ROME – The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded 107 times to 196 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2013. This year the prize was awarded jointly to François Englert (Belgium) and Peter W. Higgs (Britain) “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”.
This Nobel was awarded for findings that included significant Italian contributions. Italian physicists Guido Tonelli and Fabiola Gianotti were among the researchers whose work deeply contributed to the development of independent theories elaborated by the winners almost 50 years ago.
It was in the 1960s when the two physicists Englert and Higgs developed a theory that explained how subatomic particles develop mass. But it was only through more recent research and scientific proofs that their theory was demonstrated. The mechanism theorized is based on a particular particle, the Higgs boson, which was empirically confirmed in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, funded by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern).
The awarded theory is a central part of the Standard Model of particle physics that describes how the world is constructed. According to the Standard Model, everything, from flowers and people to stars and planets, consists of just a few building blocks: matter particles. These particles are governed by forces mediated by force particles that make sure everything works as it should.
The entire Standard Model also rests on the existence of a special kind of particle: the Higgs particle. This particle originates from an invisible field that fills up all space. Even when the universe seems empty this field is there. Without it, we would not exist, because it is from contact with the field that particles acquire mass. The theory proposed by Englert and Higgs describes this process.
On 4 July 2012, at the Cern laboratory for particle physics, the theory was confirmed by the discovery of a Higgs particle. Cern’s particle collider, Lhc (Large Hadron Collider), is the largest and the most complex machine ever constructed by humans.
Two research groups of some 3,000 scientists each, Atlas and Cms, managed to extract the Higgs particle from billions of particle collisions in the Lhc.
“We are happy. I think that the boys of ’64 deserve it” said Guido Tonelli. “I’m very excited that the Nobel Prize has been given to particle physics” replied Fabiola Gianotti. But she added that the findings were due to Italian contributions and this is also something to be celebrated: “It’s a beautiful moment”.
The two Italian researchers are high profile figures in the physics community. One year ago, they were among the winners of a $3 million dollar prize for their roles in the discovery of the particle believed to be the Higgs boson.
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