Video: Nobel prize winner Peter Higgs was lunching on 'good beer and good food' when announcement was made "There was a celebration with a group of us last night after a lecture by Frank Close - that was a start," he said. I shall be celebrating with my family with the help of a bottle or two of champagne early this evening. It hasn't been possible to get us all together before that. Prof Higgs, who shares this year's prize with Francois Englert of Belgium, joins the ranks of past Nobel winners including Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. The 84-year-old is an emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh. The Swedish prize was established by businessman Alfred Nobel and was first awarded in 1901 to honour achievements in science, literature and peace. The Higgs-Englert award recognises the "theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles." Higgs Boson explained with a Tequila slammer