Some thoughts about Peter Higgs

"Peter Higgs profile: the self-deprecating physicist revered by his peers"

Particle physicists speak of admiration for man who outlined what came to be known as the Higgs mechanism

by

Ian Sample

October 2nd, 2013

The Guardian

For scientists of a certain calibre, these early days of October can bring on a bad case of the jitters. The nominations are in. The reports compiled. All that remains is for the Nobel committees to cast their final votes. There are no sure bets on who will win the most prestigious prize in science this year, but there are expectations aplenty. Speak to particle physicists, for example, and one name comes up more than any other. Top of their wishlist of winners – the awards are announced next Tuesday – is the self-deprecating British octagenarian, Peter Higgs.

Higgs, 84, is no household name, but he is closer to being one than any Nobel physics laureate since Richard Feynman, the Manhattan project scientist, who accepted the award reluctantly in 1964. But while Feynman was a showman who adored attention, Higgs is happy when eclipsed by the particle that bears his name, the elusive boson that scientists at Cern's Large Hadron Collider triumphantly discovered last year.

"He's modest and actually almost to a fault," said Alan Walker, a fellow physicist at Edinburgh University, who sat next to Higgs at Cern when scientists revealed they had found the particle.

"You meet many physicists who will tell you how good they are. Peter doesn't do that."

Higgs, now professor emeritus at Edinburgh, made his breakthrough the same year Feynman won the Nobel. It was an era when the tools of the trade were pencil and paper. He outlined what came to be known as the Higgs mechanism, an explanation for how elementary particles, which make up all that is around us, gained their masses in the earliest moments after the big bang. Before 1964, the question of why the simplest particles weighed anything at all was met with an embarrassed but honest shrug.

Higgs plays down his role in developing the idea, but there is no dismissing the importance of the theory itself. "He didn't produce a great deal, but what he did produce is actually quite profound and is one of the keystones of what we now understand as the fundamental building blocks of nature," Walker said.

Higgs was born in Newcastle in 1929. His father, a BBC sound engineer, brought the family south to Birmingham and then onwards to Bristol. There, Higgs enrolled at what is now Cotham School. He got off to a bad start. One of the first things he did was tumble into a crater left by a second world war bomb in the playground and fracture his left arm. But he was a brilliant student. He won prizes in a haul of subjects – although not, as it happens, in physics.

To the teenage Higgs, physics lacked excitement. The best teachers were off at war, and that no doubt contributed to his attitude. It changed through a chance encounter. While standing around at the back of morning assembly Higgs noticed a name that appeared more than once on the school's honours board. Higgs wondered who PAM Dirac was and read up on the former pupil. He learned that Paul Dirac was a founding father of quantum theory, and the closest Britain had to an Einstein. Through Dirac, Higgs came to relish the arcane world of theoretical physics.

Higgs found that he was not cut out for experiments, a fact driven home by a series of sometimes dramatic mishaps, but at university he proved himself a formidable theorist. He was the first to sit a six-hour theory exam at Kings College London, and for the want of a better idea, his tutors posed him a question that had recently been solved in a leading physics journal.

"Peter sailed ahead, took it seriously, thought about it, and in that six-hour time scale had managed to solve it, had written it up and presented it," said Michael Fisher, a friend from Kings.

But getting the right answer was only the start. "In the long run it turned out, when it was actually graded, that Peter had done a better paper than the original they took from the literature."

Higgs's great discovery came at Edinburgh University, where he was considered an outsider for plugging away at ideas that many physicists had abandoned. But his doggedness paid off.

At the time an argument was raging in the field over a way that particles might gain their masses. The theory in question was clearly wrong, but Higgs saw why and how to fix it. He published a short note in September 1964 and swiftly wrote a more expansive follow-up paper.

To his dismay the article was rejected, ironically by an editor at Cern. Indignant at the decision, Higgs added two paragraphs to the paper and published it in a rival US journal instead. In the penultimate sentence was the first mention of what became known as the Higgs boson.

At first, there was plenty of resistance to Higgs's theory. Before giving a talk at Harvard in 1966, a senior physicist, the late Sidney Coleman, told his class some idiot was coming to see them. "And you're going to tear him to shreds." Higgs stuck to his guns. Eventually he won them over.

Ken Peach, an Oxford physics professor who worked with Higgs in Edinburgh, said the determination was classic Peter: "There is an inner toughness, some steely resolve, which is not quite immediately apparent," he said.

It was on display again when Stephen Hawking suggested the Higgs boson would never be found. Higgs hit back, saying that Hawking's celebrity status meant he got away with pronouncements that others would not.

Higgs was at one time deeply involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, but left when the organisation extended its protests to nuclear power. He felt CND had confused controlled and uncontrolled release of nuclear energy. He also joined Greenpeace but quit that organisation, too, when he felt its ideologies had started to trump its science.

"The one thing you get from Peter is that he is his own person," said Walker.

Higgs was not the only scientist to come up with the theory of particle masses in 1964. François Englert and Robert Brout at the Free University in Brussels beat him into print by two weeks, but failed to mention the crucial new particle that scientists would need to prove the theory right. Three others, Gerry Guralnik, , Dick Hagen and Tom Kibble, had worked out the theory too, and published a month later.

Higgs is not comfortable taking all the credit for the work, and goes to great pains to list all the others whose work he built on. But in the community he is revered. When Higgs walked into the Cern auditorium last year to hear scientists tell the world about the discovery, he was welcomed with a standing ovation. He nodded off during the talks, but was awake at the end, when the crowd erupted as the significance of the achievement became clear. At that moment, he was caught on camera reaching for a handkerchief and dabbing his eyes. "He was tearful," said Walker. "He was really deeply moved. I think he was absolutely surprised by the atmosphere of the room."

Higgs did not hang around at Cern to celebrate with the others. He left as soon as he could, to catch an easyJet flight home with Walker. On board, Walker suggested a toast with a glass of prosecco, but Higgs turned the offer down, and opted instead for a can of London Pride. Cern later asked for the can, now deemed a piece of history, but Higgs had dumped it in the rubbish.

John Ellis, a particle theorist at Cern and Kings College London, said many in the high energy physics community think Higgs, and some others, will win the Nobel prize this year. But he says it is no done deal.

"There are certainly worthy recipients in other areas of physics, and I could imagine scientific and political roadblocks to an award to Higgs," he said. Nobel prizes can be shared by at most three people, but at least five lay claim to the theory (Brout died in 2011).

The Cern teams that found the particle deserve credit too, but there are 6,000 of them. And then there are the people who built and run the Large Hadron Collider, the most sophisticated machine in the world.

Anders Bárány, a former secretary of the Nobel physics committee, is not convinced this will be Higgs's year. "Regarding the Higgs particle, it is quite seldom that a discovery is awarded already the year after, even though this what [Nobel's] will states," he said.

There is one safe bet though. Whatever the Nobel committee decides, they will not make everyone happy. "This is physics that has been in gestation for 50 years," said Peach. "If they don't give it to Peter and some others it will be a scandal."

Potted profile

Born 29 May 1929

Career Higgs worked in theoretical physics from the 1950s until he retired in 1996 from Edinburgh University. His major contribution came in 1964 when he showed how simple particles gained mass in the first moments after the big bang. The theory came with a signature particle, the Higgs boson.

High point Moved to tears in the audience at Cern last year when scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider declared they had finally discovered the Higgs boson that proved his theory right – after nearly 50 years.

Low point Higgs separated from his wife Jody some years after the birth of their second child. Higgs blamed his obsession with work. The two remained friends, but Jody died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2008.

What he says On the Higgs field: "It has consequences. If it wasn't there, we wouldn't be here."

What they say Alan Walker: "He was always an individual thinker. He was his own person. He didn't produce a great deal, but what he did produce is actually quite profound and is one of the keystones of what we now understand as the fundamental building blocks of nature."

Peter Higgs portrait displayed

Peter Higgs

by

Ken Currie

The portrait of Peter Higgs is on display at Edinburgh University's School of Informatics.

Peter Higgs and the LHC

Peter Higgs

"Quiet man making a big bang"

PROFILE: PROFESSOR PETER HIGGS

September 14th, 2008

NEWS.scotsman.com

IT MUST be a daunting experience to have a particle that's the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe named after you, particularly if you are a self-deprecating academic who shies away from the limelight. Even more intimidating must be the knowledge that a Nobel Prize hangs on the efforts of 10,000 scientists from 100 countries to prove the particle's existence, for once and for all. But it's a fate Professor Peter Higgs – the man who thought up the existence of the famous Higgs bosun particle, also known as the God particle, on a walk down Edinburgh's Roxburgh Street in 1964 is finally getting used to.

As the frenzy surrounding the switch-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) 300ft underground on the French/Swiss border climaxed last week, Higgs was making the headlines in a manner more typical of self-publicist and the professor's nemesis Stephen Hawking. With the end of the world forecast by some, the 79-year-old professor was whisked away from the quiet life he spends reading, walking and playing with his grandchildren, to speak to scores of journalists anxious to know if the Earth was about to be sucked into a big, black hole, and how he plans to celebrate if the world's biggest ever experiment proves him right (he says he has a bottle of champagne on ice).

Higgs and Hawking have had a combustible relationship ever since Hawking first poo-pooed his work on particles. And as scientists set out to replicate conditions minutes after the Big Bang, their row erupted into public again. When Hawking said that it would be "more interesting" if the particle was not found, Higgs hit back, saying the world's most famous physicist's work on the subject wasn't "good enough".

It was a rare display of irascibility from a man who, on coming up with his theory, wrote a note to one of his PhD students which read: "This summer I have found something that is totally useless", and who has bent over backwards to appease two scientists who came with the same theory at roughly the same time and are sore that he got all the credit. Robert Brout and Francois Englert had long resented the fact their contribution had been overshadowed. But a few years ago, Higgs sought them out and made peace with them. "They had reason to be aggrieved," he said. Higgs, an atheist, who has two sons, is also embarrassed by the God particle tag, even though it only came about because the publishers of scientist Leon Lederman's book on the theory wouldn't allow him to call it "the goddamn particle" – a name inspired by its elusiveness.

Born in Newcastle in 1929, Higgs' childhood was a trifle unstable. A combination of poor health – asthma followed by pneumonia – and frequent moves caused by his father's job as a BBC sound engineer meant he was taught at home. Then, when he moved with his mother to Bristol and attended Cotham Grammar School, his education was disrupted by the war. Nevertheless, Higgs proved a gifted pupil. Inspired by the work of one of the school's alumni, father of quantum mechanics Paul Dirac, he decided to study theoretical physics, eschewing Oxford and Cambridge for King's College, London, where it became clear he was hopeless at experiments. "There were accidents," he has said mysteriously.

Higgs had long had an affection for Edinburgh – having hitch-hiked to the Festival – and jumped at the chance to become a lecturer at the city's university in 1960. There, he began to be intrigued by the question of what gives matter its weight. It may be 44 years ago, but Higgs can clearly recollect the moment it all started to make sense. It was Thursday, July 16 and he was sitting in the departmental library at the University of Edinburgh, reading an article with which he disagreed. An idea began to crystallise and by the following Monday as he walked to his university office, he had perfected his theory in his own mind.

Here comes the science bit. Concentrate. Higgs believed the idea that particles were massless when the universe began, acquiring their mass a fraction of a second later, as a result of interacting with an all-pervading field, called the Higgs field, which is carried by the Higgs particle.

Some scientists believe its discovery could bring to light entirely new types of strong interactions, while others claim it could reveal a new fundamental physical symmetry called "supersymmetry".

Not that Higgs' theory was an immediate hit in scientific circles. Indeed his lack of pomposity may stem from the length of time it took for anyone to recognise the importance of what he was saying. The first article he presented was rejected by the editor of the European Journal of Physical Letters, based, somewhat ironically, at the Central European Research Network (CERN), which is in charge of the LHC experiment. A revised article, still less than two sides of A4 paper, was accepted by an American journal, the Physical Review Letters the following month. Later, the Higgs particle would become part of the Standard Model – the framework of theoretical physics that describes how fundamental particles interact. And in 1966, Higgs was invited to speak at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey – where Einstein and Oppenheimer once worked – one of the highest accolades a scientist can receive.

As the prizes stacked up, Higgs became more engrossed in his work, his marriage to Jodie, an American, began to suffer and they split up in 1972. But then his divorce began to take its toll on his work. "After the break-up of my marriage, I think I just lost touch with the things I should have been learning about just to follow up my own work. I couldn't keep up," he has said. In 1980, Edinburgh University awarded Higgs a professorship and he devoted more of his energy to teaching and administration.

Throughout this time, his passion for politics continued unabated and he held strong views on those issues where science and ethics collide. A member of CND in the 1960s, he left when the group extended its remit from campaigning against nuclear weapons to campaigning against nuclear power. And he supported Greenpeace until the group opposed genetically modified organisms.

Higgs finally retired from the university in 1996. The LHC experiment, however, has thrust him, somewhat reluctantly back into the thick of things. Last week, as 70,000 members of the public went to look at the 17-mile long machine, Higgs too went underground to see the two huge detectors that will search for his particle.

If the scientists find it, it will be the crowning moment in Higgs' illustrious career and the bubbly will be popped. And if they don't, the master of the understatement admits he'll be "rather sad". "If it isn't found, then I no longer understand what I think I understand," he said.

Peter Higgs vs Stephen Hawking


LHC--no problem so far

Peter Higgs vs Stephen Hawking

Never expected this...

"Peter Higgs launches attack against Nobel rival Stephen Hawking"

by

Mike Wade

September 11th, 2008

timesonline

A row between two of the world's most famous scientists yesterday threatened to overshadow the celebrations as the world's greatest scientific experiment got under way.

Professor Peter Higgs, the scientist who gave his name to the Higgs boson, the particle at the centre of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment, launched a withering attack on Professor Stephen Hawking, saying his work was "not good enough".

Professor Higgs dismissed the views on the £2.6 billion project of the man generally considered to be the greatest physicist of his time, and said that no other particle physicist would view his approach as "correct".

Both men are contenders for the Nobel prize — depending on the outcome of the experiment — and their spat is likely to send shockwaves through the scientific Establishment.

Professor Higgs, who faced a press conference in Edinburgh yesterday, was reacting to an interview in which Professor Hawking jokingly suggested that it would be "more exciting" if the experiment at CERN on the Franco-Swiss border did not find the "God particle" it has been set up to identify.

"That will show something is wrong," he said, "and we will need to think again."

Professor Hawking once placed a $100 bet that the particle does not exist and continues to argue that there are more interesting outcomes to be drawn from the LHC than the discovery of the Higgs boson.

Professor Higgs, who first postulated the existence of the particle 44 years ago, reacted with visible irritation. "I have to confess I haven't read the paper in which Stephen Hawking makes this claim," he said. "But I have read one he wrote, which I think is the basis for the kind of calculation he does. And frankly I don't think the way he does it is good enough."

"My understanding is he puts together theories in particle physics with gravity . . . in a way which no theoretical particle physicist would believe is the correct theory."

"From a particle physics, quantum theory point of view, you have to put a lot more than just gravity into the theory to have a consistent theory and I don't think Stephen has done that. I am very doubtful about his calculations." Other members of the panel moved swiftly to cut off the discussion, suggesting that he had taken Professor Hawking's views out of context.

But it was clear that Professor Higgs did not rate his rival's view that the LHC would be more likely to reveal a number of "partner" particles than the boson. Earlier Professor Higgs had recalled the day when he first conceived the idea that would evolve, 44 years later, into the most expensive experiment in the history of science.

It was Thursday, July 16, 1964, and he was sitting in the departmental library at the University of Edinburgh, reading an article with which he profoundly disagreed.

It contained a theory that challenged his own work head-on. An idea "began to evolve," and by the following Monday morning, as he walked to his university office, he had perfected in his own mind the theory of how particles acquire mass.

In the course of the next fortnight, he would write the two papers that have become the foundation of modern particle physics.

"I solved that theoretical problem to show how it could be done, and could see what the consequence was," he said. "I discovered how to turn something which was like a massless particle into a massive particle. That was slightly surprising, but it was important," said Professor Higgs.

In the days that followed Professor Higgs wrote a short mathematical proof of his theory, describing what would become known as the Higgs boson particle. Then, after an abortive camping holiday, he returned to Edinburgh to dash off his second article, "which became known as the theory".

In the summer of 1964, his paper was rejected by the editor of the European Journal of Physics Letters, who, ironically, was based at CERN.

Professor Higgs was annoyed: "I hadn't said enough to convince anybody that this was really important physics. So I added on some extra paragraphs." The revised article – still less than two sides of A4 paper — was accepted by an American journal, the Physical Review Letters at the end of August.

Higgs boson would become part of the Standard Model, the framework of theoretical physics that for nearly four decades has described how fundamental particles interact.

Since he retired nearly 20 years ago, Professor Higgs, 79, has gradually detached himself from his academic world, preferring to read novels and play with his two grandchildren. He has, however, stayed in touch closely enough to pour scorn on the views of Professor Hawking and on scientists who predicted that the LHC might bring the end of the world.

"Some of the people who have tried to get injunctions to stop the LHC should really know better," he said. Although it could still take up to three years for the LHC to prove him right, Prof Higgs has a bottle of champagne ready. "I will be very surprised and disappointed if it turns out not to be so. But I’m pretty confident," he said.

"Boffinry bitchslap brouhaha: Higgs and Hawking head to head"

by

Lewis Page

September 11th, 2008

The Register

Famous retired physics prof Peter Higgs - of boson renown - has stingingly counter-poohpoohed the theories of his equally well known Nobel Prize rival, Stephen Hawking, who has already poohpoohed Higgs' particle concept. The clash of intellects is expected to be settled by particle-punishment results at the Large Hadron Collider.

Speaking of Hawking's methods at a press conference yesterday, Higgs was sternly critical.

"I don’t think the way he does it is good enough," he snapped, quoted in today's Times.

"He puts together theories in particle physics with gravity ... in a way which no theoretical particle physicist would believe..."

"From a particle physics, quantum theory point of view, you have to put a lot more than just gravity into the theory to have a consistent theory and I don’t think Stephen has done that. I am very doubtful about his calculations."

Hawking is well known to have bet $100 that Higgs' boson brainchild, the so-called "god particle", doesn't exist.

It's thought among boffins that if the elusive deiton - postulated by Higgs back in 1964, but never yet detected - is real, it ought to appear in coming years among the variegated debris to be produced at the LHC by smashing up protons with extreme violence. If it does, Higgs will be in line for a Nobel Prize.

Hawking, however, reckons that instead a number of "partner" particles will appear. These would potentially torpedo the Standard Model on which modern physics is based, and snatch away Higgs' long-awaited Nobel laurels to rest instead atop Hawking's eminent brainbox.

It would seem that the duelling boffinry heavyweights will have to settle the matter in the only honourable way open to men of their sort: with enormous hyper-powered magnetic proton cannons at fifty paces. Higgs for one seemed confident about the result, telling... the Times that he has champagne waiting on ice to celebrate victory.