The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to a team of scientists based in the U.S. for their landmark discovery in quantum mechanics.
John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis were handed 11 million Swedish Kronor ($1.17 million) for their work.
The trio’s experiments demonstrated that the strange laws and properties of the quantum world can have measurable effects in everyday science.
These discoveries included developing a superconducting electrical system that could pass from one physical state to another. The discovery mimics a ball passing through a wall instead of bouncing back after impact in a process known as “tunneling.”
Martinis, based at University of California Santa Barbara, and his colleagues originally conducted the experiments in the 1980s, with their work still being used in research today.
Each of them will be awarded with gold medals by the king of Sweden
Clarke, a British scientist based at the University of California at Berkeley, described the win as “the surprise of my life.” His colleague, Devoret, a French physicist, is based at Yale University
The winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics were revealed at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
“There is no advanced technology used today that does not rely on quantum mechanics, including mobile phones, cameras…and fibre optic cables,” the Nobel committee said when revealing the winners.
“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises,” says Olle Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics. “It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology,” says Olle Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.
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