Peter Higgs discovered he had won Nobel Prize after being stopped in the street by an ex-neighbour

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences couldn't contact Peter Higgs on the phone before making the announcement, and said he had gone ‘into hiding’
Speaking at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Higgs said a former neighbour got out of her car in Edinburgh to tell him the good news
The physicist said he is delighted and 'rather relieved' that the award giving is over, as it had been 'a long time coming'
He said he would celebrate with my family and a bottle of champagne this evening

PUBLISHED: 10:01 EST, 11 October 2013 | UPDATED: 13:25 EST, 11 October 2013

View
comments

He solved one of the biggest mysteries in the universe, but nobody knew the whereabouts of Peter Higgs - the scientist who first predicted the existence of the ‘God particle’ - at the time when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences could not raise him on the phone before making the announcement, and said he had gone ‘into hiding’.

But now the famous physicist has revealed that he found out that he had won the award when a woman stopped to congratulate him in the street.

Professor Higgs said a former neighbour got out of her car in Edinburgh as he was returning from lunch and told him the good news.

Scroll down for video

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences couldn't contact Peter Higgs (pictured) on the phone before making the Nobel announcement and said he had gone ¿into hiding¿. But speaking at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Higgs said a former neighbour got out of her car in Edinburgh to tell him the good news

Speaking at a press conference at the University of Edinburgh, Professor Higgs said: 'She congratulated me on the news and I said "Oh, what news?"

'She told me her daughter phoned from London to alert her to the fact I had got this prize. I heard more about it obviously when I got home and started reading the messages.'

Professor Higgs was recognised by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for his work on the theory of the particle which shares his name, the Higgs boson.

More...

The existence of the so-called 'God particle,' said to give matter its substance or mass, was proved 50 years on by a team from Cern, the European nuclear research facility in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2012.

Colleagues had told journalists that the self-effacing 84-year-old, who has not been well lately, had gone hiking in the Scottish Highlands to avoid the ‘storm’ of interest at the time the prize was announced.

Neighbour broke news to Nobel Prize winner that he won the award

Finally proved: Professor Higgs wiped away a tear as scientists at the Large Hadron Collider first claimed to have discovered the Higgs boson. But the 84-year-old went hiking in the Scottish Highlands to avoid the 'storm' of interest in the Nobel Prize

50 YEARS OF SEARCHING FOR THE HIGGS BOSON

Born in Newcastle in 1929, the son of a BBC sound engineer, Peter Higgs was a gifted pupil at Bristol’s Cotham Grammar where he won many prizes – although none for physics.

He chose to study at King’s College London, after rejecting Oxford and Cambridge as the choice of the ‘idle rich’, and gained a first-class honours degree in 1950.

He was a young lecturer at Edinburgh University in 1964 when he dreamed up the particle that would make him famous.

Along with two other groups of scientists who were working independently, he came up with an explanation of how the most basic building blocks of the universe gain mass.

The theory states that the cosmos is pervaded by an invisible field that confers mass on particles as they pass through it.

Unlike the other scientists of the time, Professor Higgs also forecast the field was made up of countless tiny particles – Higgs bosons, or God particles.

The theory was not universally accepted and one of his papers was rejected for publication because it was ‘of no obvious relevance to physics’.

But by the 1980s, the hunt for the Higgs boson was on in earnest and last year, almost 50 years after Professor Higgs predicted its existence, scientists at the Large Hadron Collider found it.

Giving his reaction to receiving the prize for the first time, at the university where as a young lecturer in 1964, he dreamed up the particle that would make him famous, he said: 'How do I feel? Well, obviously I’m delighted and rather relieved in a sense that it’s all over. It’s been a long time coming.'

An old friend told him he had been nominated as far back as 1980, he explained.

Professor Higgs said he had been having lunch in Leith in the Scottish capital when the announcement was made on Tuesday.

Describing the low-key way he learned of the prize, he told the assembled press he was walking up Heriot Row in the New Town when the former neighbour spoke to him.

But there will be a champagne celebration with family this evening.

'There was a celebration with a group of us last night after a lecture by Frank Close - that was a start,' he said.

'I shall be celebrating with my family with the help of a bottle or two of champagne early this evening.

'It hasn’t been possible to get us all together before that.'

Professor Higgs, who shares this year’s prize with Francois Englert of Belgium, joins the ranks of past Nobel winners including Marie Curie and Albert Einstein.

The 84-year-old is an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh.

The Higgs-Englert award recognises the 'theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles'.

That mechanism predicted the existence of the Higgs boson, which enables particles to acquire mass.

Its discovery is of huge significance to the theory that enables scientists to understand the physical universe, known as the Standard Model of Physics.

Professor Higgs (pictured right), who shares this year's prize with Francois Englert of Belgium (left), joins the ranks of past Nobel winners including Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. The 84-year-old is an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh

Professor Higgs established the concept of the 'God particle' while working as a lecturer in 1964.

He wrote two scientific papers on his theory and was eventually published in the Physical Review Letters journal, sparking a hunt for the elusive particle.

Other researchers, including Professor Englert, were also working separately on the same idea as Professor Higgs and published papers around the same time.

Large Hadron Collider: The magnet core of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet in Cern

A new particle 'consistent' with the Higgs boson was discovered last year by a team at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, near Geneva.

Professor Higgs said he celebrated on the return flight from Cern last year with a bottle of London Pride beer, which he was presented with during today’s press conference.

He said: 'I think I face the immediate future with some foreboding because having experienced the wave of attention which followed the announcement at Cern in July 2012, I anticipated that this last announcement will trigger an order of magnitude of more attention.

'I think I am going to have difficulty in the next few months having any of my life to myself.

'I should remind you that although only two of us have shared this prize, Francois Englert of Brussels and myself, that the work in 1964 involved three groups of people, (including) two in Brussels.

'Unfortunately Robert Brout died a few years ago so is no longer able to be awarded the prize, but he would certainly have been one of the winners if he had still be alive.

'But there were three others who also contributed and it is already difficult to allocate the credit amongst the theorists.

'Although a lot of people seem to think I did all this single-handed, it was actually part of a theoretical programme which had been started in 1960.'

Professor Higgs was made a Companion of Honour in the New Year Honours list and the Higgs Prize has been set up by the Scottish Government to recognise school pupils who excel in physics.

He was joined at today’s event by Edinburgh University principal Professor Sir Timothy O’Shea and Dr Victoria Martin, a reader in the School of Physics and Astronomy who works with Cern and is a former student of Prof Higgs.

MOST WATCHED NEWS VIDEOS

Comments (20)

Share what you think

View all

The comments below have not been moderated.

Report comment

MrWhiffy, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 8 minutes ago

Wonder how they pulled him out of the back hole that he disappeared into? A deserved winner and great for him to be recognised with the "top prize". Well done Pro Higgs! I think he just gets bored with being asked all the same dumb questions like "how did you celebrate?" etc.

Click to rate

Report comment

AmySchanz, new york, United States, 11 minutes ago

my friend's sister-in-law makes $66 every hour on the computer. She has been without work for 10 months but last month her pay was $19846 just working on the computer for a few hours. i loved this... www.Day37.com

Click to rate

Report comment

Tim, Birmingham, United Kingdom, 1 hour ago

I thought Louis Walsh discovered the bozone.

Click to rate

Report comment

Puddleduck, This side of the pond, 1 hour ago

Sorry but as you know by my posts I lean to the Right ....... Yet MALALA (IMHO) Deserved a Peace Prize ! NOT These Science Maybe Merchants !

Click to rate

Report comment

Suzanne, St Tropez, France, 53 minutes ago

Read the article carefully - it's the Nobel Prize for PHYSICS...

Click to rate

Report comment

ken mist, paris, 2 hours ago

A brilliant piece of news! Strangely Higgs had never met Engelert until last year at CERN. Higgs work certainly was published along with the belgian's paper simultaineously and thus they were the first to publish the theoretical justification and predict results of an experiment nearly 40 years later. Great minds think alike