Francois Englert quotes:

I was born in Belgium on 6 November 1932. I am married to Mira Nikomarow and have five children: Michele, Anne, Georges, from a first marriage with Esther Dujardin, and Sarah, Helene from a second one with Danielle Vindal.

As an assistant in the polytechnic department, I was able to finance new studies and got my Physics Masters Degree in 1958 and my Ph.D. in 1959.

In 1955, I got my degree in electrical-mechanical engineering. I realised, however, that my interest was less in practical applications than in the understanding of the underlying theoretical structure, and I decided to learn physics.

My parents emigrated from Poland in 1924 with my brother, who was a few months old. They were from a simple family of Polish Jews. They were looking, I suppose, for a better economic life and were escaping from an anti-Semitic environment.

I feel squeezed like a lemon - interviewers and people keep turning up unannounced at my office!

Gravitational and electromagnetic interactions are long-range interactions, meaning they act on objects no matter how far they are separated from each other.

I like to call it the scalar boson because this reflects an essential component of the theory - it means that the field the boson travels through has no preferred direction, unlike the way a magnetic field does.

Fundamental research is needed to make progress, which you cannot do solely by copying others. If you only do applied research, you quickly lose creativity.