
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Profile this week looks at the physicist Peter Higgs who in the 1960s predicted the existence of the so-called "God Particle" which scientists think they glimpsed at CERN this week.
The Higgs boson - which has so excited the scientific community this week - is a subatomic particle which gives mass to all matter and the quest to find it has been described as the holy grail of physics.
Peter Higgs made his prediction in the mid-1960s when he was a relatively young scientist, adding a crucial element to the Standard Model of the universe. At the time the significance of his work was not widely recognised or understood, and one leading scientific journal even turned down one of his early papers setting out his groundbreaking theory.
Higgs, now in his 80s, is very much a theoretical scientist. Colleagues say he has never excelled at practical experiments, and to this day he doesn't get on with computers.
What kind of man is he? Samira Ahmed talks to those who know the scientist, and asks what makes him tick.
Producers:
By BBC Radio 44.1
9797 ratings
Profile this week looks at the physicist Peter Higgs who in the 1960s predicted the existence of the so-called "God Particle" which scientists think they glimpsed at CERN this week.
The Higgs boson - which has so excited the scientific community this week - is a subatomic particle which gives mass to all matter and the quest to find it has been described as the holy grail of physics.
Peter Higgs made his prediction in the mid-1960s when he was a relatively young scientist, adding a crucial element to the Standard Model of the universe. At the time the significance of his work was not widely recognised or understood, and one leading scientific journal even turned down one of his early papers setting out his groundbreaking theory.
Higgs, now in his 80s, is very much a theoretical scientist. Colleagues say he has never excelled at practical experiments, and to this day he doesn't get on with computers.
What kind of man is he? Samira Ahmed talks to those who know the scientist, and asks what makes him tick.
Producers:

7,731 Listeners

367 Listeners

882 Listeners

1,038 Listeners

5,500 Listeners

1,815 Listeners

1,820 Listeners

1,072 Listeners

1,936 Listeners

521 Listeners

47 Listeners

77 Listeners

36 Listeners

61 Listeners

128 Listeners

162 Listeners

44 Listeners

74 Listeners

101 Listeners

4,177 Listeners

3,175 Listeners

756 Listeners

114 Listeners

3,095 Listeners

43 Listeners