Belgian François Englert and Briton Peter Higgs were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics on 8 October 2013. The Nobel Committee awarded the prize to the pair in recognition of their work on the Higgs boson, also known as the scalar boson.
According to a press release by the Nobel Committee, the two men, aged 80 and 84 respectively, were awarded the prize “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed“.
François Englert becomes the fifth ULB scientist to receive a Nobel Prize, and the fourth in a scientific discipline. This marks the 11th time, since 1904, that a Belgian has been awarded a Nobel Prize.
