3 win Nobel Physics Prize for discoveries in cosmology
The Nobel Prize in Physics has been won by three scientists for their work on understanding our universe.
Canadian-born Princeton University professor James Peebles won half of the 9 million Swedish krona ($1 million) prize "for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology". The other half of this year's prize will be shared jointly by Swiss scientists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, both professors at the University of Geneva. The two were honored "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star".
Mats Larrson, chairman of the Nobel committee that awarded the prize, said their work helped in "the development of our understanding of the universe and the Earth's place in it".
He said the discovery of planets in the universe that have conditions similar to those on Earth "was a revelation that forever changed our view of the Earth's place in the universe".
Peebles, who was born in 1935, said he has spent 50 years studying his field and noted that it has grown rapidly during that time and that he has "grown with it".
He said such awards can inspire the next generation of scientists but that "you should enter it for the love of the science".
"The awards and prizes, they are charming and very much appreciated, but that's not part of your plans," he said. "You should enter science because you're fascinated by it."
The prize, widely considered to be the most prestigious award a scientist can receive in the field of physics, will be presented to the three physicists at a lavish event in The Concert Hall in Stockholm on Thursday. That is also the anniversary of the 1896 death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish businessman and scientist whose vast fortune funds the prizes.
The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, as it is each year, and is given annually in recognition of those who have made the most outstanding contributions on behalf of all mankind in the field of physics.
Past winners of the physics prize, which has now been awarded to 210 people, have been honored for work in the discovery of X-rays, the properties of nuclear energy, and the understanding of magnetic fields, among other things. Past winners include Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Guglielmo Marconi.
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(China Daily 10/09/2019 page12)
