Then, in the 1940s, theoretical physicists (of whom the best known today is Feynman, but several others contributed, including his co-Nobelists Schwinger and Tomonaga) developed what is known as quantum electrodynamics (QED). In this framework, forces are treated as “fields” (this term has a technical origin in mathematics), but the forces can be viewed as being mediated by particles. Thus the photon is the particle that mediates the force carried in the electromagnetic field. (I’m not sure I have that totally correct, as it’s been two decades since I took a QED course.) It was later shown that QED could be applied to the weak nuclear force, and with a bit of generalization, called QCD (quantum chromodynamics; the particles involved have a sort of three-way charge that physicists call “color”), it can also be applied to the strong nuclear force. One of the Holy Grails of physics is to produce a similar treatment for gravity; string theory has been considered the most promising route to this goal for the last 30 years or so.

Enter Peter Higgs. He realized, back in 1964, that there had to be some way to break certain symmetries, such as that between matter and antimatter, and the fact that similar particles have different masses. So he introduced a new field, now known as the Higgs field, mediated by particles called Higgs bosons. (Bosons are particles whose spin angular momentum is an integer multiple of Planck’s constant, as opposed to fermions, whose spin angular momentum is a half integer multiple of Planck’s constant. The names honor Satyendra Bose and Enrico Fermi, respectively. Photons, and all of the other particles that mediate forces, are bosons; electrons and quarks are fermions.)

I don’t know why, because it is not the “electromagnetic particle” and “electromagnetic field” but I see you point that they physicists may be confused about language.

This book of his is more readable than his last book “From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time”

I can understand why physicist object to you using “Higgs” when you mean “Higgs field”. It is equivalent to you using “Photon” when you mean “electromagnetic field”