The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has announced three winners, including a German.
The
Nobel Prize in Physics
is the highest honor for physicists.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners of the
2020 Nobel Prize in Physics
on Tuesday
.
There are three winners, including a researcher from Bavaria.
Update from October 6th, 4.40 p.m.:
Chancellor
Angela Merkel
has
congratulated
the German astrophysicist
Reinhard Genzel
on being awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics
.
As government
spokesman
Steffen Seibert
announced on Twitter on Tuesday, the Chancellor praised Genzel's “groundbreaking achievement in the exploration of black holes”.
The director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching receives the Nobel Prize together with the British researcher Roger Penrose and the US scientist Andrea Ghezin.
According to Seibert, Merkel also expressly congratulated them on their success.
Chancellor #Merkel: “A great recognition for your groundbreaking achievement in the exploration of black holes: Congratulations on the Physics # Nobel Prize, Reinhard #Genzel.
Congratulations to Andrea #Ghez and Roger #Penrose too! “Https://t.co/t2lwfgaBGi
- Steffen Seibert (@RegSsprecher) October 6, 2020
Federal Research Minister
Anja Karliczek also
congratulated the award winners.
It was "a very special day for all of us," she said in Berlin.
Ultimately, the honor for Genzel is also “an award for the entire science location Germany”.
Karliczek described the research into black holes as "fascinating".
While Penrose provided theoretical foundations, Genzel and Ghezin had used
telescopes
"with tremendous representational power" for
25 years to
get closer to
the secrets of
astronomical phenomena
.
By awarding all three researchers, the Nobel Prize Committee also recognized that science works best with the help of cooperation and division of labor.
First announcement
: Stockholm - Half of this year's Nobel Prize for Physics goes to
Roger Penrose
(Great Britain) and the other half to
Reinhard Genzel
(Germany, Garching near Munich) and
Andrea Ghez
(USA) for research on black holes.
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
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday in Stockholm.
Reinhard Genzel
is director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching near Munich.
Roger Penrose
(born 1931) receives the award for discovering that
black hole formation is
a robust prediction of general relativity.
Penrose invented ingenious mathematical methods to research Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, as announced by the Nobel Committee.
He has shown that this theory leads to the formation of black holes, those monsters in time and space that capture everything that comes close to them.
Reinhard Genzel (born 1952) and
Andrea Ghez
(born 1965) are honored
for the discovery of a supermassive compact object in the center of our galaxy
.
Genzel and Ghez discovered that an invisible and extremely heavy object dominates the orbits of the stars in the center of our galaxy.
A supermassive black hole is the only currently known explanation for this.
Nobel Prize in Physics - Highest award for physicists
The highest award for physicists this year is endowed with a total of ten million kroner (around 950,000 euros) - one million kroner more than last year.
Since it was first awarded in 1901, 215 researchers have now received the Nobel Prize in Physics, including four women.
2020 Andrea Ghez
2018
Donna Strickland
1963
Maria Goeppert-Mayer
1903
Marie Curie
(who was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911)
The American
John Bardeen
got it twice.
Last year, the US cosmologist James Peebles and the Swiss exoplanet explorers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz shared the award for their groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of the cosmos.
The
German
physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen received
the
first Nobel Prize
in
Physics
in 1901
for the discovery of the X-rays named after him.
(dpa, AFP)
List of rubric lists: © M.Weiss / NASA / Chandra X-ray Observatory / AP / dpa