Belgian Nobel Laureate Francois Englert Passes Away at 93

A famous Belgian physicist named Francois Englert has died in Uccle at ninety-three. The scientist, who spent more than seven decades researching theoretical physics, passed away on a Thursday. His physics research helped describe how fundamental particles interact to acquire mass, which led to a Nobel Prize.

Englert began his career in civil engineering but later decided to study physics, completing a doctorate. He then joined Cornell University in the United States, where he met his future research associate, Robert Brout. Brout later followed Englert to Belgium to co-head the theoretical physics department at their university. Together, they developed the theoretical foundation that predicted a massive field throughout our universe.

In 1964, Brout and Englert published their ideas, while British physicist Peter Higgs independently proposed the same mechanism. This mechanism suggests that particles get their mass by interacting with a fundamental field throughout space. If this field exists, it must have a matching particle, which scientists call the Higgs boson.

In 2012, researchers at CERN in Switzerland proved this theory using the ATLAS and CMS experiments. They successfully discovered the boson, which brought great joy to the global physics community. Consequently, Englert and Peter Higgs jointly won the Nobel Prize in 2013, though Robert Brout died earlier.

Englert, who was born to Jewish shopkeepers in Brussels, survived the German occupation during World War II. His family had to live in hiding, which shaped his nonconformist views and made him a nonbeliever. He later explained that his work always focused on finding a rational explanation for our complex universe.