The Incredibly Complex Life Of Stephen Hawking

The Higgs Boson Debate

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Another dispute that Hawking argued was that the Higgs boson would never be found. The particle was claimed to exist as part of the Higgs field theory by Peter Higgs in 1964. Both Hawking and Higgs had numerous public debates about the particle in 2002 and then again in 2008.

Higgs went so far as to say that Hawking’s “celebrity status gives him instant credibility that others don’t have.” But then, in 2012, the particle was found after the construction of the Large Hadron Collider. Hawking conceded that he had lost the bet and said that Higgs deserved the Nobel Prize for Physics ,which he received in 2013.