Nobel Prize winner Peter Higgs doesn't own a cellphone or
use the internet
No wonder the committee is having a hard time tracking
him down
Higgs (right) was a tad
tough to find following the announcement. (REUTERS/Denis
Balibouse)
he 2013 Nobel Prize for
Physics was awarded this morning to two European scientists in what has been widely
deemed "the least surprising Nobel of the year."
This year's $1.25 million
prize goes to a pair of retired theoretical physicists, 80-year-old
Francois Englert of Belgium and 84-year-old Peter Higgs of England, for their
work concerning the elusive Higgs boson, which was originally dreamed up by the
scientists in 1964.
Last summer's discovery of
the so-called "God particle" has been at the center of a
multi-billion dollar effort at the CERN research center in Switzerland to
understand why objects in the universe harbor mass. The Higgs boson, a
subatomic particle, has long been held as a missing puzzle piece in the
Standard Model of Physics. It is the invisible glue that keeps the atoms
comprising our universe's planets, stars, and human beings clumped together.
Without it, the theory goes, our atoms would be zipping around all over the
place.
The Washington
Post reports that
Englert accepted the award during a teleconference soon after the announcement
was made, "and did not sound particularly surprised as he answered a few
questions about enduring unknowns in physics."
Higgs, on the other hand,
has yet to materialize. Nobel committee officials say they haven't been able to
reach him despite multiple phone calls and emails.
Higgs, as it turns out, is
something of a reclusive genius — the kind that shies away from the spotlight.
In an exceptionally
rare interview with BBC News in February last year, it was revealed
that the physicist may be just as hard to pin down as the particle named after
him.
He lives quietly in
Edinburgh's New Town but can often be spotted in the capital's concert halls
and museums. He's in his eighties now, a grandfather, and retired from his role
as Professor Emeritus at Edinburgh University.
As such it's not
unreasonable if he chooses to spend most of his time out of the public eye. [BBC News]
Here's the really
interesting part, though:
There's only one telephone in
Peter Higgs' flat. No internet. No mobile phone. He's no Luddite, but it's
worth remembering he did his most celebrated work in a different technological
age.
In 1964 he didn't have a
pocket calculator, let alone a desktop computer. He came up with his theory
using nothing grander than a fountain pen. [BBC News]
The most coveted award in
the realm of scientific discovery, more than four decades in the making, and no
one can reach the winner. Last July, when news broke that the Higgs boson was
briefly glimpsed in the subatomic wreckage of CERN's Large Hadron
Collider, Higgs had this
to say to reporters: "It's very nice to be right
sometimes."
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