What Is the Higgs Boson and Why Is It Called “The God Particle”?

In 1964, Peter Higgs theorized the existence of the Higgs Boson, an essential force-carrying particle associated with the Higgs field, a quantum field present throughout the universe that provides mass to particles. He proposed that the Higgs boson acts as a wave and helps give mass to other fundamental particles through its interactions and vibrations.

Half a century later, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, discovered the Higgs boson in 2012, validating Higgs’s theory. As a result, Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize a year later.

This discovery revolutionized our understanding of how particles obtain mass, a process vital for the formation of everything in the universe, including planets, stars, and life. The Higgs boson, with a mass of 125 billion electron volts, is approximately 130 times larger than a proton.

It is named after Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, and is popularly known as the “God Particle”, a title coined by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman in a book about the particle. The name “the God Particle” has been a source of controversy among religious communities but captures the essential nature of this force-giving particle.

Peter Higgs, born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1929, was a humble figure who was uncomfortable with the sudden fame brought by the discovery of the Higgs boson. He studied at King’s College in London and taught at the University of Edinburgh, publishing only a few scientific papers.

Despite his atheism, he expressed discomfort with the nickname “God particle” ascribed to the Higgs boson. Nonetheless, the significance of the Higgs boson cannot be overstated, as without it, the universe as we know it would not exist.