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Two of the physics Nobel Prize winners: Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez
Photo:
Niklas Elmehed / Nobel Media
The Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm has announced who will receive the Nobel Prize in Physics this year: half of the award goes to the Briton Roger Penrose and the other half to the German Reinhard Genzel and the US scientist Andrea Ghez.
All researchers are honored for work on black holes.
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.
The German Genzel was born in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe in 1952 and is today director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching near Munich.
He and Ghez (born 1965) independently discovered a supermassive compact object in the center of our galaxy in the 1990s.
Monsters in time and space
The two researchers 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, the astronomers concluded.
Roger Penrose (born 1931) receives the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering that the formation of black holes is a robust prediction of general relativity.
The Nobel Committee announced that he invented ingenious mathematical methods to research Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.
Penrose has shown that Einstein's theory leads to the formation of black holes, those monsters in time and space that capture everything that comes close to them.
Fourth woman awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics
Ghez is the fourth woman to ever be honored with the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Before that, Marie Curie (1903), Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1963) and Donna Strickland (2018) were the only female Nobel Prize winners in physics.
Curie received the Nobel Prize for research into radioactivity, Goeppert-Mayer invented the shell model of the atomic nucleus.
Strickland received the award because she made significant progress in laser physics.
So far, twelve women have received the Nobel Prize in medicine and five in chemistry.
"I hope I can inspire young women for the subject," said Ghez when she was connected by phone during the announcement of the award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.
There is so much more to explore than black holes.
Ghez emphasized the importance of science for humanity as a whole.
She particularly enjoys teaching at the university.
The fact that the young generation can ask questions and think is simply decisive for the future of the world.
The Physics Nobel Prize has been awarded since 1901.
The German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen received the first award for his discovery of the "X-rays", later named after him.
Since then, 212 researchers have received the award.
Last year James Peebles (Canada / USA) received half of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his fundamental knowledge of the development of the universe.
The other went to the Swiss Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, who discovered the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star (read more here).
Nobel Prize in Medicine for Hepatitis C Researchers
On Monday, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to virologists Harvey J. Alter from the USA, Michael Houghton from Great Britain and Charles M. Rice, also from the USA.
According to the Nobel Committee, they made a significant contribution to detecting and eliminating the hepatitis C virus.
The resulting blood tests and medication would have saved the lives of millions of people (read more here).
The winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced on Wednesday.
The next day, this year's Nobel Prize for Literature was announced.
On Friday it will be announced who will receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize.
The spectacle ends next Monday with the Nobel Prize in Economics donated by the Swedish Reichsbank.
The ceremonial presentation of the awards traditionally takes place on December 10th, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel.
However, due to the corona pandemic, the event in Stockholm was canceled, and the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo is to take place on a smaller scale.
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jme / dpa / AFP
