View source for Biography:Peter Higgs

{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Peter Higgs
| image             = Peter_Higgs.jpg
| caption           = Peter Higgs in 2013
| birth_date        = 29 May 1929
| birth_place       = Newcastle upon Tyne, England
| death_date        = 8 April 2024
| death_place       = Edinburgh, Scotland
| fields            = Theoretical physics
| workplaces        = University of Edinburgh
| alma_mater        = King's College London
| known_for         = Higgs mechanism; Higgs boson
| awards            = Nobel Prize in Physics (2013)
}}

'''Peter Higgs''' (29 May 1929 - 8 April 2024) was a British theoretical physicist best known for work leading to the Higgs mechanism and the prediction of the Higgs boson. The mechanism explains how gauge bosons can acquire mass while preserving the structure of gauge theory, a central ingredient of the [[Physics:Quantum Standard Model|Standard Model]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2013/higgs/biographical/ |title=Peter Higgs - Biographical |publisher=Nobel Prize Outreach |access-date=20 May 2026}}</ref>

In 2012, experiments at CERN announced the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson. Higgs shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics with Francois Englert for the theoretical discovery of the mechanism that contributes to the origin of mass of subatomic particles.

== Quantum field theory ==
The Higgs mechanism belongs to [[Physics:Quantum Field Theory Gauge symmetry|gauge symmetry]] and spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum field theory. It allows the electroweak theory to remain mathematically consistent while describing massive W and Z bosons and a massless photon.

The Higgs field is a scalar field whose nonzero vacuum value changes the behavior of particles moving through the vacuum. This connects Higgs physics with [[Physics:Quantum scalar field|scalar fields]], [[Physics:Quantum vacuum field|vacuum fields]], and electroweak unification.

== See also ==
* [[Physics:Quantum Standard Model]]
* [[Physics:Quantum Electroweak theory]]
* [[Physics:Quantum scalar field]]
* [[Physics:Quantum Field Theory Gauge symmetry]]

== References ==
{{reflist|3}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Higgs, Peter}}
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physics]]
[[Category:Quantum physicists]]
[[Category:Theoretical physicists]]

{{Sourceattribution|Biography:Peter Higgs|1}}