Higgs Centre Decennial

The University of Edinburgh has a rich history of theoretical physics. In the nineteenth century, James Clerk Maxwell was a student here, and so was his friend Peter Guthrie Tait, the inventor of knot theory, who later on became professor of natural philosophy here. In 1922 the Tait Chair was established and Charles Galton Darwin, grandson of the great naturalist, was appointed as the first incumbent in 1923. He was succeeded by Max Born, one of the founders of quantum mechanics (Nobel Prize, 1954), who was Tait Professor from 1936 until 1953, followed by Nick Kemmer, inventor of isospin.

The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN in 2012, almost half a century after Peter Higgs' prediction in 1964, was a milestone in the history of theoretical physics, for which Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013. Rarely in the history of physics has a theoretical prediction been confirmed so spectacularly, so long after it was originally made.

The Higgs Centre for Theoretical Physics was established by the University of Edinburgh in August of 2012 to celebrate this achievement and to create new opportunities for researchers and students from around the world to come together to formulate new theoretical concepts, taking us beyond the limitations of current paradigms.

Starting during the summer of 2022, the Higgs Centre will celebrate its founding with in-person, online and offline activities, events and projects.