Peter Higgs, from the UK, and Francois Englert from Belgium, have won the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics for their work on the theory of the Higgs boson.
In the 1960s, they were among several physicists who proposed a mechanism to explain why the most basic building blocks of the Universe have mass.
The Nobel Prize said the pair were awarded the prize for the “theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.”
Commenting on this prestigious award David Willetts Minister for Universities and Science said: “I congratulate Professor Peter Higgs on his Nobel Prize. This is the 23rd Nobel Prize for Physics to come to the UK and continues a long tradition of scientific discovery.
“We should also celebrate the efforts of the thousands of scientists and engineers all over the world who have worked on the Large Hadron Collider and who have participated in the long search for the Higgs Boson.
“Our new Nobel Laureate thoroughly deserves his prize. It’s an incredible endorsement of the quality of UK science.”
