Nearly five decades ago, Peter Higgs sent physicists on a chase to find a particle that gives the universe its mass. Today, at age 84, he, along with physicist François Englert, received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work.
The video above comes from the day last July when scientists at the European Organizations for Nuclear Research (CERN) made the announcement that they believed they had finally found that particle, the Higgs Boson. At 50 seconds, the camera pans to Peter Higgs, where you can see him tearing up at the news.
But what is really lovely is what Higgs later told The Guardian's science correspondent Ian Sample, as he recalled that day:
I was about to burst into tears. I was knocked over by the wave of the reaction of the audience. Up until then I was holding back emotionally, but when the audience reacted I couldn't hold back any more. That's the only way I can explain it.
As Sample tweeted this morning,
Point being that #Higgs was moved to tears not cos CERN had found his particle, but cos of what it meant to those in the room around him.— Ian Sample (@iansample) October 8, 2013
And, he added, "who can not love that?"