Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, whose theory of an undetected particle in the universe changed science, died aged 94 on April 8, 2024.
He won the Noble Prize in Physics in 2013 for his work on the mass of subatomic particles - commonly known as the god particles.
However, the staunch athiest that he was, Higgs did not like the fact that people called his particle “god.”
Higgs' father, Thomas Ware Higgs, worked as a sound engineer for the BBC.
He suffered from asthma as a kid. It led him to receive most of his early education at home.
Higgs was awarded a PhD degree in 1954 for his thesis entitled 'Some problems in the theory of molecular vibrations from the university' by the University of Ediburgh.
The renowned physicist never owned a mobile phone. In fact, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences could not contact him informing him of his Nobel win immediately.
A shy person by nature, the day Higgs got to know that he won the Nobel Prize, he left his home in urban Edinburgh, Scotland, and moved to a countryside estate, so that no one would disturb him or find him.
In 1964, Higgs’ first paper on the Higgs particle was rejected by an academic physics journal at CERN as being “of no relevance to physics”.
He was a Greenpeace member until the group opposed genetically modified organisms.
Higgs was married to Jody Williamson, an American linguist and nuclear disarmament campaigner, from 1963 to 1972.