I'm not a physicist, does anybody out there know to what extent the three individual papers contributed to the Higgs theory? It's a shame that not all three were recognized if they were all instrumental in advancing the theory. I suppose somebody always has to play the role of Pete Best. someone should write a song about the Higgs Boson! Tagged this #higgsy
So, the issue is that there's a max number of Nobel recipients: three. The "third" paper was a collab. between three physicists. The first two spots were already filled for the Nobel, and it's really unclear who should have gotten the third. So, the committee just decided nobody. If Brout was alive (he collaborated with Englert), he would have surely been the third. Now, in terms of modern relevance, the Brout-Englert model, with some alterations, is still in use today. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's more accurate, however. Now, you might be wondering, why in the fuck is it called the Higgs-boson then? Well, one of the major differences between the two papers is that Brout and Englert made up the model that features the particle now referred to as the Higgs-boson, but they didn't really mention much of it. Higgs, on the other hand, spent most of his time mentioning it; that is, he explicitly proposed the existence of the particle. Hence, it's known as the Higgs-boson.