François Englert

• François Englert, the renowned Belgian theoretical physicist and 2013 Nobel Prize laureate who gave a new direction to modern particle physics, passed away at the age of 93 in Uccle, near Brussels.

• Born on November 6, 1932, in Etterbeek, Belgium, Englert pursued his higher education at the Free University of Brussels, obtaining his PhD in physics in 1959.

• His scientific career was dedicated to understanding the fundamental structure of the universe and the behavior of particles.

• Englert's most significant contribution came in 1964 when, together with his colleague Robert Brout, he published a landmark paper on "spontaneous symmetry breaking" within quantum field theory.

• Around the same time, the British scientist Peter Higgs independently proposed a similar concept. The theory that emerged from these combined efforts later became known as the Brout–Englert–Higgs mechanism.

• This theory explains how fundamental particles acquire mass through their interaction with a specific field that permeates the universe.

• This concept provided a robust foundation for the Standard Model of modern particle physics and made a revolutionary contribution to our understanding of the origin and structure of the universe.