British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs died Monday in his hometown of Edinburgh at the age of 94. His family announced his passing on Tuesday.
The National Institute for Subatomic Physics Nikhef mourns the passing of one of the most high-profile colleagues of the past century. “A modest but very iconic theorist whom we will miss,” said Nikhef director Stan Bentvelsen in an initial reaction.
Higgs was a guest several times at the institute in Amsterdam and a close acquaintance of many Dutch theorists. Bentvelsen met him on the eve of the discovery of the so-called Higgs particle in 2012 as part of a documentary about the theorist made by Jan van den Berg.
Higgs mechanism
Peter Higgs formulated a new idea in the 1960s with some colleagues about a mechanism that gives mass to all particles in the universe. Higgs also realized that that mechanism should include a particle that could be searched for experimentally.
The particle gradually became known as the Higgs particle, something Higgs himself seemed somewhat uncomfortable with. In particular, he did not like the term God particle, which was often used in the process.
Initially, the idea of a mass-generating universal field received little support. That changed in the 1970s when Dutchmen Tini Veltman and Gerard ‘t Hooft used the field in their useful field theory for the standard model. They recieved a Nobel prize in 1999.
In 2012, the existence of the predicted particle was demonstrated with two large experiments in the accelerator at CERN in Geneva. The Large Hadron Collider was more or less built for that purpose. Nikhef was very closely involved in that discovery. On the tenth anniversary of the Higgs discovery, Higgs’ granddaughter played with her band at a Nikhef party in Amsterdam.
Watershed find
The discovery of the Higgs particle was an important missing element in the standard model of particle physics. Without the Higgs mechanism, all particles would be massless, and the universe impossible. Higgs received a Nobel Prize for it in 2013, along with his Belgian colleague and co-inventor Francois Englert.
The Higgs particle marked a watershed in modern particle physics. It crowned the standard model, but also led to new questions about the foundations of the universe and evolution since the Big Bang. Much of the research at CERN is still focused on characterizing the Higgs particle.
Spider in the web
The Higgs particle is the spider in the web of particle physics says particle physicist Ivo van Vulpen of Nikhef. At the time, he was involved in the 2012 discovery with the ATLAS detector. Van Vulpen remembers Higgs as an amiable man. “Not pretentious, modest. While he had an incredibly important idea that turned out to be true. And no better idea was ever found in all those years either.”
Van Vulpen did not know Higgs personally. “But last year he wrote me a letter by hand telling me what he thought of my book. He had some critical points, of course, but the fact that he took the trouble to explain a few things to me made a big impression on me. I cherish that letter.”
Film maker Jan van den Berg also made a theater production about Higgs and his mechanism, and played it in Endingburgh, among other places. He was still in regular contact with the old physicist and met him several more times. “I cherish the extraordinarily friendly memories,” he said in a first reaction.
