Peter Higgs
Peter Higgs
Peter Ware Higgs CH FRS FRSEis a British theoretical physicist, emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh, and Nobel Prize laureate for his work on the mass of subatomic particles...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth29 May 1929
cynical government honours power rather system
I'm rather cynical about the way the honours system is used, frankly. A whole lot of the honours system is used for political purposes by the government in power.
brought fan favourite largely route seems
I'm a fan of supersymmetry, largely because it seems to be the only route by which gravity can be brought into the scheme. It's probably not even enough, but it's a way forward to get gravity involved. If you have supersymmetry, then there are more of these particles. That would be my favourite outcome.
bad bang came centre college edinburgh effect enjoyed gone life liked mistake outer perhaps realised social students university vast
I liked Edinburgh as a university in a way that I'd never enjoyed King's College London. I realised after I came to Edinburgh that perhaps it was a mistake to have gone to a college which was bang in the centre of a vast city. It had a bad effect on the social life of the students because a lot of them were commuting from outer London.
announced carefully gratifying maybe nobel october prize quite
The Nobel Prize has been a disturbance at the beginning of October for some years. It would be gratifying to win, but it would be quite an ordeal, too, with all the events which go on for two days. I'd think carefully about what I was doing the day it is announced and maybe not be around, or be around, but elsewhere.
withdraw
If the U.K. were threatening to withdraw from Europe, I would certainly want Scotland to be out of that.
scotland europe want
If the U.K. were threatening to withdraw from Europe, I would certainly want Scotland to be out of that.
growing-up different mythology
There is a sort of mythology that grows up about what happened, which is different from what really did happen.
mean way kind
Fundamentalism is another problem. I mean, Dawkins in a way is almost a fundamentalist himself, of another kind.
thinking glasses light
The way that the background fields generates mass is rather like the way in which when light passes through a transparent medium like glass or water, it gets slowed down. It no longer travels with the fundamental velocity of light c. And that's the way to think of the generation of mass.
statements
I would send back a statement: ‘None.’
jobs thinking editors
That name was a kind of joke, and not a very good one. An author, Leon Lederman, wanted to call it 'that goddamn particle' because it was clear it was going to be a tough job finding it experimentally. His editor wouldn't have that, and he said 'okay, call it the God particle', and the editor accepted it. I don't think he should've have done, because it's so misleading.
looks fields vacuums
When you look at a vacuum in a quantum theory of fields, it isn't exactly nothing.
exercise assessment giving
I was an embarrassment to the department when they did research assessment exercises. A message would go round the department: 'Please give a list of your recent publications.' And I would send back a statement: 'None.'
summer useless
This summer I have discovered something totally useless.