HindustanTimes Fri,26 Dec 2014   Higgs namesake: A shy physicist
Paris, July 04, 2012 First Published: 18:30 IST(4/7/2012) Last
Updated: 02:03 IST(5/7/2012)  Forty-eight years ago, British
scientist Peter Higgs had a eureka moment when he realised there
could be a particle that confers mass, one of the greatest
puzzles in physics.  "He said: 'Oh shit, I know how to do
that!'" former colleague Alan Walker told AFP of the
breakthrough as recounted to him by Higgs, now 83, who today is
hailed for widening our understanding of the Universe.  Higgs
published a paper on his theory in 1964, becoming the flag
bearer of a scientific premise to which several scientists had
contributed over the years, but which, at the outset, found few
backers.  Shy and unassuming, he lives quietly in the Scottish
capital of Edinburgh, but was present in Geneva on Wednesday
when the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) said
it had found a subatomic particle "consistent" with the long-
sought boson that carries his name.  Hi