François Englert, Nobel Physicist, Dies at 93

François Englert, the Belgian theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate of 2013, died at the age of 93 in Uccle near Brussels. He was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, on 6 November 1932, and studied at the Free University of Brussels before completing a PhD in physics in 1959.

François Englert and the Higgs Mechanism

François Englert and Robert Brout co-authored a 1964 paper on spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum field theory. Peter Higgs independently developed a similar idea in the same year, and the combined framework became known as the Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism. The mechanism explains how elementary particles acquire mass through interaction with a field that permeates the universe. The associated particle is the Higgs boson, which became part of the Standard Model of particle physics after later experimental confirmation.

Standard Model and Electroweak Theory

The Standard Model is the theory of fundamental particles and three of the four fundamental forces: electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions. The electroweak theory unifies electromagnetic and weak interactions, and the Higgs mechanism resolves the mass problem for the bosons that mediate weak interactions. Englert worked at Cornell University with Robert Brout before returning to Belgium and continuing research at the Free University of Brussels. His work formed part of the theoretical basis used in modern particle physics and in the development of gauge field theory.

Academic Background and Wartime Childhood

Englert came from a Jewish family of Polish origin and spent part of his childhood in hiding during the Second World War. He lived under a false identity in several Belgian towns, including Dinant, Lustin, Stoumont and Annevoie-Rouillon, until the Liberation of Belgium. He graduated in electromechanical engineering from the Free University of Brussels in 1955 and completed his doctorate in physics in 1959. He later became one of the key figures associated with theoretical particle physics in Belgium.

Important Facts for Exams

• François Englert shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics with Peter Higgs.
• The Higgs boson was experimentally confirmed at CERN in 2012 by the Large Hadron Collider.
• The Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism is linked to spontaneous symmetry breaking in quantum field theory.
• The Standard Model describes elementary particles and three fundamental forces: electromagnetic, weak and strong.

François Englert was born in 1932 and died in 2026 at the age of 93. The Free University of Brussels and Cornell University were central institutions in his academic career.