Higgs' Boson: Getting a Nobel would mean everything, says son In 1964, Prof Higgs and five other theoretical physicists - François Englert, Robert Brout, Gerald Guralnik, C. R. Hagen, and Tom Kibble - proposed the existence of an invisible field lying across the Universe and giving particles their mass. Yesterday, scientists from the Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, announced they had discovered a subatomic particle consistent with the Higgs boson. A spokesman for Cern has hailed the search for the Higgs boson as putting "particle physics on the threshold of a new era" and spoke of "the new physics that is just over the horizon." Professor Peter Clarke, from the University of Edinburgh, said the importance of the find to particle physics was akin to putting the foundations in a house. Explaining that scientists had already based knowledge on Prof Higgs" theory, he said: "Before this, it was like having the cornerstone or foundations of a building missing. Now we know they are there, we know the building is sound. It will certainly now help us focus on the direction in which to develop thought and theory. Brian Cox has given an excellent analogy when he said we have been floating around an ocean, with someone telling us to find land and not knowing which direction to start looking in. Now, we know where the island is. We don't know what's on it, but we know there's something.