The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics last Tuesday to theoretical physicists Peter Higgs and François Englert for their independent predictions in 1964 of a massive particle now known as the Higgs boson.
   The verification of the Higgs boson is what is important, not so much the theoretical details from 1964, as physicists have assumed its existence for a long time.  Really, the verification of the Higgs’ discovery and the consequent Nobel award draws my immediate attention.
  According to about.com, six different theoretical physicists, including Englert and Higgs, independently discovered the modern version of the Higgs field and Higgs boson theories after building off of the work of their colleagues from the decade before.  What really makes the verification of the Higgs’ existence important is that, according to Charles Day’s physicstoday.org article, Steven Weinberg used the Higgs mechanism soon after its postulation to formulate the quickly verified and important electroweak theory.
    If the Higgs particle had instead eluded discovery or if the laws of physics had been different and the Higgs did not exist, then there would be huge ramifications for all of the physics that emerged after Weinberg in what is now called the Standard Model.  The Standard Model is the subject of rigorous research, and it provides insight into the function of many practical processes.  It provides a look into phenomena including cosmic radiation and Radon-222 decay that, according to the EPA, make up the majority of the radioactivity to which our bodies are subject.
  Additionally, the functions of heavier versions of the particles that we are familiar with existence allows advanced research into the detailed functioning of familiar particles.
    The Nobel Prize this year is notable because of how soon the award follows the verification of the theory.  Admittedly, the theory’s consequences have been implicitly verified for quite some time, but the most important part, the existence of the particle that actually does all of the work in the theory, is only a discovery that is one year old.  
    According to Dave Goldberg’s slate.com article on the topic, the short time frame between discovery and award surprised the physics community, as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences did not award Englert and Higgs last year when the Higgs boson was very relevant and yet they did not continue to postpone the award for as long as the usually do.  
   “This year’s announcement represents an incredibly quick turnaround for a committee that has generally been fairly conservative in its awards,” Goldberg said.
   Additionally, there is no real consensus on whether or not the particle discovered is necessarily the Higgs boson without a doubt or if it is one of many Higgs particles or even another particle entirely that conveniently appears where we expect the Higgs. According to Don Lincoln’s PBS Nova Next article on the Higgs particle, there are supersymmetric interpretations of the Standard Model that predict at least five Higgs particles instead of just the one discovered recently.
If you ever hear anyone accuse physics of being boring,  pay them no mind.  
   Just this year the Nobel Prize has brought up enough drama and contention to fuel the publication of yet another round of books that try to paint the picture of what happened and who should have gotten the prize.  With six possible recipients and a maximum of three winners, there is guaranteed to be some animosity and confusion over the award, and this ignores  the fact that Englert and Higgs did not actually find the particle but rather thousands of experimental physicists in Switzerland and France.  
   I expect the Nobel Prize to continue to be controversial as long as it runs.  There is little chance of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences changing its paradigm, and so even in a time of large collaborative experiments and small impacts by thousands of physicists on one problem, we will probably continue to see acclaim and adulation given to a select few individuals for discoveries not fully understood or fleshed out in time.  Hopefully one day another prize will come along that recognizes the efforts of every scientist involved in groundbreaking research, but that may not even be necessary.  
    Who will the textbooks remember? I am not sure that it really matters as long as scientists get to enjoy their work and have a chance to further the pool of human knowledge.