The renowned scientist won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013
OPEN. Peter Higgs, a giant of British science who came up with the idea of the Higgs boson particle, has died aged 94.He was awarded the Nobel prize for Physics in 2013 for his revolutionary work showing how the boson helps bind the Universe together.
Prof Brian Cox paid tribute to Higgs on X: "I was fortunate enough to meet him several times, and beyond being a famous physicist - I think to his embarrassment at times - he was always charming and modest."His name will be remembered as long as we do physics in the form of the Higgs Boson.
In the 1960s Higgs and other physicists worked on an idea to explain why the building blocks of the Universe have mass.
It sparked a search for the Holy Grail of physics - a particle that could explain three fundamental forces in one theory.
In 2012 scientists using the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Switzerland finally discovered it - they named it the Higgs boson.
A year later Higgs' work was recognised in his Nobel Prize which he shared with Francois Englert of Belgium.
The head of CERN, Fabiola Gianotti, told BBC News that "Peter was a very special person, an immensely inspiring figure for physicists across the world, a man of rare modesty, a great teacher and someone who explained physics in a very simple and yet profound way.
Alan Barr, Professor of Physics at University of Oxford, paid tribute to the huge impact Higgs had on our understanding of the Universe.
Pallab Ghosh goes inside the largest particle accelerator in the world - which discovered the Higgs boson.
The hunt for physics' mysterious 'ghost' particles.