Peter Higgs b.1929, British theoretical physicist. In 1964, Higgs predicted the existence of a new type of fundamental particle, called the Higgs boson, that is thought to give other particles mass. This particle is required by many of the Grand Unified Theories or GUTs which hope to explain three of the fundamental forces electromagnetism and the weak and the strong nuclear forces in a single unified theory. The Higgs boson is yet to be detected experimentally, but it is one of the main challenges of high_energy particle accelerators such as the large hadron collider LHC at CERN the European particle physics laboratory. Clip 3 of 4. For the entire sequence see clips K003/2051 _ K003/2054.