The Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism

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Who

Robert Brout and François Englert, both physicists of Jewish origin (Englert a Belgian Holocaust survivor), independently of Peter Higgs

When

1964

Where

Brussels, Belgium (Université libre de Bruxelles)

The Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism explains how fundamental particles acquire mass, and predicted the Higgs boson confirmed at CERN in 2012. It was proposed in 1964 by Robert Brout and François Englert in Brussels, both of Jewish background, at the same time as Peter Higgs worked independently. Englert, a Belgian Jew who survived the Holocaust as a hidden child, shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics with Higgs (Brout had died in 2011).

Sources

Part of “The Gifts of the Jews” — verified Jewish contributions to the world, with sources.