Higgs boson discoverers win Nobel

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to two physicists whose work paved the way to the discovery of the elusive Higgs boson, sometimes referred to as the "God particle," which helps explain how particles acquire mass.

British scientist Peter Higgs, who gave the boson its name, and Belgian Francois Englert, share the prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Tuesday morning.

Working in the 1960s, Higgs and Englert proposed a mechanism to explain how the universe's building blocks have mass, thanks to a mysterious particle that was finally discovered just last year.

"This year's prize is about something small that makes all the difference," said Staffan Normark, permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Higgs, who went on holiday to avoid the spotlight, released a prepared statement through Edinburgh University.

"I am overwhelmed to receive this award and thank the Royal Swedish Academy," he said. "I would also like to congratulate all those who have contributed to the discovery of this new particle and to thank my family, friends and colleagues for their support."

"I hope this recognition of fundamental science will help raise awareness of the value of blue-sky research," he said.

Englert accepted the award by phone, saying he was "very happy."

"The discovery of the Higgs boson at Cern last year, which validates the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, marks the culmination of decades of intellectual effort by many people around the world," said Rolf Heuer, the director general of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern, Switzerland.

The official citation for Higgs and Englert's award reads:

"For the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider."