higg

Higgs is a surname of English origins, and also refers to a particle in physics.

The surname Higgs is found mainly in England, where it is first recorded in the 13th century. It is believed to originate from the Olde English word "hig," meaning "prickle" or "thorn," possibly referring to a person who lived near a thorny place. Variants of the surname include Higges, Higgis, and Higgses. Notable individuals with the surname Higgs include Jason Higgs, an Australian chef and cookbook author, and Martin Higgs, a British philosopher and author.

In physics, the Higgs is a fundamental particle hypothesized to explain electroweak symmetry breaking. It was proposed by physicist Peter Higgs and his team in 1964, as part of the Standard Model of particle physics. The Higgs particle is thought to be responsible for giving mass to fundamental particles that interact with it, thereby explaining why some particles have mass while others do not. In July 2012, the discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, was announced, confirming the existence of the Higgs particle. The discovery was made using the ATLAS and CMS experiments, and it marked a major milestone in the development of particle physics.

Peter Higgs and his co-researchers, Francois Englert and Robert Brout, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013 for their work on the mechanism of symmetry breaking. The Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs, who is credited with coining the term.