François Englert, the Belgian particle physicist who helped lay the groundwork for the theory later associated with the Higgs boson, dies at age 93, according to multiple reports. Englert won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013, along with Peter W. Higgs, for work connected to the mechanism that explains how elementary particles acquire mass. The Nobel-recognized theory describes how particles obtain mass through interactions with a field, addressing a long-standing problem in physics: why some particles are heavy while others are massless.
Scientists later identified a Higgs boson consistent with that theoretical framework, sometimes referred to as the “God particle” in popular coverage. Reporting notes that Englert’s earlier contributions were important in establishing the theoretical basis that made later experimental searches and results possible.
Both sources describe Englert as a specialist in particle physics and a central figure in the theoretical developments that culminated in the discovery of the Higgs boson and the broader understanding of mass in the Standard Model of particle physics.
