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Durham University expert comments on Nobel Prize for physics

(8 October 2008)

Following the award of the Nobel Prize for physics for research into broken symmetry, a Durham University expert explains what broken symmetry is.

Dr Pete Edwards, Science and Society Officer in the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics, at Durham University, said: “For an everyday example of spontaneous symmetry breaking, consider a pencil balanced on its point. “The pencil lives in a completely symmetrical world in which all directions are equal. “Invariably the pencil will fall over and this original symmetry is lost. Only one direction is now important for the pencil which is now more stable and cannot fall any further. This is spontaneous symmetry breaking. “We believe our universe is filled with the Higgs field that, like the pencil standing on its end was not stable in the early universe. The spontaneous broken symmetry of this field explains why we have mass. The Large Hadron Collider will look for evidence of the Higgs field.”