Two theorists who predicted the existence of the subatomic Higgs boson nearly 50 years ago have been awarded the Nobel Prize for physics after they were proven right this year, NBC News reported. British physicist Peter Higgs, 84, and Belgian physicist Francois Englert, 80, (and late his colleague Robert Brout) proposed the particle's existence independently in 1964. Higgs lent his name to the discovery, which Nobel-winning physicist Leon Lederman dubbed the "God Particle" because of its role governing the cosmos. Physicists regret the nickname for its supernatural connotations and Lederman later said he really meant to call it the "Goddam Particle" because it was so tricky to confirm. Scientists working with the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border reported they'd found a Higgs boson in July 2012. The discovery was confirmed in March.
