Title: A brief ancestral history of the Higgs boson

Speaker: Prof. Gautam Bhattacharyya, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata

Abstract: I shall do a time-travel to sketch in a nutshell the bumpy road of development of quantum field theory as a framework for explanation of subatomic phenomena. Bits and pieces of theoretical advances and experimental observations were put together, and many obstacles were obliterated on the way by physicists over the years, before a consistent framework emerged where everything could fit in a truly remarkable way. The Higgs boson was born as a consequence of a successful marriage of otherwise apparently disconnected ideas, solemnized by the great minds who scripted the future direction of research in particle physics paving the way towards the most expensive experiment in the history of mankind.