François Englert, Nobel-winning pioneer of particle physics, dies at 93

Belgian scientist Francois Englert, a particle physics specialist who won the Nobel Prize in 2013 for his work on the Higgs boson, has died at the age of 93.

The Higgs boson is considered by physicists to be the keystone of the fundamental structure of matter, the elementary particle that gives mass to many others, in line with the theory known as the Standard Model.

In 2013, Englert, who died in Uccle in Belgium on Thursday, was awarded the Nobel Prize jointly with Briton Peter Higgs, who died in 2024.

The pair laid the theoretical foundations, as early as 1964, that would lead to the discovery of the boson in 2012 at CERN, the Swiss laboratory.

"It is with great sadness that we announce that Belgian theoretical physicist, Francois Englert, has passed away at the age of 93," CERN said on Facebook.

"With his associate, Robert Brout, he demonstrated that fundamental particles could acquire mass by interacting with a fundamental field that exists throughout the Universe," it said.

François Englert during a visit to CERN in 2014. Photo by CERN

"At the same time, British physicist Peter Higgs had independently hypothesized the existence of the same mechanism. The existence of the Brout-Englert-Higgs field was proved in 2012 with the discovery of its associated particle by the ATLAS and CMS experiments".

Born on Nov. 6, 1932 in the Brussels municipality of Etterbeek, Englert devoted more than seven decades to research in theoretical physics, a field in which he obtained a doctorate after studying civil engineering.

At the end of his studies, he joined Cornell University in the United States, where he met Brout.

Brout later followed him to Belgium to co-head the Universite Libre de Bruxelles' theoretical physics department, leading to the proposal of the "Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism," which laid the foundations for the 2012 discovery.

Upon receiving the Nobel Prize in 2013, Englert told the press that his work had always consisted in "seeking an understanding, a rational intelligibility of the world."

"Irrational ideas have done enough harm to Europe. Science is essential for building a civilization worthy of the name," he said.

The son of Jewish shopkeepers, Englert described himself as a nonconformist and a non-believer. He was forced to live in hiding with his family during the Second World War, when Nazi Germany occupied Belgium.