And the Nobel for Physics goes to:
Archi Banerjee
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded jointly to James Peebles at Princeton University for “theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology” and to Michel Mayor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland and Didier Queloz at the University of Cambridge, UK for the first discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar type star.
The Nobel in Physics: a brief background
The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who have made the most outstanding contributions for mankind in the field of physics. The first such prize was awarded in 1901. Last year’s prize was awarded for innovations in the field of laser physics, and the year before that, for the discovery of gravitational waves. This year’s prize has been awarded for “improving our understanding of the evolution of the universe and earth’s place in the cosmos.”
On this year’s laureates:
James Peebles is a theoretical cosmologist working at Princeton University, who is largely credited for the development of physical cosmology post 1970s, with major theoretical contributions to primordial nucleosynthesis, dark matter, the cosmic microwave background, and structure formation. The Nobel awarded to him is the recognition of his efforts in establishing cosmology as a separate, quantitative branch of physics. James Peebles’s “theoretical framework, developed over two decades, is the foundation of our modern understanding of the universe’s history, from the Big Bang to the present day,” said the official Twitter handle of the Nobel Prize.
In 1995, astrophysicist Michel Mayor and astronomer Didier Queloz discovered the first exoplanet — a planet outside our solar system — orbiting a solar-type star, 51 Pegasi. The duo built a new type of spectrograph (a device used to precisely measure the frequencies of light coming from a star) to accomplish this aim, called ELODIE. Their principle behind the detention of the exoplanet rested on the Doppler Effect. As a planet orbits the star, it should subtly pull the star around in a circle. If observed edge-on, the star’s motion could theoretically be revealed by the Doppler effect, similar to how the pitch of a siren grows higher when approaching and lower when moving away. The light from the star should also shift back-and-forth as it moves in its little circle.
Their reaction to the news
“My advice to young people entering science: you should do it for the love of science … You should enter science because you are fascinated by it,” said James Peebles on Tuesday, soon after the announcement.
Reacting to the news, Prof Queloz told BBC News: “It’s unbelievable,” adding: “Since the discovery 25 years ago, everyone kept telling me: ‘It’s a Nobel Prize discovery’. And I say: ‘Oh yeah, yeah, maybe, whatever.’”
But in the intervening years, he more-or-less “forgot” about the discovery: “I don’t even think about it,” he said. “So frankly, yes, it came as a surprise to me. I understand the impact of the discovery, but there’s such great physics being done in the world, I thought, it’s not for us, we will never have it.
“I’m a bit shocked right now, I’m still trying to digest what it means.”
