Nobel Prize winner Peter Higgs admits being poor at physics at school

Peter Higgs, the Nobel Prize winning physicist, has admitted that he did “not perform well” at physics while at school.

Peter Higgs smiles after being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics at a press conference at the University of 

Edinburgh Photo: GETTY 

By Richard Gray, Science correspondent

Peter Higgs, who has won the Nobel Prize in Physics, has admitted he did “not perform well” at physics while at school, winning prizes in chemistry and languages instead.

He said that he much preferred chemistry as a pupil at Cotham School in Bristol and had found physics “not very inspiring”.

It was only after seeing a series of public lectures on the nuclear bomb and associated particle physics in 1946 that caused him to change his mind.

He said that if he had to chose what subject to study today he would pick biology but if he felt he would probably have become a mathematician if not a physicist.

Professor Higgs was on Tuesday awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his part in proposing a mechanism that gives particles mass. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10372579/Nobel-Prize-winner-Peter-Higgs-admits-being-poor-at-physics-at-school.html