Scottish Physicsist, propsoed
a method for
spontaneous symmetry
breaking of a system using a
Higgs field (funny that), just the
thing required to give every particle
mass in the
standard model, hence
the
Higgs' Boson.
Reecently retired, hoping someone will find his particle
before he dies so that he can recieve a Nobel Prize.
He smiled at me once, well, ok, he was smiling
in the same corridor as me once, I am sure he
didn't even notice me.
I have heard from those that know that he gave
a very confusing course in quantum field theory.
Just a comment on
Smurfette's excellent writeup,
in particle physics the way particles know what
characteristics other particles have is by relaying
intermidating particles between each other.
Electrons tell each other about their charge by passing
virtual photons amngst themselves, we say they are coupled together by photons. The
intermediating particle for mass is thought to be the Higgs
boson, however unlike with the electrons where
the photon has no
charge, the Higgs particle has a mass
and so it couples to it'self. This leads to a bit of a mess in the calculations and to a rather large predicted mass for the
Higgs particle, hence big
accelerators are required.
The detection from CERN comes from a detector that is due to be closed down very shortly. They have said, "wait a moment look what we might have here, don't close us down"
The detection seem to be marginal, makes you think eh!
(not that I'm disputing them, just pointing out the importance in the timing of releasing scientific results)