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Peter Higgs, physicist who theorised Higgs boson, dies aged 94
Peter Higgs, a giant of British science who came up with the idea of the Higgs boson particle, has died aged 94.
He was awarded the Nobel prize for Physics in 2013 for his revolutionary work showing how the boson helps bind the Universe together.
A statement from Edinburgh university said he died in the city on Monday.
It called him a "truly gifted scientist whose vision and imagination have enriched our knowledge of the world that surrounds us".
Prof Brian Cox paid tribute to Higgs on X (formerly known as Twitter): "I was fortunate enough to meet him several times, and beyond being a famous physicist - I think to his embarrassment at times - he was always charming and modest.
"His name will be remembered as long as we do physics in the form of the Higgs Boson."
In the 1960s Higgs and other physicists worked on an idea to explain why the building blocks of the Universe have mass.
It sparked a search for the Holy Grail of physics - a particle that could explain three fundamental forces (electromagnetism and the weak and the strong nuclear forces) in one theory.
In 2012 scientists using the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland finally discovered it - they named it the Higgs boson.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68774195