GENEVA — Peter Higgs was no good in the lab, but he never doubted that one day his theory of a powerful subatomic particle that bears his name would be proven right in practice. His surprise was that he lived to see that day.
Speaking at Geneva's CERN research center on Wednesday after experimental physicists announced the discovery of a new particle, a boson much as Higgs imagined half a century ago, he confessed to Reuters he felt "rather dazed but very pleased."
As a schoolboy in Bristol in the southwest of England, the now 83-year-old Higgs admitted to being "incompetent" at science in the laboratory. He went on, however, to specialize in the theoretical realm, applying mathematics to exploring the outer reaches of our understanding of the universe that makes us.
One paper he dispatched from Edinburgh University in 1964, as he was formulating a theory of an elusive particle to explain how an ordered universe emerged from Big Bang, was rejected by an academic physics journal edited at CERN.
But he gave no sign of bearing a grudge when he spent the day at the institution watching its experimental experts vindicate him.
"For me personally it is just the confirmation of something I did 48 years ago, and it is very satisfying to be proved right in some way," Higgs said in the interview. "I haven't been dreaming about it for 48 years because I had other things to do with my life. At the beginning, I had no expectation that I would still be alive when it happened."
That experimental proof had been delivered in his own lifetime was, he said, "incredible," and he suggested the moment would have greatly surprised his early science teachers: "I certainly did some lab work as a schoolboy in Bristol. I was incompetent," he said, a boyish grin flitting across his round face.
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