Peter Ware Higgs Biography and Timeline

Birth

Is born in Newcastle upon Tyne to a Scottish mother and an English father who worked as a BBC sound engineer.

Physics Degree

Graduates from King's College London with first-class honours in physics.

Masters Degree

Receives an MSc from King's College London and continues research in theoretical physics.

Doctorate

Receives a PhD from King's College London for research on problems in the theory of molecular vibrations.

Edinburgh Fellowship

Moves to the University of Edinburgh as a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Senior Student.

London Research

Returns to London and works at University College London and Imperial College before his permanent return to Edinburgh.

Role range: 1956-1960

Edinburgh Lectureship

Takes up a lectureship in mathematical physics at the Tait Institute of Mathematical Physics, University of Edinburgh.

Role range: 1960-1970

Higgs Boson

Publishes Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons, explicitly identifying the massive scalar excitation later called the Higgs boson.

Higgs Boson

Shows that spontaneous symmetry breaking in a gauge theory can avoid an unwanted massless particle while leaving a massive scalar particle in the theory.

Higgs Field

Developed the idea that particles were massless when the universe began, acquiring mass a fraction of a second later, as a result of interacting with a theoretical field now known as the Higgs field

Higgs Field

Higgs postulates that the Higgs field permeates space, giving all elementary subatomic particles that interact with it their mass.

Higgs Field

In quantum field theory, the Higgs Mechanism is a way that the massless gauge bosons in a gauge theory acquire a mass by interacting with a background Higgs field.

Higgs Field

Proposed in 1964 by Robert Brout and Francois Englert, independently by Peter Higgs and by Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and Tom Kibble.

Higgs Field

The Higgs mechanism, which gives mass to vector bosons, is theorized in 1964 by Francois Englert and Robert Brout ("boson scalaire") & at the ssame time by Higgs. The Higgs field was postulated to confer mass on quarks and leptons.

Higgs Field

The standard model of particle physics uses the Higgs mechanism to give all the elementary particles masses.

Scalar Boson Prediction

Develops the consequence that the symmetry-breaking mechanism should leave a massive scalar particle that could in principle be detected experimentally.

Symmetry Breaking Paper

Publishes a short paper on broken symmetries that identifies a loophole allowing gauge theories to evade the usual massless-particle conclusion.

Reader

Is promoted to Reader in Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh.

Role range: 1970-1980

Royal Society of Edinburgh

Is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Personal Chair

Is promoted to a Personal Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh.

Role range: 1980-1996

Hughes Medal

Shares the Royal Society Hughes Medal with Tom Kibble for contributions to theoretical physics.

Royal Society

Is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his contributions to theoretical physics.

Rutherford Medal

Shares the Institute of Physics Rutherford Medal with Tom Kibble.

Higgs Boson

Sees CERN's LEP collider begin precision tests of electroweak theory and searches that increasingly constrain the possible mass of the Higgs boson.

Retirement

Retires from the University of Edinburgh and becomes Professor Emeritus.

Role range: 1996-2024

Dirac Medal

Receives the Institute of Physics Paul Dirac Medal and Prize for his contributions to theoretical particle physics.

Higgs Boson

Sees the LEP collider finish operations without a confirmed Higgs discovery, leaving the particle as a central target for future collider experiments.

Higgs Boson

Shares the Wolf Prize in Physics with Robert Brout and Francois Englert for pioneering work that established the mechanism of mass generation.

Higgs Field

It is expected that the Large Hadron Collider which opened at CERN in Switzerland in September 2008 will have the best chance of finding the Higgs boson

Higgs Boson

Shares the J. J. Sakurai Prize for work explaining spontaneous symmetry breaking in relativistic gauge theory.

Large Hadron Collider Higgs Result

Witnesses CERN announce a new particle consistent with the boson predicted by the symmetry-breaking mechanism associated with his work.

Higgs Boson Confirmation

Sees CERN report that accumulating measurements increasingly support the new particle having the properties expected of a Higgs boson.

Higgs Boson

Sees CERN report that additional data support the new particle having spin zero and positive parity, strengthening its identification as a Higgs boson.

Companion of Honour

Is appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the New Year Honours.

Higgs Boson

Sees CERN report stronger evidence that the Higgs boson decays directly to fermions, extending tests of how the Higgs field couples to matter particles.

Copley Medal

Receives the Royal Society's Copley Medal for his fundamental contribution to particle physics.

Higgs Boson

Sees ATLAS and CMS report observation of Higgs-boson decay to bottom quarks, confirming an important predicted coupling to fermionic matter.

Higgs Boson Tenth Anniversary

Sees CERN commemorate ten years of increasingly precise measurements of the Higgs boson discovered with Large Hadron Collider data.

Higgs Boson

Sees CERN mark ten years since the discovery with increasingly precise measurements supporting the Higgs boson's predicted spin-zero Standard Model properties.

Death

Dies at home in Edinburgh at the age of ninety-four, leaving a central legacy in the Standard Model of particle physics.