ABSTRACT
The Higgs mechanism provides a means for the weak boson gauge fields of electroweak theory to acquire their mass. The idea that the weak bosons had to be very heavy was considered as long ago as 1961 when Glashow first suggested that the weak and electromagnetic interactions were unified. The disparity in strength between the two interactions could be accounted for if the weak bosons had large masses. The equations for the fermions are Dirac-type equations with gauge fields. A large coupling of the Higgs particle to the top quark becomes the large top quark mass, and a small coupling of the Higgs particle to the electron becomes the small electron mass. The mysterious large ratio of the top mass to the electron mass is replaced by an equally mysterious large ratio between the Higgs coupling to the top and the Higgs coupling to the electron.
