VietNamNet Bridge - Professor Francois Englert, the scientist who discovered the Higgs boson and won the Nobel Prize in 2013, is now in the central province of Binh Dinh to participate in an international workshop held by the Rencontre du Vietnam (Meet Vietnam) organization from August 11 to 17.

Professor Francois Englert and Prof. Tran Thanh Van.

The conference themed "Physics at LHC and Beyond" brings together 120 professors and leading scientists from 25 countries, said Professor Tran Thanh Van, founder of Meet Vietnam.

"At this symposium, scientists will announce and share all the new discoveries in particle physics, discuss high-energy phenomena in the universe, particularly the importance of the Higgs particle in human life," said Professor Van.

Prof. François Baron Englert, 82, is a Belgian theoretical physicist. He was awarded the 2010 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2004 and the High Energy and Particle Prize of the European Physical Society in 1997 for the mechanism which unifies short and long range interactions by generating massive gauge vector bosons.

He has made contributions in statistical physics, quantum field theory, cosmology, string theory and supergravity. He is the recipient of the 2013 Prince of Asturias Award in technical and scientific research, together with Peter Higgs and the CERN.

Professor Francois Englert and his wife (left) in Quy Nhon City.

The Higgs boson explains a puzzle about matter -- why some objects in the universe such as the quark, a constituent of protons, possess mass, while others, such as the photon, a constituent of light, have only energy and zip around the universe unhindered.

Until this enigma was resolved, physicists were not able to properly explain why many things in the universe exist, from stars and planets to germs and people.

Previously, from August 3 to 9, 70 scientists from 15 countries attended the “Very High Energy Phenomena in the Universe” international physics conference at the International Center of Interdisciplinary Science Education (ICISE) in Quy Nhon City.

Na Son