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Portrait of François Englert
Photo: Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden, IMG_7472 · CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Nobel Prize in Physics · 2013

François Englert

A Jewish boy hidden from the Nazis in Belgium who grew up to explain how the universe's basic particles get their mass.

The Nobel citation: “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider”
Born
November 6, 1932, Etterbeek, Belgium
Died
June 18, 2026, Uccle, Belgium
Shared with
Peter Higgs
Affiliation at the time
Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Physics prize

2013

Shared with 1 other laureate.

Age that year

81years

Born in 1932.

Sources cited

23

Fact-checked September 24, 2026.

  • As a Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied Belgium he lived under a false name, and a village priest baptized him so he could hide in a Catholic boarding school.
  • He and Robert Brout submitted their mass mechanism on 26 June 1964, a month before Peter Higgs's first paper on the subject. The two Nobel co-winners first met in 2012.
  • A few months after their 1964 paper, he and Brout celebrated with a bottle of champagne at a café, though few physicists were paying attention to their idea.
  • He first trained as an electrical-mechanical engineer, then switched to physics because he cared more about how things work than about applying them.
  • The café-owning family who hid him, a kind neighbor and a priest were honored as Righteous Among the Nations in 2017, after he brought their story to Yad Vashem.

The breakthrough

The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism: how particles get their mass

In the early 1960s physicists were stuck. Their best theories of nature's forces relied on a kind of symmetry that seemed to forbid force-carrying particles from having any mass. That was fine for light, whose particle, the photon, weighs nothing. But the weak force, which drives some radioactive decay and helps the Sun shine, reaches only across distances smaller than an atomic nucleus, so its carriers had to be heavy. In 1964 Englert and his friend Robert Brout, working in Brussels, found a way out. Suppose all of space is filled with an invisible field that never switches off, even in a perfect vacuum. Think of it like water in a swimming pool: a sleek swimmer barely notices it, while a clumsy one is held back. In the same way, particles that interact strongly with the field behave as if they are heavy, and particles that ignore it, like the photon, stay massless and move at the speed of light. The symmetry is still there in the equations, just hidden from view. Brout and Englert also showed the trick could work if the field were a condensate of particles, as in a superconductor. Peter Higgs reached the same idea independently about a month later and pointed to a new particle the field should produce, and a third team followed that autumn. In 2012 two giant experiments at CERN found that particle, the Higgs boson.[4],[5],[6],[8],[9]

“Without these wonderful people we could not have escaped the persecution and I would not be here to tell about it.”
François Englert, His Nobel autobiography (2013), writing about the Belgians who hid his family during the German occupation.[2]

What it meant for humanity

Englert's work did not produce a drug, a crop or a gadget. Its gift is understanding, and that understanding runs deep. The mechanism he and Brout proposed is what holds together the Standard Model, physicists' best description of the building blocks of matter and three of nature's four forces. It explains why the electron has mass at all. Without the field, electrons would race off at the speed of light, and atoms, chemistry and life could not exist. The idea also made it possible to unite electromagnetism and the weak force in a single theory. Several later Nobel Prizes are closely tied to it: those of 1979 for the electroweak theory, 1984 for finding the heavy W and Z particles, and 1999 for proving that such theories give sensible, finite predictions.

Testing the idea became one of the biggest scientific projects in history. Finding the particle it predicted was a central goal of CERN's Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometre ring where two large teams, thousands of scientists in all, announced the Higgs boson in 2012. CERN itself was founded in 1954, partly to stop Europe's scientific brain drain and to bring the continent together after the Second World War. CERN says the push to build the collider's accelerators and detectors led to advances in areas such as healthcare and aerospace.

Englert's own life adds a human layer. A boy whom strangers hid from the Nazis grew up to co-found a research group in Brussels that trained many physicists. Late in life he made sure his rescuers were honored, adding their names to the record of ordinary people who saved Jewish children.

  • The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism explains why fundamental particles such as the electron have mass. Without it, electrons would move at light speed and atoms could not form.[4],[9]
  • It let physicists join electromagnetism and the weak force into one electroweak theory, which later Nobel-winning work of 1979, 1984 and 1999 built on.[5],[21]
  • Confirming it was a central goal of CERN's Large Hadron Collider, where two large teams, thousands of scientists in all, announced the discovery of a Higgs boson on 4 July 2012.[3],[5],[9]
  • CERN, founded in 1954 partly to unite post-war Europe, says pushing the collider's accelerators and detectors to their limits in the Higgs search led to advances in healthcare, aerospace and more.[9],[23]
  • In 2017 the family who hid him, a neighbor and a priest were honored posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations after he asked Yad Vashem to recognize them.[13],[15],[16]

Impact in numbers

We record no quantified claims for Englert. His contribution was an idea about nature, not a product. The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism explains where the masses of fundamental particles come from and is a load-bearing part of the Standard Model, but no medicine, crop or device depends on it closely enough to put an honest number on lives saved or money earned. The Large Hadron Collider, which was built in large part to test the idea, pushed accelerator and detector technology that CERN links to advances in healthcare and aerospace. Those spin-offs belong to thousands of engineers and experimenters and to CERN's wider program, not to a 1964 theory paper, so any figure would be invented. We also record no harm, because we found no military or other damaging use of the work. Its real value lies in what people now understand about why matter has weight and substance, and in the international cooperation it took to prove it.

Fundamental scienceEducation

No number is given here on purpose. Some contributions cannot be counted honestly, and we would rather describe them than invent a figure.

The double edge

We found no documented harm from Englert's work, which is pure theory with no weapons or commercial use. The main controversy was over credit and naming. Three teams published the mechanism in 1964, but the Nobel Prize can be shared by at most three people. Brout had died in 2011, and the third team, Gerald Guralnik, Carl Hagen and Tom Kibble, was left out. Kibble said he was glad for the winners and noted his team's paper came last, while Hagen had long objected to the particle being named for Higgs alone. Englert disliked the popular nickname 'God particle' and titled his Nobel lecture 'The BEH Mechanism and its Scalar Boson'.

  • Minor

    Dispute over credit and the particle's name

    Englert and Brout submitted first, in June 1964; Higgs followed, then Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble in October. With a three-winner limit and Brout dead, the third team was left out. Kibble accepted this graciously; Hagen long objected to the Higgs-only name. CERN and the Nobel background say Brout-Englert-Higgs (BEH) mechanism. Englert's Nobel lecture used 'BEH' and 'scalar boson', and he shunned the 'God particle' nickname.[5],[7],[9],[10],[20],[22]

Against the odds

Englert's parents were Polish Jews who came to Brussels in 1924, very poor and, he believed, escaping the antisemitism of their homeland. They built a fabric shop and a decent life. Then in May 1940 Germany occupied Belgium. Most of the 65,000 to 70,000 Jews living there were immigrants like his family, mostly from Poland. The occupiers stripped Jews of property and jobs, and in 1942 forced them to wear a yellow star; Englert wore his to school. That summer deportations began. Nearly 25,000 Jews were sent from Belgium to Auschwitz, and fewer than 2,000 of them survived. His parents chose to hide. At about nine he was left with Camille and Louise Jourdan, who ran a station café in the village of Lustin, and told to act like their child and pretend not to know his own family. He kept away from other children for fear of giving himself away, and nightmares of being hunted filled his nights. About a year later someone who knew his parents' hiding place was arrested, and the family fled only hours before a German raid. A priest in Annevoie, Louis Warnon, helped them live under a false name and baptized François so he could board at a Catholic school in Dinant. They survived, but all their relatives in Poland were murdered. After the war he said he met no antisemitism in his studies or career, yet he kept silent about his childhood for decades.

  • 1924

    Discrimination

    His parents left Poland in 1924 with their baby son, very poor and, as he understood it, escaping the antisemitism there. In Brussels they slowly built a fabric business.[2],[14]

  • 1942

    Persecution

    Under German occupation, Jews in Belgium lost property and jobs, and from 1942 had to wear a yellow star. Englert wore his to school. That summer the Nazis began deporting Belgium's Jews, mainly to Auschwitz.[2],[14],[17]

  • 1942

    Holocaust survivor

    At about nine he was separated from his parents and hidden with café owners in Lustin, told to act as their child and to pretend he did not know his own family. He avoided other children and suffered constant nightmares.[12],[13],[14]

  • 1943

    Persecution

    When someone who knew his parents' hiding place was arrested, the family fled; the Germans raided the hideout within hours. They lived on in Annevoie under a false name, and he was baptized so he could pass as Catholic at boarding school.[2],[14],[16]

  • —

    Family killed

    All of the family's relatives who had stayed in Poland were murdered by the Nazis.[2]

  • —

    Other

    He buried these memories for decades, later saying the war had left him with a disgust for humanity. Only after the Nobel Prize, when he was asked to write his life story, did he begin speaking publicly about being a hidden child.[13],[16]

Jewish background

Both parents JewishCulturally Jewish

Englert was born in Brussels to Polish Jewish parents who had moved to Belgium in 1924, in his view partly to escape antisemitism. Their relatives in Poland were all murdered in the Holocaust. During the war a priest baptized him as cover so he could hide in a Catholic school. In a 2017 interview he said he felt Jewish in a cultural sense, not a religious one, and AFP described him as a self-declared nonbeliever. He kept close ties to Israel: from 1984 he held a Sackler appointment at Tel Aviv University, his wife was Israeli, and in 1998 he recorded a survivor's testimony in Jerusalem for the USC Shoah Foundation.[2],[11],[14],[18],[19]

Key dates

  1. 1924

    His parents, Polish Jews, emigrate to Belgium with their infant son, seeking a better life away from antisemitism.[2],[14]

  2. November 6, 1932

    Born in Etterbeek, a municipality of Brussels.[1],[11]

  3. May 1940

    Germany invades and occupies Belgium when he is seven.[2],[17]

  4. 1942

    Forced to wear the yellow star to school. As deportations begin, his family leaves Brussels and he is hidden with the Jourdan family in Lustin.[2],[13],[14]

  5. 1943

    The family escapes just before a German raid and moves to Annevoie under a false name; a priest baptizes him so he can attend a Catholic school in Dinant.[13],[14],[16]

  6. September 1944

    Allied forces liberate Belgium; US troops free Annevoie-Rouillon, where his family has been hiding.[17],[18]

  7. 1955

    Graduates as an electrical-mechanical engineer from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).[2],[10]

  8. 1959

    Earns a physics PhD at ULB and leaves for Cornell University as research associate to Robert Brout.[2],[8]

  9. 1961

    Returns to ULB. Brout follows, settles in Belgium, and the two lead its theoretical physics group together.[2],[8],[12]

  10. June 26, 1964

    Englert and Brout submit their paper showing how force-carrying particles can gain mass from a field that fills space.[5]

  11. July 4, 2012

    In the audience at CERN when the discovery of a Higgs boson is announced; there he meets Peter Higgs for the first time.[4]

  12. October 8, 2013

    Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics with Peter Higgs. Brout, who died in 2011, could not share it because the prize is not given posthumously.[2],[3],[10]

  13. April 26, 2017

    At a ceremony he attends, his rescuers, the Jourdans, Achille Moreels and Father Louis Warnon, are honored posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations.[15]

  14. June 18, 2026

    Dies in Uccle, Brussels, aged 93.[1],[8]

Sources

  1. 1.François Englert – Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
  2. 2.François Englert – Biographical · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach), 2013
  3. 3.Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 · Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, via NobelPrize.org, 2013
  4. 4.Popular information: Here, at last! (The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013) · Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, via NobelPrize.org, 2013
  5. 5.Scientific Background on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2013: The BEH-Mechanism, Interactions with Short Range Forces and Scalar Particles · Class for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, via NobelPrize.org, 2013
  6. 6.Transcript from an interview with François Englert (6 December 2013) · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach), 2013
  7. 7.François Englert – Nobel Lecture: The BEH Mechanism and its Scalar Boson · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach), 2013
  8. 8.François Englert (1932–2026) · CERN, 2026
  9. 9.The Higgs boson · CERN
  10. 10.Belgian Nobel-prize-winning theoretical physicist François Englert dies aged 93 · Physics World (IOP Publishing), 2026
  11. 11.Belgian Nobel laureate Francois Englert dies aged 93 (AFP) · Phys.org, 2026
  12. 12.Le belge François Englert, prix Nobel de physique pour la découverte du 'boson de Higgs', est décédé à l'âge de 93 ans · RTBF, 2026
  13. 13.François Englert : l'enfant caché derrière le prix Nobel (Michel Bouffioux) · Paris Match Belgique, 2017
  14. 14.François Englert, l'enfant caché derrière le prix Nobel (full interview text) · Michel Bouffioux (journalist's blog, reprinting his Paris Match Belgique interview), 2017
  15. 15.Une famille de Profondeville honorée pour avoir caché François Englert en 1942 · RTBF, 2017
  16. 16.À Lustin, un prix Nobel redevenu "François" · L'Avenir, 2022
  17. 17.Belgium (Holocaust Encyclopedia) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  18. 18.USC Shoah Foundation Institute testimony of Francois Englert (VHA interview 42758) · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum collections, 1998
  19. 19.Tel Aviv U. affiliated prof. who is a Holocaust survivor wins Nobel for physics · The Jerusalem Post, 2013
  20. 20.Higgs boson scientists win Nobel prize in physics · BBC News, 2013
  21. 21.François Englert – Wolf Prize Laureate in Physics 2004 · Wolf Foundation, 2004
  22. 22.Belgian Nobel laureate François Englert, mind behind the 'God particle', dies aged 93 · The Brussels Times, 2026
  23. 23.Our history · CERN

Fact-checked on September 24, 2026 by a separate AI fact-checking pass that re-opened the sources, with 4 corrections made. How we check

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