!

“The Higgs mechanism is one of the most startling predictions of modern science. Since Democritus in 400BC we have been used to thinking of atoms, electrons and other particles as intrinsically solid, billiard ball objects, which move around in an empty vacuum. The Higgs mechanism shows that particles are in fact intimately linked to the vacuum, which is not empty but filled with the Higgs field. The different particles disturb the Higgs field in different ways, giving them their masses. For many years, textbooks have treated these masses as fundamental constants, to be measured but not explained. Now these numbers are revealed as accidental products of interactions between fields, constantly rippling through a crowded, ever-changing space filled with activity. We will now begin to explore this new universe. As ever in science, this discovery poses new questions. For example, is the Higgs boson we have discovered the only one of its kind, or are there other species waiting to be discovered?  Can we link our new understanding of mass to gravity, and so reveal the unified theory which Einstein sought? The experiments will continue to address these and many other mysteries.”

Professor Dave Wark, Science and Technology Facilities Council Particle Physics Department:

“It is great to see the fundamental importance of this discovery recognized by the Nobel Prize committee, even if the complicated nature of modern scientific collaboration makes it a challenge to figure out who to give prizes to.  It is also nice to see Peter Higgs prove that nice guys can finish first!  He may not have the widest range of contributions amongst theorists, but his insight that lies at the core of our understanding of particle physics will be remembered as long as science is remembered.”

Neil Geddes, Science and Technology Facilities Council Particle Physics Department:

“This nicely rounds of what has been a fantastic couple of years for particle physics and the large hadron collider.

“This award correctly recognises a fundamental insight from Peter Higgs that lies at the heart of the way nature appears to work, as confirmed by the recent results from the Large Hadron Collider.

“The award to Peter will be, quite rightly, be appreciated by the many thousands of people who have worked over the last 20 years to make the LHC the success it is. We can all enjoy the reflected recognition of our labours and the fact that the Nobel committee has chosen to recognise someone as committed and humble as Peter.”

Kristian Harder, Science and Technology Facilities Council Particle Physics Department:

“A well-deserved award. This was one of the most important discoveries in decades, helping us understand a lot better the universe we live in.”

Professor Norman McCubbin, former Director of Particle Physics at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory said:  

“It is thrilling news that the Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded for the ground-breaking theoretical work on the Higgs boson. This work stimulated much experimental work over the last thirty years, culminating in the announcement in July 2012 of the discovery of a “Higgs-like” particle by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Scientists and engineers at STFC have made essential contributions to these experiments since their inception more than 20 years ago, and may share a little reflected glory today. On a more personal level, I am delighted, as I’m sure are many of my colleagues, that this award recognises the contribution of Peter Higgs.”

Professor Simon Hands, previously a research student of Professor Peter Higgs and Director of Research, University of Swansea:

“Peter’s achievements in physics have profoundly changed the way we view the world at the sub-atomic level, and are a testament to the breadth of his knowledge and scope of his curiosity. I am delighted his work has been recognised and I along with the rest of his friends here at Swansea University send our warmest congratulations to him.”

Mr Imran Khan, Chief Executive of the British Science Association, said:

“Everyone at the British Science Association is thrilled that Peter Higgs has been awarded the Nobel Prize. As well as deepening our understanding of the universe we live in, Higgs’ prediction excited the public and captured our imaginations, taking us all on the same journey that the CERN scientists were on – we hope it will leave more people than ever interested and engaged with science.”

Quotes from scientists at the University of Birmingham:

Professor Dave Charlton, University of Birmingham School of Physics and Astronomy and ATLAS Spokesperson, said: 

“The award of the Nobel prize in physics to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs is richly deserved for their pioneering work a half-century ago.  Their insights, together with the work of others, led us to the mechanism by which many particles gain mass.

“The discovery by ATLAS and CMS of a Higgs boson last year showed that Higgs and Englert’s concept is realised in Nature, and is a triumph of global international scientific collaboration.”

Professor Paul Newman, Head of the Particle Physics Group, University of Birmingham, said:

“At first sight, the Higgs mechanism is a very strange idea indeed. It requires the entire universe, even deepest inter-galactic space, to be filled with a new field of a fundamentally different kind from anything previously known. The audacity of proposing such a bizarre and all-pervading mechanism based on what was known half a century ago is simply stunning. The confirmation of the idea through the LHC’s discovery of a Higgs boson is one of the most incredible scientific stories of recent times. Recognition by the Nobel Committee is thoroughly deserved!”

Professor Pete Watkins, School Of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, said:

“The Higgs boson discovery provides the first evidence for a new quantum field, present throughout the universe, which gives mass to fundamental particles.  If this field did not exist all particles would travel at the speed of light. There wouldn’t be any atoms and the universe would be a very different place.

“The search for the Higgs boson has for decades been a major target for many different Particle Physics experiments around the world.  As a member of the Particle Physics group at the University of Birmingham I also contributed to the discovery of the massive W and Z bosons at CERN. More recently it has been very exciting to work with ATLAS colleagues on the huge challenges of constructing a detector and computing systems capable of extracting a Higgs boson signal from billions of proton proton collisions at the LHC.

“I am delighted that the efforts of so many highly skilled researchers, engineers and students have finally paid off with the discovery by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.”

Quotes from scientists at Imperial College London:

Emeritus Professor Tom Kibble CBE FRS from Imperial College London:

“I am glad to see that the Swedish Academy has recognized the importance of the mass-generating mechanism for gauge theories and the prediction of the Higgs boson, recently verified at CERN.  My two collaborators, Gerald Guralnik and Carl Richard Hagen, and I contributed to that discovery, but our paper was unquestionably the last of the three to be published in Physical Review Letters in 1964 (though we naturally regard our treatment as the most thorough and complete) and it is therefore no surprise that the Swedish Academy felt unable to include us, constrained as they are by a self-imposed rule that the Prize cannot be shared by more than three people.  My sincere congratulations go to the two Prize winners, François Englert and Peter Higgs.  A sad omission from the list was Englert’s collaborator Robert Brout, now deceased.”

Professor Michael Duff FRS, Abdus Salam Chair of Theoretical Physics:

“I am delighted to hear that Peter Higgs and Francois Englert have won this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics, which is richly deserved. Their seminal contributions, along with those of Tom Kibble here at Imperial College, explaining how elementary particles acquire a mass, form a vital part of the Standard Model of particle physics, pioneered by Imperial Nobel Laureate, Abdus Salam.

“Their ideas in theoretical physics, vindicated in 2012 by the discovery at CERN of the Higgs boson, will persist as part of human understanding of the physical universe for centuries to come, long after today’s stars of politics, business and entertainment have been forgotten.”

Professor Jerome Gauntlett, Head of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London:

“It is wonderful that the Nobel Committee has recognised the outstanding contributions of Peter Higgs and Francois Englert to our understanding of fundamental physics.

“Their visionary ideas about how elementary particles acquire mass, from nearly 50 years ago, were dramatically confirmed earlier this year with the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. This will surely be remembered as one of the great chapters of scientific discovery.

“Imperial is also proud of its involvement, including profound contributions by Tom Kibble, Abdus Salam and the experimental team at the LHC.

“Like all great discoveries, more detailed studies of the Higgs boson are likely to have a huge impact on the future of fundamental scientific enquiry. We may find evidence for a new “supersymmetry” which would mean that there are even more elementary particles waiting to be discovered. We might solve the riddle of the mysterious Dark Matter that pervades the universe. We might learn whether or not there are extra dimensions in the universe, in addition to the three space dimensions that we observe.

“These threads will also provide key clues to the ultimate question in fundamental physics which is: how can we unify the Standard Model of Particle Physics with Einstein’s theory of Gravity?”

Tejinder (Jim) Virdee FRS, Professor of Physics at Imperial College London and Former spokesperson for CMS experiment at CERN:

“It’s wonderful news that the Physics Nobel Committee has recognized two physicists, including one from the UK, whose theoretical work launched a momentous scientific endeavour that started some 50 years ago. The 2012 discovery of a Higgs Boson at the Large Hadron Collider has been a major breakthrough for Science and opens an exciting era for particle physics.

“In 1964, in a great intellectual leap, the theoretical physicists postulated the existence of a field that pervades the entire universe, to give mass to fundamental particles, the quantum of which is known as the Higgs boson. Then nearly 30 years later, the epic journey began to hunt for the elusive Higgs boson at the LHC, one that would eventually involve experimentalists from around the world, in conceiving the experiments and the accelerator, inventing new technologies for them and then building and operating these complex instruments.

“It is a great honour and privilege to be connected with this advance in science. The LHC has just started the extraction of science and is expected to continue for two more decades. We all are looking forward to uncovering further secrets of Nature.”

Arttu Rajantie, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London:

“This year’s Nobel prize, awarded to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert, is extremely highly deserved. The Higgs mechanism is a central part of the theoretical foundation of the Standard Model of particle physics, being responsible for the unification of the weak and electromagnetic forces, for the short range of the weak force, and for the masses of the elementary particles. In spite of the enormous success of the Standard Model, this underlying theoretical structure had not been confirmed experimentally until the discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC last year.

“Thanks in large part to today’s laureates, we now have a complete theoretical understanding of the fundamental laws of nature accessible with current particle accelerator experiments. There are still many unanswered questions, especially when one combines particle physics with cosmology, such as the origin of matter in the Universe, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, and the cause of cosmological inflation. The answers may well lie in scalar fields similar to the Higgs field, or even in the Higgs field itself, and therefore the work of Englert and Higgs is likely to have further profound implications for our understanding of the Universe.”

Paul Dauncey, Professor of Particle Physics at Imperial College London:

“Good things come to those who wait; Peter Higgs and Francois Englert have had to wait half a century but they got the biggest prize of them all. This is wonderful recognition, not only of their stunning theoretical insight, but also of the importance of fundamental science. The icing on the cake is that the UK contributed so much; Peter Higgs is of course British but also UK physicists had a large role in the discovery last summer which confirmed their ideas.”

Dr Alex Tapper, Lecturer in High Energy Physics at Imperial College London:

“Nobody can be more deserving of the prize than the visionaries who waited 50 years to discover if their ideas were right or wrong. The award is a great achievement for them and for the field of particle physics. Also the many experimentalists who pushed technology and their ingenuity to the limits will be thrilled by the recognition of the importance of the science they pursued.”

Gavin Davies, Professor of High Energy Physics at Imperial College London:

“This is wonderful news for particle physics, and indeed fundamental physics as a whole. It’s fantastic to think about a journey that was started some 50 years ago with a leap of faith in theoretical physics, and then ratified by the discovery last year at CERN. It’s a testament to human creativity and ingenuity – and our ability to work together on these worldwide projects. The discovery opens a new window on our universe.”

Dr Oliver Buchmueller, Senior Lecturer in High Energy Physics at Imperial College London:

“The award of the Physics Nobel Prize to Englert and Higgs for their seminal theoretical work in 1964 on developing a mechanism for the consistent generation of mass of fundamental particles is fantastic news. It rewards the individuals for their groundbreaking idea and also commends the discovery of a Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in 2012, almost 50 years after its existence was first predicted by the recipients.

“I am also very delighted that Higgs, a British scientist, is among the winners. This is also an incredible achievement for British science as a whole. However, we must not forget those who have not been recognised today but also made invaluable contributions to the very same subject. In particular my Imperial College London colleague Tom Kibble, who in 1964 with his co-authors Guralnik and Hagen published one of the three milestone papers that built the foundation of the Physics Nobel Prize that has been awarded today – these scientists are equally deserving!”

Professor Joanna Haigh FRS, Head of the Department of Physics at Imperial College London:

“It is great news for British science that Peter Higgs and Francois Englert have been awarded the Nobel Prize. The theoretical work they carried out in the 1960s, validated by the discovery of a Higgs boson at CERN last year, has led us to a new era of discovery and understanding in fundamental physics. As Head of the Physics Department at Imperial College London it is with great pride I note the substantial involvement of Imperial physicists in both the theoretical and experimental advances.”