Higgs’ Nobel medal donated to university where he made history

The late Professor Peter Higgs has gifted his Nobel Prize to the University of Edinburgh, where he first proposed an idea that would transform our understanding of the universe.

The pioneering physicist has left the internationally prestigious medal to the institution in his will, following his death aged 94 in April 2024.

It will be preserved by the University’s Centre for Research Collections and displayed at events and exhibitions, including the upcoming Higgs Lecture in 2026.

Professor Higgs is known and lauded worldwide for predicting the existence of a fundamental physical particle that came to bear his name – the Higgs boson. 

He was a researcher at the University of Edinburgh in 1964 when he predicted the particle, which enables other particles to acquire mass. 

This idea was validated by experiments almost 50 years later, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland in 2012. 

The discovery was followed by the award of a Nobel Prize in Physics for Professor Higgs in 2013, which he shared with François Englert of Belgium. 

Professor Sir Peter Mathieson, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, said:

This generous gift will ensure that Peter Higgs’ extraordinary contributions to science will continue to inspire generations of students and researchers. We are profoundly honoured to have been entrusted with his Nobel Prize medal, an object of immense historical significance and a lasting emblem of his legacy.

Born in 1929 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Peter Higgs joined the staff of the University of Edinburgh in 1960, when he took up a lectureship at the Tait Institute of Mathematical Physics and became Personal Chair of Theoretical Physics in 1980. He retired in 1996, becoming Professor Emeritus. 

The Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics was established by the University of Edinburgh in 2012 to recognise Professor Higgs’ achievements and create opportunities for students and researchers from around the world to formulate new theoretical concepts.

Professor Neil Turok, Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh, said:

The prediction of the Higgs boson was a theoretical breakthrough, fundamental to our understanding of the laws of physics. It is fitting that Peter Higgs’ Nobel Prize medal is now preserved at Edinburgh, forming a lasting part of the University’s scientific heritage. Through our Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics, his seminal discovery continues to serve as a springboard for those seeking answers to some of the deepest mysteries of our universe.

A plaque commemorating Professor Higgs’ legacy can be found at Roxburgh Street in Edinburgh. The installation marks the site where he first devised the theory of the Higgs boson particle.