By Dr Sajad Ahmad Mir
Peter Ware Higgs, a British theoretical Physicist born on 29th of May, 1929 is well known for explaining the origin of mass of elementary particles which constitute the whole matter in the universe. The fruition comes almost after half a century after Higgs had his joyous moment, realizing as a young lecturer in Edinburg there could be a field of novel particles that confers mass to every another particle in the universe. The idea seems a bit counter-intuitive but comes to be true in its nature at the end and is what Higgs claimed before five decades.
Let me explain this esoteric idea in a lucid way so as to develop clear scientific understanding with regard to Higgs idea among the children of my state, the children our future. For examples, one can determine his weight in the quantity of mass in him plus the force of gravity. But what can determine his mass? That is one of the hot questions asked most in my cold valley. Finally scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research and Fermilab, Illinois found out the zero spin particle what they called Higgs boson. Actually, it is the particle which lends others mass.
An analogy which describes it well is that imagine you are at some marriage party (here night of mehndi). The party with thick crowd and people are evenly distributed around the hall busy in chatting. When the bride arrives, the people nearest the door try to gather around her. As she moves through the ceremony hall, she attracts the people closest to her and the people she moves away return to their discussion. By gathering cluster of invitees around her, she has gained momentum, an indication of mass. She is harder to slow down than she would be without the invitees. Once she is stopped, it is harder to get her going again. This clustering is the basic factor behind Higgs theory. The theory hypothesizes that a sort of three dimensional imaginary mesh known as Higgs field exists throughout the universe. This field is like an electromagnetic field and affects the particles that move through it. It is well known to any scientist when an electron passes through a positively charged crystal lattice (imaginary and regular mesh) of atoms, the electrons mass can increase as much as 40 times. The same applies to Higgs field, a particle passes through it creates disturbance to field (like the crowd around the bride in the hall) which give mass to the particle!
Higgs field is made of packets and each packet with zero spin is known as Higgs boson. It is this boson which lends mass to every materials particle including us in the universe and therefore got its namesake God’s particle. So, literally nothing is possible without existence of God’s particle!
This theoretical concept which Higgs had developed in 1964 got experimental confirmation on 4th July, 2012 earned him and Belgian physicist Froncois Englert Noble prize in physics in 2013 for this work. With the discovery of Higgs boson we may know how universe works in actual. There is the possibility that scientists may be able to produce now new class of particles that may have different practical applications such as catalization of fusion which may solve energy crises once for all.
Astonishingly Higgs, the Physics Noble laureate of 2013 is remarkably low-tech man. He has no mobile, no television, no internet access, in his flat in Edinburgh. Yet the name of this old man but the hero of 21st century will be mentioned in scientific commendation along with other heroes of physics such as Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. Peter Higgs never sent an email, browsed the internet or even made a mobile phone call. He published less than 10 papers after the God’s particle theoretical existence in 1964.He said in his noble lecture that he doubts whether a similar breakthrough could be achieved in today’s academic culture of Britain because of high expectations on academics to collaborate and keep churning out papers.
It is my humble submission to the reader of this article that I did not mean that the children and budding scientists of our state should not use electronic gadgets. But my intensions are clear that the children of our state though scientifically low-tech can do better in the science without modern and more advanced electronic devices. The only thing is they require mental peace and inspiration! “It is difficult to imagine how I would ever have enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964”, Higgs Said.
Dr Sajad Ahmad Mir,Sr. Academic Officer,
Department of Education in Science and Mathematics, can be reached at sajadphysics@gmail.com
