Peter Higgs, who made waves in the scientific world with the 'God particle' theory, has died at the age of 94
British scientist Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the Higgs boson, has died at the age of 94.
An English physicist, he was among the scientists who developed the theory in the 1960s that explains why everything in the Universe has mass. About 50 years later, this scientific breakthrough was achieved. Experiments conducted in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland, confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson.
A year after this event, in 2013, Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
-Edinburgh University stated that Higgs "enriched our understanding of the world around us with his vision and imagination."
British particle physicist Dr. Clara Nellist was at CERN when the Higgs boson was discovered in 2012, causing a sensation worldwide. Dr. Nellist said, "The Higgs boson is truly a special particle. It's associated with the acquisition of mass by other fundamental particles. When particles enter the Higgs field, they gain mass, and through experiments with the Higgs boson, we can prove the existence of the Higgs field."
The Higgs boson represents an energy field. It endows other fundamental particles of the universe, such as electrons and quarks, with mass.
The Higgs boson came to be known as the "God particle" because the process of acquiring mass is likened to the Big Bang, which led to the formation of the current universe.
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Working on a project at CERN laboratory that consumes electricity equivalent to that of a small town per month, scientists are striving to unravel the mystery of dark matter.
Dr. Nellist states, "Dark matter constitutes about 80-85% of the matter in our universe. It's called dark because it doesn't interact with light. That's why we can't see it. What's even more intriguing is that we don't know what it is."
So far, scientists have only been able to observe indirect evidence of dark matter. However, dark matter particles have not been directly detected.
There are different theories about what this particle might be. One of the most popular theories among scientists is that it could be a WIMP, or Weakly Interacting Massive Particle. Dr. Nellist says, "This is still a big mystery. We're trying to see if this can be created in experiments.
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