I am actually not sure what a good explanation would be. The problem is to a large part, that the particle explanation for high energy physics offers no good an

I am actually not sure what a good explanation would be. The problem is to a large part, that the particle explanation for high energy physics offers no good analogy. ( You will often hear that a photon is exchanged between interacting particles, with the implicit understanding that a photon is something like a billiard ball.) But perhaps I can at least describe the problem better. The way physicists currently construct theories is based on mathematical symmetries. And in particular the theory of the electro weak interaction is build on a symmetry between the electro magnetic force and the weak force. So this gives the prediction that the weak force should be similar to the electro magnetic force, especially that it should have infinite range. But the experimental observation is, that the weak force acts only on very small distances, usually less than a femto meter. The solve this problem, Peter Higgs noted that the symmetry between electromagnetism and the weak force should exist in the lofty world of mathematics, while in the messy real world the symmetry is broken somehow. So he invented a additional field, which breaks the symmetry. This is somewhat similar to the claim, that a car can go in any direction (the symmetry), but in realistic situations all cars follow the same road. So the road breaks the symmetry, without taking anything away from the ability of the car to go in any direction. In quantum field theories forces correspond to particles. And the particles associated with the weak force, W and Z bosons, should therefore be similar to photons, the particles associated with electro magnetism. But a force that acts only on small distances means that the field quanta are massive, unlike photons which are massless. So in this view, the Higgs mechanism adds mass to the W and Z bosons, but does not add mass to the photons. But a better explanation would probably be, that the Higgs field limits the range of the electro weak force to the experimentally observed short distances.