Nobel prize for 'one of the brightest minds in Belgium'

Francois Englert (pictured left) from Belgium and Peter Higgs, from the UK, have won the Nobel prize in physics for their work on the theory of the Higgs boson. In the 1960s they were among several physicists who proposed a mechanism to explain why the most basic building blocks of the Universe have mass. Englert, 80, said he was "very happy" to win the award, speaking at the ceremony via phone link. "At first I thought I didn't have it [the prize] because I didn't see the announcement," he told the committee, after their news conference was delayed by more than an hour.

Prime minister Elio Di Rupo congratulated Englert within minutes of the announcement from Stockholm. "This prestigious award crowns an outstanding career in the science of particles from one of the brightest minds in Belgium," said Di Rupo. François Englert follows in the footsteps of Belgian scientists Ilya Prigogine, Christian De Duve, Albert Claude, Corneille Heymans and Jules Bordet, the prime minister said in his statement. He also joins Auguste Beernaert, Henri La Fontaine, Dominique Pire and Maurice Maeterlinck, Belgian winners of the Nobel prizes for non-scientific disciplines, peace and for literature. Di Rupo said today’s award "honours the Free University of Brussels and Belgium as a whole." The prime minister, who had the opportunity recently to visit CERN in Geneva with François Englert , said he was "not only impressed by his knowledge but also his passion for passing on his knowledge and to making science progress". He concluded by praising Belgium as “a land of innovation and excellence”.

CERN director general Rolf Heuer said he was "thrilled" that this year's prize had gone to particle physics. "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," he said. The other scientist after which the particle is named, Robert Brout, passed away in 2011. Nobel prizes are not awarded posthumously.

Sources: BBC News, La Libre Belgique