Portrait of Peter Higgs

Head and shoulders portrait of Peter Higgs at the Honorary Degree Ceremony at the University of Cambridge.

Professor Peter Higgs was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1983. He is a Nobel Prize-winning particle physicist who has made invaluable contributions to our understanding of the Universe on the smallest scales. His work on fundamental particle interactions, especially those distinguished by the appearance of the so-called Higgs boson, has inspired much of high energy physics research over recent decades.

Peter is most widely recognised for his 1964 papers on spontaneous symmetry breaking, which predicted the existence of a new kind of particle capable of giving all other particles mass. Eventually discovered in 2012 by researchers working at CERN, the search for the elusive Higgs boson has made Peter a household name and sparked a new wave of interest in fundamental physics.

A fellow of numerous learned societies, Peter has received many of the world’s most prestigious scientific awards including the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics. In recognition of his contributions to science, he was appointed as Companion of Honour in the 2013 New Year Honours List.