STOCKHOLM: Scientists have won the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics for their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the black hole, the award-giving body said on Tuesday.
Britain’s Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel of Germany and US scientist Andrea Ghez have won the 114th Nobel prize in physics.
Penrose, professor at the University of Oxford, won half the prize for his work using mathematics to prove that black holes are a direct consequence of the general theory of relativity.
Genzel, of the Max Planck Institute and University of California, Berkeley, and Ghez, at the University of California, Los Angeles, shared the other half for discovering that an invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of stars at the centre of our galaxy.
Physics is the second of this year Nobels to be awarded after three scientists won the medicine prize for their discovery of Hepatitis. Among the Nobel prizes, physics has often dominated the spotlight with past awards going to scientific legends such as Albert Einstein for fundamental discoveries about the make-up of the universe including the general theory of relativity.
“The discoveries of this year’s Laureates have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects,” David Haviland, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said on awarding the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.1 million) prize. “But these exotic objects still pose many questions that beg for answers and motivate future research.”
Ghez is only the fourth woman to win the physics prize. “I hope I can inspire other young women into the field. It is a field that has so many pleasures, and if you are passionate about the science there is so much that can be done,” she said.
This year’s awards occur under the long shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic that has curtailed much of the usual festivities surrounding the prizes and sent the scientific world racing to develop a vaccine and treatment.
The Nobel prize in chemistry will be announced on Wednesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
BREAKING NEWS:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2020 #NobelPrize in Physics with one half to Roger Penrose and the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez. pic.twitter.com/MipWwFtMjz— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2020
