PHYSICIST

Peter Higgs

1929 - 2024

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Peter Ware Higgs (29 May 1929 – 8 April 2024) was a British theoretical physicist, professor at the University of Edinburgh, and Nobel laureate in Physics for his work on the mass of subatomic particles. In 1964, Higgs was the single author of one of the three milestone papers published in Physical Review Letters (PRL) that proposed that spontaneous symmetry breaking in electroweak theory could explain the origin of mass of elementary particles in general and of the W and Z bosons in particular. This Higgs mechanism predicted the existence of a new particle, the Higgs boson, the detection of which became one of the great goals of physics. In 2012, CERN announced the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Peter Higgs is the 111th most popular physicist (down from 93rd in 2019), the 304th most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 246th in 2019) and the 24th most popular British Physicist.

Peter Higgs is most famous for his theory of the Higgs Boson, which is a subatomic particle that gives mass to other particles.

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Among PHYSICISTS

Among physicists, Peter Higgs ranks 111 out of 851. Before him are Mikhail Lomonosov, Georges Lemaître, Hannes Alfvén, Dennis Gabor, Clinton Davisson, and Wilhelm Eduard Weber. After him are Ernest Lawrence, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Heinrich Rohrer, Walther Bothe, Peter Grünberg, and Willis Lamb.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1929, Peter Higgs ranks 19. Before him are Imre Kertész, Sergio Leone, Ed Asner, Hassan II of Morocco, Christopher Plummer, and Jacques Brel. After him are Yayoi Kusama, Irene Papas, Michael Ende, Jean Baudrillard, Frank Gehry, and Tigran Petrosian. Among people deceased in 2024, Peter Higgs ranks 14. Before him are Fethullah Gülen, Paul Auster, Mário Zagallo, Ismail Kadare, William Anders, and Alberto Fujimori. After him are Maria Branyas, Daniel Kahneman, Princess Birgitta of Sweden, Anouk Aimée, Arno Allan Penzias, and Ram Narayan.

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In United Kingdom

Among people born in United Kingdom, Peter Higgs ranks 304 out of 8,785. Before him are Norman Haworth (1883), Edward Smith (1850), John Sulston (1942), John Logie Baird (1888), Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy (1936), and John Law (1671). After him are Harold Godwinson (1022), Henry IV of England (1367), Michael York (1942), Thomas Newcomen (1663), Louise, Princess Royal (1867), and Henry Hallett Dale (1875).

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Among PHYSICISTS In United Kingdom

Among physicists born in United Kingdom, Peter Higgs ranks 24. Before him are Charles Glover Barkla (1877), Paul Dirac (1902), James Chadwick (1891), C. F. Powell (1903), William Henry Bragg (1862), and Thomas Young (1773). After him are Roger Penrose (1931), Henry Moseley (1887), John Kendrew (1917), James Jeans (1877), David Brewster (1781), and Andrew Huxley (1917).

British born Physicists

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