Higgs boson researchers awarded Nobel Prize for physics

Sure, it may have been one of the easier Nobel prizes to call in recent years -- at least partly -- but that doesn't make it any less notable. This morning, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to Peter Higgs and Francois Englert "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles," or what's come to be known as the Higgs boson.

While the prize doesn't extend to the researchers at CERN who confirmed the existence of the Higgs particle last year, the Nobel committee did cite their work in the announcement, as did Peter Higgs himself, who said in a prepared statement that he "would also like to congratulate all those who have contributed to the discovery of this new particle." Professor Higgs isn't offering any more than that statement today, though -- one of his Edinburgh University colleagues tells the BBC that "he's gone on holiday without a phone."

Source: Nobel Prize