The Higgs Boson:
The 48-year Quest for the “God Particle”
By Paul H. Carr, BS. MIT. 1957,
Ph. D. 1966
AF Research Laboratory Emeritus
--Englert and Higgs awarded the Nobel
Prize in October 2013

Discovery of The Higgs boson!
--Theory 1964, likely observation
announced July 4, 2012 and
existence stated to be almost
certain on 14 March 2013
--Englert and Higgs awarded the
Physica Nobel Prize, October 2013

The Higgs Boson
1. Why important?
2. Prediction in 1964
3. Why called “God Particle” ?
4. Discovery 2012

The “God” Particle:
The 48 year quest for the Higgs Boson
Vugraphs courtesy of
Gerald Guranik BS. MIT 1958, Ph. D. Harvard 1964
The Chancellor’s Professor of Theoretical Physics, Brown University
• He and 5 others theorists predicted the boson’s existence in 1964.
• Why was he not awarded the Nobel Prize?

Working at Harvard 1961
Lord May of Oxford, G. S. Guralnik driver, and C.R. Hagen

!
Sakurai Prize Ceremony February 2010
5 of 6 theoretical physicists who predicted the boson in 1964.
L toR, Kibble, Guralnik , and Hagen, with MIT ties, Englert (Nobel), Brout (deceased)
Peter Higgs (Nobel) for whom the boson is named was not present.

what is the Higgs boson?
• the matter around us consists of atoms. Positive nucleus,
negative electrons, electromagnetic attraction.
• there are many types of atoms and we know why
• the periodic table summarizes our understanding

what is the Higgs boson?
•
•
•
•
atomic nuclei are made of protons and neutrons
we know why there are protons and neutrons (and many others...)
they are made of different combinations of quarks
Without the Higgs, theory predicts particles are massless.
u d
u
neutron
proton
u d
d

• Fission of U235 (92 protons, 143 neutrons) powers nuclear reactors
and atomic bombs
• U238 (92 protons, 146 neutrons) has more neutrons and is stable
• Centrifuges are used to separate obtain U235 from U238.

what is the Higgs boson?
In 1964 Dick Hagen, Tom Kibble and I as well as
Higgs (and Englert, Brout) had an idea
We added another particle to the (simplified) theory
We predicted that it would interact with other particles
and the stronger this interaction is the larger the mass
of these particles would be
today this particle is called the Higgs boson

The Higgs boson walks into
church, priest says, “We don’t
allow your type in here.”
Higgs replies “But without
me, how can you have
mass?”

Guralnik’s Rejection
• I gave a talk on this at a conference near Munich (July 1965)
held in honor of Werner Heisenberg – a founder of Quantum
mechanics and certainly one of the greatest physicists of the
20th century.
• He made it clear to me that he thought our theory was Junk!
• I was scared and thought it was the end of my short career.

Redemption
• On Hagen’s recommendation Robert Marshak gave me a postdoctoral job
at the University of Rochester.
• He told me survival required I no longer work on symmetry breaking
• I worked on some ideas of Steven Weinberg’s and explained something
about mass yet again.
• This new work was instrumental in getting me an assistant professorship
at Brown starting academic year 1967 -1968

Redemption
• Meanwhile Weinberg was working on the GHK (our) paper.
• He (and Salam) discovered the unified theory of
electromagnetism and weak interactions and all of this now is
the cornerstone of the “Standard Model of particle physics.
• This led to decades of search to verify the predictions of our
model and even some recognition!

Higgs Field and Higgs Boson Explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdgp84m8jck

how to discover a particle
• we built the world’s largest scientific instrument – the LHC
• it collides protons at very high energy
• a Higgs boson may be created once every 2 billion collisions

how to discover a particle
• we built detectors as big as cathedrals
• when a Higgs boson is created it immediately disintegrates
• about 1 every 500 Higgs bosons decays to two photons
• the detector measures their energies
• we compute the mass of the particle that they came from

..

A Discovery!
• July 4, 2012

July 4, 2012
there is definitely something!

CERN, Geneva, July 4, 2012,
At the announcement of the
experimental confirmation of the Higgs
Boson
“I am very happy” Gerald Guralnik

Guralnik's interview, CERN, 2012-July-03
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5vfTM
HZv5Y

Why is it called the “God” particle?
Nobel Laureate physicist Leon
Lederman wrote the popular sceince
“God Particle” book in 1993 to gain
support for the national expenditure
of the billions of dollars required to
construct a Texas super particle collider
to prove the Higgs Boson’s existence.
“This boson is so central to the state of
physics today, so crucial to our final
understanding of the structure of matter,
yet so elusive, that I have given it a
nickname: the God Particle. Why God
Particle? Two reasons. One, the publisher
wouldn't let us call it the Goddamn
Particle, though that might be a more
appropriate title, given its villainous nature
and the expense it is causing. And two,
there is a connection, of sorts, to another
book, a much older one...”

Why is the Higgs boson called the God Particle?
“Because we cannot see it
And everything depends on it.”
Theologian Elaine Pagels in Newsweek

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nobels-sharp-cuts?mode=magazine&context=187439

Science News
November 2, 2013
On July 4, 2012, Gerald Guralnik was in a packed room at CERNsavoring the discovery of
the Higgs boson, which confirmed a theory he proposed nearly 50 years ago.
No such celebration occurred Oct. 8. Guralnik was home when he learned online that
physicists François Englert and Peter Higgs had won the Nobel Prize in physics for
formulating the same theory. “I’m happy for Englert and Higgs, but it does sting a little bit,”
he says. “Physicists are only human.”
Presumably, Englert and Higgs got the nod because they published their 1964 theories of a
mass-bestowing field first, before Guralnik and two colleagues. (Nobels have a maximum of
three recipients.) Guralnik had come up with the gist of the Higgs field in 1962, during his
doctoral research, but an adviser forced him to take that portion out, saying “I don’t know
what’s the matter with it, but it’s not right.”
Guralnik later revisited that research, but faced yet more skepticism. He sat on the
paper for months, incessantly searching for mistakes, before finally submitting it to Physical
Review Letters. The day he mailed the manuscript, he received an advance mimeographed
copy of Englert’s paper — the one that would garner a Nobel Prize 49 years later.

No Physicist Is an Island
By SEAN CARROLL, Published: NY Times, October 8, 2013
This year’s physics Nobel has just been awarded to François Englert and Peter
Higgs, for what is simply called “the Higgs mechanism.” But while Mr. Englert and
Mr. Higgs undoubtedly deserve acclaim, bestowing an award on them alone
distorts the nature of modern physics research.
…Except that it wasn’t only Mr. Englert and Mr. Higgs. Like many ideas in
physics, the Higgs mechanism came together with contributions from many
different people, including renowned physicists like Philip Anderson, Robert
Brout, Gerald Guralnik, Richard Hagen and Tom Kibble.
Mr. Anderson’s model was the first and least well developed; he also is already a Nobel
Laureate for unrelated work, which may have made his case seem less pressing. Mr.
Brout died in 2011, and the Nobel is never awarded posthumously. Mr. Guralnik, Mr.
Hagen and Mr. Kibble had perhaps the most comprehensive picture of the Higgs
mechanism, but their paper was written a few months after those of Mr. Englert and
Mr. Brout (who were lifelong collaborators) and Mr. Higgs.
Why not give it to them all? Because there is a tradition that the science prizes are
given to individuals, not to collaborations — and to no more than three individuals in any
one year.

Who invented the
telephone?
Alexander Graham Bell got to the patent office first. The
date was February 14, 1876 . He was the fifth entry of
that day.
Elisha Gray was 39th to file on the same day.
Therefore, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Bell
with the first patent for a telephone, US Patent
Number 174,465 rather than honor Gray's caveat.

PRACTICAL QUESTION.
The interaction with the Higgs field gives fundamental
particles their mass. If we could reduce the interaction of
these masses with the earth’s gravitational field, it would
have enormous practical consequences. Many people
pay big money for weight loss schemes.
How might this be possible?
Prof. GERALD GURALNIK’S ANSWER.
If I only had even a clue to the answer to your question I
would share it with you and we both could buy as many
Teslas as our friends and families could use!
CONCLUSION: Physicists need to continue their efforts to
unify the gravitational field with quantum mechanics.

STANDARD MODEL OF THE ELEMETARY PARTICLES
NUCLEAR FISSION BOMB & REACTORS
NUCLEAR FUSION LIGHTS OUR STARS
BIG BANG ORIGIN OF OUR UNIVERSE
QUANTUM THEORY OF ATOMS:
EXPLAINS PERIODIC TABLE OF THE ELEMENTS
QUANTUM THEORY OF SOLIDS:
TRANSISTOR, MASER, LASER
CHEMISTRY
IONIC BOND BETWEEN MOLECULES
LARGE MOLECULES
BIOLOGY OF LIFE

“I find those rare dramatic moments of scientific
discovery in my own experience to be moments
of worship also, where a revelation about some
intricacy of God’s creation is appreciated for the
first time.”
Dr. Francis Collins

The “God” Particle:
The 48 year quest for the Higgs Boson
Why important?
Prediction 1964
Discovery 2012
Why called the “God” Particle ?

To Learn more
• Guralnik’s account of his radical theory
predicting the existence of the Higgs Boson
http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2012/08/g
uralnik
• Paul H. Carr’s web page:
www.MirrorOfNature.org