European physicist discusses Higgs boson at Brown University

The head of the European Organization for Nuclear Research says the historic 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson particle and the particle accelerator that detected it are getting scientists closer to understanding the creation of the universe.

Director general Rolf-Dieter Heuer gave a lecture Monday at Rhode Island's Brown University on the Large Hadron Collider, the particle accelerator in Geneva that detected what scientists believe is the Higgs boson, the particle that gives mass to other particles.

Brown University says several of its physicists played critical roles in the discovery. One of those physicists is Gerald Guralnik, an originator of the theory that predicted the boson nearly five decades ago.

A group of Brown physicists and other researchers will conduct experiments using the recently upgraded collider.