Physicist Peter Higgs, whose theory of an undetected particle in the universe changed science and was vindicated by a Nobel prize-winning discovery half a century later, has died aged 94, the University of Edinburgh said on Tuesday, Paralel.Az reports citing Reuters.

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 at the CERN research centre near Geneva was widely hailed as the biggest advance in knowledge about the cosmos for over 30 years, and pointed physics towards ideas that were once science fiction.

"For me personally it is just the confirmation of something I did 48 years ago, and it is very satisfying to be proved right in some way," the British scientist told Reuters at the time.

"At the beginning, I had no expectation that I would still be alive when it happened."