Who is Anton Zeilinger?

Anton Zeilinger was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday. He split the award 1/3 with two fellow scientists — Alain Aspect and John F. Clauser. The award was announced at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Secretary General Hans Ellegren.

Zeilinger was given the award “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”, the Nobel Prize committee said.

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Who is Anton Zeilinger?

Anton Zeilinger was born on May 20, 1945 in the Austrian town of Ried im Innkreis. He completed his early education in 1963. He then went on to pursue a degree in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Vienna.

In 1971, the completed his Ph.D under the guidance of  Prof. H. Rauch. Anton Zeilinger wrote his thesis on “Neutron Depolarization in Dysprosium Single Crystals”, according to his CV available on his university’s website.

Anton Zeilinger has been a professor at the University of Vienna since 2013. She also simultaneously works for the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information as a senior scientist.

Zeilinger kicked off his professional career at the Atominstitut Vienna, where he worked as a research assistant under Professor Helmut Rauch. He later became an assistant professor in 1979.

For his Nobel Prize, Zeilinger researched entangled quantum states, the committee said. “His research group has demonstrated a phenomenon called quantum teleportation, which makes it possible to move a quantum state from one particle to one at a distance”, it added.

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Zeilinger has figured in Nobel speculation for more than a decade. In 2010 they won the Wolf Prize in Israel, seen as a possible precursor to the Nobel.

Other awards won by Zeilinger include Micius Quantum Prize of the Micius Quantum Foundation, Cozzarelli Prize of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Medal of the Senate of the Czech Republic and Great Cross of Merit with Star of the Federal Republic of Germany.