François Englert (left) and Peter Higgs (right), winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics. Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fran%C3 %A7ois_Englert_and_Peter_Higgs.jpg
The Nobel Prize. The pinnacle of scientific research, given only to an honored few. Each year, we recognize the few in their field who have served as inspirations for us all to keep moving forward with knowledge, and this year is no exception. For the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics, Peter Higgs and François Englert have been recognized for their work in the Higgs mechanism. Higgs has become a household name by now, lending his name to the Higgs Boson, but who exactly is Englert?
François Englert, born on 6 November 1932, first earned a degree in Electrical Engineering from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in 1955, and then went on to earn his doctorate in Physics in 1959. For a few years, Englert worked as an assistant professor at Cornell University before returning to the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he jointly led the theoretical physics department with his Cornell mentor (4). He is currently acknowledged as a professor emeritus at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and is affiliated with the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in California (2,3).
Englert has an impressive set of accolades, to be sure, but what exactly was his role in the Higgs mechanism? First, it helps to know that the Higgs mechanism is more accurately known as the Englert-Brout-Higgs-Guralnik-Hagen-Kibble mechanism. While long, the title provides some insight into this undertaking, namely that three different groups, nearly concurrently, proposed similar models describing how mass arises. Englert mostly worked under the guidance of Robert Brout, a close friend from Cornell University (1). Their paper, “Broken Symmetry and the Mass of Gauge Vector Mesons,” was published in the same set of papers and in the same year as the other groups’.
What exactly did he win this prize for then? Importantly, he was able to generalize the idea that particles have mass due to their interactions with a field, the so-called Higgs field, that more likely than not is a mass of gobbledegook. Think of a magnet. When we put a second magnet around this first magnet, the second magnet is pushed up against our test magnet. We can duplicate this phenomenon for many different points around the magnet, and measure exactly how much force we feel. We subsequently call this a magnetic field. Now, abstract the process just a little bit: take out the magnet, and consider the field to be in all of space. And instead of measuring the force from the magnet, we measure how much mass something has. Although this explanation is highly simplified, it suffices as a basic description of what the Higgs mechanism is.
One may ask, if there were three groups, why did the third group not win a Nobel Prize0? How come Robert Brout did not win a Nobel Prize? Well, Robert Brout died in May 3, 2011. Since the prize is only awarded to0people who are alive , Brout could not be recognized. However, there is one more obscure rule about the Nobel Prize: they limit their laureates, per prize, to three. To recognize the third group would expand the pool of laureates to five (5).
Regardless, Englert’s work on the Higgs mechanism is definitely worthy of praise. His work has laid the foundations for the Standard Model, pathing the way to understanding how the world works on a quantum level.
References:
1. Andrew Zimmerman Jones, François Englert – Biographical Profile. Available at http:// physics.about.com/od/famousphysicists/p/FrancoisEnglert.htm (13 October 2013).
2. François Englert, Ph.D. | Chapman University (2013). Available at http:// www.chapman.edu/research-and-institutions/quantum-studies/englert.aspx (13 October 2013).
3. François Englert – Facts (2013). Available at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ physics/laureates/2013/englert-facts.html (13 October 2013).
4. François Englert, François Englert (emeritus) (2013). Available at http:// www.ulb.ac.be/sciences/physth/people_FEnglert.html (13 October 2013).
5. Joel Achenbach, Nobel Prizes: The Rule of Three (9 October 2013). Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/achenblog/wp/2013/10/09/nobel-prizes-the-rule- of-three/ (13 October 2013).