More than 50 years ago Peter Higgs and five other theoretical physicists proposed that an invisible field lying across the Universe gives particles their mass, allowing them to clump together to form stars and planets.
The Higgs field has been described as a kind of cosmic "treacle" spread through the universe.
According to Prof Higgs's 1964 theory, the field interacts with the tiny particles that make up atoms, and weighs them down so that they do not simply whizz around space at the speed of light.
But in the half-century following the theory, produced independently by the six scientists within a few months of each other, nobody has been able to prove that the Higgs Field really exists.
The name "Higgs Boson" name comes from 2 scientists. Peter Higgs (British) and Satendra Nath Bose from India (Calcutta)
Higgs seems to be taking away all the credit while we are forgetting Bose completely
Bosons (which are particles with integerspin, named after Bose), which was demonstrated to exist by experiment in 1995. Read more on Bose-Einstein condensate
The God particle was first discovered by Satendra Nath Bose. Einstein often systematically adopted Bose’s approach that is known as ‘Bose-Einstein Statistics’. Bose's Quantum Statistics has enabled many scientists to solve several problems scientifically and by cogent reasoning. Bose sent one paper to Einstein in 1926.The distinguished scientist was at a loss to understand how the solution offered by Bose could be used in Physics. Although Einstein published the article, he expressed his doubts. So Bose met him, discussed and they jointly worked on it.
The work done by Bose and Albert Einstein laid the foundation for the discovery of the God particle.
The recent discovery in CERN is more akin to Bose’s theory than Higgs’. Higgs developed on the work of Bose. But the irony is, the whole world while referring to this particle often just say 'Higgs particle' to shorten it, which is not uncommon when one has to use the term several times while researching. But in the process 'Boson' gets lost. While writing in a widely read reputed paper like New York Times, I would like to take this opportunity to appeal that the credit should also be given to the person who has worked for a cause throughout his life, but the recognition always eluded him. As the father of the invention of the existence of God particle it should be named as 'Boson- Higgs' . Alphabetically also B comes before H. Will America and the western world consider it?
While paying tribute to Bose’s work, Paolo Giubellino, a CERN spokesperson, had said back in October last year, that “India is like a historic father of the project”.
Unfortunately due to poverty in those days Bose could not receive a formal degree or a doctorate, (studied on his own) therefore Nobel Prize committee did not think it was appropriate to award such an important Prize to a man who did not even have a proper doctorate, thinking that might under value "Nobel Prize" also as it was generally awarded to scientists of the west.
Fact is that Bose was real grand father of this theory. I wont take away the credit from him for what he contributed. If there was no Bose, there would have been no Higgs Boson Theory!
Khalid Masood, China
