Higgs turning up everywhere, this time in paint
March 4, 2009 | 10:21 am
The portrait of Peter Higgs is on display at the University of Edinburgh's School of Informatics. Photograph: Ken Currie
It seems that Peter Higgs, despite his known aversion to publicity is turning up everywhere. Of course the potential discovery of the particle in the next few years by either/both of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and the Tevatron at Fermilab is bringing a lot more attention to him, and a little to the other theorists, such as Guralnik, Hagen, Kibble, Brout, and Englert, who also developed the ideas behind a mass-giving spontaneously symmetry broken quantum field and its manifestation as a particle, now known as the Higgs boson. (Yep, that sounds scary because it gets technical.)
But Higgs the man seems to turn up in all kinds of places and lots of people have stories about where and how they met the man. I ran into him in at a function in a museum in the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow over a decade ago, while Lauren, one of the symmetry interns, used to make him his sandwich in a cafe most days when she spent time in Glasgow. (Tell us your story of meeting Higgs in the comments below.)
Now the man has appeared in a different way in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, but in the form of a painting by one of Scotland’s best-known artists, Ken Currie. The painting has Currie’s distinguishing ethereal style Currie but, from what I can tell of low-res photographs, it seems a lot cheerier than most of his work. I think it’s a great piece with a lot of information packed into the painting for those who know a little about the Higgs particle. I’m keen to hear what you think of it so let me know in the comments.
David Harris
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4 Comments »
March 4th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Shhh. You will ruin the Nobel math of three for Peter.
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:04 am
The American Physical Society (APS) awarded the 2010 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics to Drs. C. Richard Hagen, University of Rochester; G.S. Guralnik, Brown University; T.W.B. Kibble, Imperial College London; R. Brout, Université Libre de Bruxelles; F. Englert, Université Libre de Bruxelles; and P.W. Higgs, University of Edinburgh, Emeritus. The J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, sponsored by the family and friends of J. J. Sakurai. was established to recognize and encourage outstanding achievement in particle theory. The 2010 prize was awarded “For elucidation of the properties of spontaneous symmetry breaking in four-dimensional relativistic gauge theory and of the mechanism for the consistent generation of vector boson masses.” The J. J. Sakurai Prize will be presented at the APS 2010 meeting in Washington, DC at a special Ceremonial session in February 2010.
The mechanism is the key element of the electroweak theory that forms part of the standard model of particle physics, and of many models, such as the Grand Unified Theory, that go beyond it. The papers that introduce this mechanism were published in Physical Review Letters in 1964 and were each recognized as milestone papers by PRL’s 50th anniversary celebration.
Presently, Fermilab’s Tevatron and the Large Hadron Collider at CERN are searching for a particle that will constitute evidence for this significant discovery. This particle is oftern referred to as the “God Particle”.
April 29th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
This is a brilliant portrait, I love it. I recently mocked up a (very basic) 3D model of the Informatics building where it hangs, and I *had* to include it in the model, it’s that cool
You can just make it out in the background here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IW-1D2a_uY
April 29th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Very cool, Geoff! Nice animation and having the painting there really adds a nice touch.