Professor Peter Higgs may have kept a low profile for most of his life – but that is now changing. Throughout the world, people are becoming aware of the famous Higgs boson particle that bears his name – the so-called “God particle” – which answers the basic question of how matter acquires mass.

Prof Higgs, 83, has been waiting since 1964 for science to catch up with his ideas about the Higgs boson. It was in that year he dreamed up the concept in a moment of inspiration while walking in the Cairngorms – a particle present throughout the universe which lends mass to matter and holds the universe together.

The quiet physicist, retired from the University of Edinburgh, is fast becoming a global celebrity as creator of the theory behind the “God particle”.  Born in England, the son of a BBC sound engineer, Prof Higgs’s groundbreaking proposal was that particles acquire mass by interacting with an all-pervading field spread throughout the universe. The more they interact, the more massive and heavy they become.

Scientists using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to look for the fabled particle, have said the search could soon be over.

Never one to blow his own trumpet, Prof Higgs is described by friends and colleagues as “very unassuming” and shy.  Some believe his retiring nature might even have held back his career. Now, despite his best efforts to keep a low profile, the spotlight is turning on him.