Nearly 50 years after they came up with the theory, but little more than a year since the world's biggest atom smasher delivered the proof, Britain's Peter Higgs and Belgian colleague Francois Englert won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for helping to explain how matter formed after the Big Bang.

Working independently in the 1960s, they came up with a theory for how the fundamental building blocks of the universe clumped together, gained mass and formed everything we see around us today. The theory hinged on the existence of a subatomic particle that came to be called the Higgs boson—or the "God particle."

The Nobel Prize in Physics should also have gone to the CERN laboratory in Switzerland, a member of the awarding committee said Wednesday.

"I think it's wrong," Anders Barany, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences told AFP, commenting after the decision Tuesday, which was delayed for an hour due to "a lot of discussion."

"I think those experimental researchers have done incredibly fantastic work and should be rewarded."

Vatikaani vastusti jo vuosikymmeniä sitten Edwardsin tutkimuksia, koska niissä hedelmöittymiseen ei liity avioparin fyysistä yhteyttä.

Vatikaanin edustaja sanoi maanantaina Nobel-palkinnon saajan julkistuksen jälkeen, ettei valinta ole sopiva.

- Minusta Robert Edwardsin valitseminen on täysin sopimatonta, totesi paavillisen tiedeakatemian johtaja Ignacio Carrasco de Paula italialaiselle Ansa-uutistoimistolle.