Friday November 14th 2025
The late Professor Peter Higgs receiving his Nobel Prize medal (photo by AB Alexander Mahmoud)
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
A late physicist and professor at Edinburgh University who discovered the ‘god particle’ has donated his Nobel Prize medal to the university.
Known for predicting the existence of a fundamental physical particle which is known as the ‘Higgs Boson’, Professor Peter Higgs was a researcher at the University in 1964 where he first proposed an idea that led to the discovery of the particle.
This idea was validated by experiments almost 50 years later, at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland in 2012.
Following his death in April 2024 at the age of 94, Professor Higgs has left the internationally prestigious medal in his will.
The medal will be preserved at the University’s Centre for Research Collections and displayed at events and exhibitions, including an upcoming Higgs Lecture in 2026.
The discovery was followed by the award of a Nobel Prize in Physics for Professor Higgs in 2013, which he shared with François Englert of Belgium.
Professor Sir Peter Mathieson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor at the University, said:
“This generous gift will ensure that Peter Higgs’ extraordinary contributions to science will continue to inspire generations of students and researchers. We are profoundly honoured to have been entrusted with his Nobel Prize medal, an object of immense historical significance and a lasting emblem of his legacy.”
Born in 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Peter Higgs joined the staff of the University of Edinburgh in 1960, when he took up a lectureship at the Tait Institute of Mathematical Physics and became Personal Chair of Theoretical Physics in 1980. He retired in 1996.
The Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics was established by the University of Edinburgh in 2012 to recognise Professor Higgs’ achievements and create opportunities for students and researchers from around the world to formulate new theoretical concepts.
Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University, Professor Neil Turok, explained:
“The prediction of the Higgs boson was a theoretical breakthrough, fundamental to our understanding of the laws of physics. It is fitting that Peter Higgs’ Nobel Prize medal is now preserved at Edinburgh, forming a lasting part of the University’s scientific heritage.
“Through our Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics, his seminal discovery continues to serve as a springboard for those seeking answers to some of the deepest mysteries of our universe.”
A plaque commemorating Professor Higgs’ legacy can be found at Roxburgh Street in Edinburgh. The installation marks the site where he first devised the theory of the Higgs boson particle.
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