Hundreds gather to hear Nobel prize winner explain the ‘God-particle’

Hundreds of people descended on the University of Southampton to hear Physics Nobel Laureate Professor Gerard ‘t Hooft give a keynote lecture at a special event organised by the Southampton Theory Astrophysics and Gravity (STAG) Research Centre.

Gerard enthralled the audience at the Turner Sims with his talk about the elusive Higgs particle or ‘God-particle’ that is believed to be responsible for the origin of mass.

He explained how a recent discovery at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Geneva, is most likely to be the long-sought Higgs particle. He explored how the particle behaved and what particles we should be looking for next to understand the building blocks of our Universe.

The Turner Sims concert hall was packed out for the event and included members of the public, University staff and students and schoolchildren from local schools and colleges – St Anne’s Catholic School, Richard Taunton Sixth Form College and Highbury College.

STAG Director Professor Chris Sachrajda said: “This was a tremendously successful event. We were pleased to see a full house present to hear Gerard deliver our keynote address. It was inspiring to hear his insights into the fundamental questions that have been asked for thousands of years about the Universe.”

The event was organised by the STAG Research Centre that brings together world-leading academics from three research groups – Theoretical Particle Physics, Astronomy, and General Relativity – to improve our understanding of the Universe and the fundamental laws of nature.

Researchers are exploring issues of fundamental physics and astronomy such as the ultimate building blocks of matter; extreme environments generated by black holes and neutron stars that power some of the most spectacular phenomena in the Universe; and the identity of dark matter and dark energy that make up 95 per cent of the Universe.

The lecture was also attended by the Mayor of Southampton Councillor Sue Blatchford and Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering – one of the faculties in which the STAG Research centre is based.

Postgraduate students; Rob Firth, Peter Jones, Anthony Preston, Ariana Christodoulou and Greg Ashton were also available to talk to the audience about their research.