Peter Higgs, Nobel Prize winner in physics and father of the boson, dies at 94

British physicist Peter Higgs, Nobel Prize winner in 2013 for his work on the Higgs boson, died on Monday at the age of 94, the University of Edinburgh announced on Tuesday April 9. “He passed away peacefully at his home on Monday April 8 following a short illness”wrote the university, of which the scientist was an emeritus professor for a long time, in a press release.

Peter Higgs received the Nobel Prize in physics with the Belgian François Englert. They were rewarded for having laid the theoretical foundations, in 1964, which would lead to the discovery of the boson in 2012 at the Swiss CERN laboratory. The Higgs boson is considered by physicists to be the keystone of the fundamental structure of matter, the elementary particle that gives many others their mass. In efforts to popularize this discovery, the boson was nicknamed “God particle” because it is everywhere, while being particularly elusive, because it is extremely unstable.

“Peter Higgs was a remarkable person, a truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination enriched our knowledge of the world around us,” underlined Peter Mathieson, director of the University of Edinburgh. CERN Director General Fabiola Gianotti paid tribute to the memory of“an immensely inspiring figure to physicists around the world, a man of rare modesty, a great teacher and someone who explained physics in a very simple and yet profound way”.