The Royal Society has given the world's oldest award for scientific research, known as the Copley Medal, to Professor Peter Higgs, CH FRS, for his Higgs Boson theory. Now, he joins the ranks of the most famous and internationally-acclaimed scientific experts such as Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein and Humphry Davy because of his contribution to particle physics.
According to the concepts of modern physics, matter is composed of a group of particles and that between them are forces that are manipulated by another set of particles. The principal property that most of these elementary particles exhibit is the possession of a mass.
In 1964, Higgs, now 86, came up with a theory that could explain the origin of mass in the particles. He was then at Edinburgh University when he invented the boson theory, which theorizes that the mass of the particles came from its interaction with a field that is diffused in the entire universe. The search for the seemingly elusive "boson" particle that is necessary to transfer the effect of that widespread field took 40 years. In 2012, the pinnacle of Higgs' success was finally reached when the scientific experts at the Large Hadron Collider at the Cern laboratory near Geneva discovered the said particle, which is now named after him.
Two other scientists by the name of François Englert and Robert Brout also came up with the same theory at almost the time but separately. Both Higgs and Englert were jointly given the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013.
"It is an honour to be the recipient this year of the Copley Medal, the Royal Society's premier award," says Higgs upon receipt of his Copley Medal.
"Peter Higgs is a most deserving winner of the Copley Medal," said Sir Paul Nurse, the president of the Royal Society. Higgs' work, alongside Englert has molded the current understanding of experts regarding the world, he adds. The quest to find the "boson" particle has encouraged the public to enhance their imagination and through this, aspiring scientists are hopefully inspired as well. "The Copley Medal is the highest honour the Royal Society can give a scientist and Peter Higgs joins the ranks of the world's greatest ever scientists," Nurse continued.
The Copley medal was first given out by the Royal Society in 1731, making it 170 years pioneer to the first Nobel Prize award. The famed medal is awarded to individuals, who have shown outstanding work in the field of scientific research. Among the recipients of the Copley Medal include Alec Jeffreys, who started the fingerprint technology, Andre Geim, who discovered graphene and Stephen Hawking for his outstanding contributions to the fields of cosmology and physics.
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