Nobel Prize winners in physics are announced
Published: Tuesday, Oct 8th 2024, 05:50
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Medicine is followed by physics: the next Nobel Prize winners will be announced in Stockholm on Tuesday. Christoph Gerber, a Swiss citizen, is one of the favorites. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will announce who will be awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Physics at 11.45 a.m. at the earliest.
In the run-up to the event, the data company Clarivate published the favorites for the prices. However, the accuracy of the predictions is modest in each case. Gerber from the University of Basel could therefore be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the development of the atomic force microscope.
Gerber introduced this high-resolution microscope in 1986. With this technique, the object to be examined is not viewed through a lens as with a light microscope. Instead, a kind of feeler scans over it, a tiny tip on a spring bar.
Five years ago, Swiss astronomers Didier Queloz and Michel Mayor won the Nobel Prize in Physics. They discovered the first planet outside our solar system.
Last year, the award went to Hungarian-born scientist Ferenc Krausz, who conducts research in Germany. He received the Nobel Prize together with the French-American physicist Pierre Agostini and the French-Swedish professor Anne L'Huillier for experiments that have given mankind new tools for researching processes in atoms and molecules.
Physics as the first category
The Nobel Prizes go back to the dynamite inventor and prize donor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896). According to Nobel's will, they are intended to honor those who have made the greatest contribution to humanity in the individual prize categories over the past year. The physics category is the first that Nobel mentioned in his will.
The time limit is generally not taken too seriously by the relevant Nobel committees: Many laureates are only honored with the Nobel Prize years or decades after their groundbreaking research.
Since the first prize was awarded in 1901, 224 different researchers have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, including only five women. The US physicist John Bardeen is the only person to have received the award in this category twice.
Nobel Prize in Medicine for US researcher
The Nobel Prize winners for Physiology or Medicine had already been announced on Monday. This year's award goes to the Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, who are being honored for the discovery of microRNA and its role in gene regulation.
This year, all Nobel Prizes are endowed with eleven million Swedish kronor (just under 970,000 euros) per category. If several laureates receive the award together, the prize money is divided among them. The Nobel Prizes are traditionally presented on the anniversary of Nobel's death on December 10.
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