Englert, François (1932–…), an American-born Belgian physicist, shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in physics with the British physicist Peter Higgs . The pair received the award for their theoretical discovery of what became known as the Higgs mechanism. The Higgs mechanism involves a universal field that gives matter its mass . Mass is a property related to weight. It is responsible for matter’s inertia (resistance to changes in motion). The two physicists worked independent of each other. Their theory was experimentally proven in 2012 with the discovery of the Higgs boson , the particle responsible for the Higgs field.
Scientists have long known that the most basic particles of matter have mass. But they could not necessarily explain how this mass came about. In 1964, Englert, working with the American-born Belgian physicist Robert Brout, released a paper suggesting how matter could be given mass. The paper concluded that it would be possible for mass to come from a field spread throughout the universe . This field would be different than any other known field. Unlike a magnetic field or a gravitational field, for example, the Higgs field would not weaken with distance because the field would not be generated from one spot. Instead, it would exist everywhere in the universe at the same time. Scientists later hailed the paper as a milestone in particle physics.
Physicists describe the universe using the Standard Model . The model describes all the basic particles and how those particles interact. By 2012, all the particles predicted by the theory had been experimentally discovered, except for the Higgs boson. In July 2012, scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva, Switzerland, announced the discovery of the Higgs boson, completing the discovery of the particles of the Standard Model.
François Englert was born Nov. 6, 1932, in Etterbeek, Belgium. He attended the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he studied engineering and later received a doctor’s degree in physics. He then worked briefly at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he joined Brout as a research assistant. Englert returned to Belgium to teach at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In 1984, Englert joined the faculty of Tel Aviv University in Israel. He also is a founding member of the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in Orange, California.
