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Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of the so-called “God particle.
That helped explain how matter formed after the Big Bang, has died at age 94.
Mr. Higgs predicted the existence of a new particle the so-called Higgs boson in 1964.
But it would be almost 50 years before the particle’s existence could be confirmed at the Large Hadron Collider.
What is God particle?
The God particle, though a popular term, is actually the nickname for a scientific discovery: the Higgs boson.
Function: It's an elementary particle, theorized in the 1960s, that helps explain why other fundamental particles have mass.
Mechanism: The Higgs boson is linked to the Higgs field, an invisible energy field that permeates space.
Particles interact with this field, and those interactions give them mass.
Discovery: Scientists at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) announced the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson in 2012.
This was a major breakthrough in our understanding of the universe.
The nickname “God Particle” originated from a 1993 book by physicist Leon Lederman titled "The God Particle". It was intended to reflect the particle's importance in physics.
But the name is not favored by many scientists as it has religious connotations.
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