The scientist who heads the world's largest particle physics laboratory said it is beyond any doubt that a Higgs boson particle has been discovered.

Professor Rolf Heuer, director general of Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, told students at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh he would stick his neck out and say it had been found by scientists.

Mr Heuer, who met Professor Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the particle, was talking about the recent announcement that teams at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the £2.6 billion "Big Bang" atom-smasher in Switzerland had found a particle consistent with the Higgs boson.

The results were preliminary and more work is being done before scientists can be sure about what they have captured.

Of the discovery, he said: "We have set a certain limit which the data significance has to exceed in order to call it a discovery. That limit we have reached on July 4, so I was very happy to state I think we have it, and I think we have it still."

Prof Higgs, 83, the retired British physicist from Edinburgh University, hit on the concept of the Higgs mechanism in 1964 while walking in the Cairngorms.

The Higgs boson gives matter mass and holds the physical fabric of the universe together. Observations show the discovery looks and acts like the long-sought particle that has eluded them for 50 years.

Speaking before the lecture, Prof Higgs said: "The seminar on July 4 was an overwhelming experience for me, the end of a long road."