Peter Higgs and Francois Englert have finally received recognition for their work done in the 1960s, by winning the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics. This is a well-deserved achievement according to James Brau, a University of Oregon particle physicist.

A little more than half a century ago, Higgs and Englert were recognized for the theory known as the Higgs Boson. Unfortunately, it was a difficult theory to prove at the time. Recently, however, a team put together with approximately 2,000 physicists from 89 universities around the country and seven Department of Energy laboratories and UO’s Oregon Center for High Energy Physics, led by Brau, were able to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson.

But what is the Higgs Boson? For students who are not physics majors, the concept may be difficult to grasp. To put it simply, the Higgs field is an invisible energy field that exists throughout the universe. The Higgs Boson, which moves through the field like a wave or wiggle going from one side to the other and interacts with particles along the way, accompanies this field.

The Higgs Boson is not only an incredible step for science, but also for the University of Oregon Physics Department. David Strom, the trigger coordinator for the project, is a UO particle physicist. A trigger coordinator is the person responsible for selection of the data captured and captures one specific moment in time. This discovery opens many doors for Strom, as well as Eric Torrence and Stephanie Majewski, also particle physicists at the university.

All three of these UO physicists have been given opportunities to be a part of ATLAS experiments, putting a very prestigious and exciting future ahead of them. David Strom has much to look forward to considering that he also starts a one-year term as overall project leader for the system beginning in March 2015. For now he will participate as the Trigger and Data Acquisition co-leader.

On Oct. 8, Strom and other scientists at CERN were pleased to celebrate the announcement of the 2013 Physics Nobel Prize. Everyone is very proud of the work that was pioneered by Peter Higgs and Francois Englert and happy to be receiving recognition for the work of ATLAS and CMS. “It was a major discovery that came about after it was predicted about half a century ago,” Jame Brau said. ”This is such a fundamental aspect of science that the recognition is certainly well-deserved.”