Peter Higgs quotes

Peter Higgs is a British theoretical physicist renowned for his prediction of the Higgs boson particle. His work provided crucial insight into the mechanism that gives mass to fundamental particles. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking contributions to science. Here are 17 of his quotes:

The way that the background fields generates mass is rather like the way in which when light passes through a transparent medium like glass or water, it gets slowed down. It no longer travels with the fundamental velocity of light c. And that's the way to think of the generation of mass. (Peter Higgs)
When you look at a vacuum in a quantum theory of fields, it isn't exactly nothing. View quote
Peter Higgs
The point came when people were doing things I didn't feel competent to do myself. I'm not being modest, I honestly get lost. I was lucky in spotting what I did when I did, but there comes a point where you realise what you're doing is not going to be much good. View quote
Peter Higgs
This summer I have discovered something totally useless. View quote
Peter Higgs
There is a sort of mythology that grows up about what happened, which is different from what really did happen. View quote
Peter Higgs
I was an embarrassment to the department when they did research assessment exercises. A message would go round the department: 'Please give a list of your recent publications.' And I would send back a statement: 'None.' View quote
Peter Higgs
It's about understanding! Understanding the world! View quote
Peter Higgs
Higgs mechanism should be renamed the "ABEGHHK'tH mechanism”. View quote
Peter Higgs
It's very nice to be right sometimes ... it has certainly been a long wait. View quote
Peter Higgs
It's nice to be right sometimes. View quote
Peter Higgs
I'm rather cynical about the way the honours system is used, frankly. A whole lot of the honours system is used for political purposes by the government in power. (Peter Higgs)
I was already, I think, at the age of 18, showing signs of being incompetent in the lab. View quote
Peter Higgs
Nobody else took what I was doing seriously, so nobody would want to work with me. I was thought to be a bit eccentric and maybe cranky. View quote
Peter Higgs
If the U.K. were threatening to withdraw from Europe, I would certainly want Scotland to be out of that. View quote
Peter Higgs
The Nobel Prize has been a disturbance at the beginning of October for some years. It would be gratifying to win, but it would be quite an ordeal, too, with all the events which go on for two days. I'd think carefully about what I was doing the day it is announced and maybe not be around, or be around, but elsewhere. View quote
Peter Higgs
The model I came up with in 1964 is just the invention of a rather strange sort of medium that looks the same in all directions and produces a kind of refraction that is a little bit more complicated than that of light in glass or water. View quote
Peter Higgs
My recollection of the higher school certificate, which involved a practical exam in physics, was being confronted with an experiment involving a sort of barometer arrangement, wondering why I couldn't make it work. View quote
Peter Higgs