Anton Zeilinger was “still kind of shocked” after winning the Nobel Prize in Physics on Monday. He shared the award with three fellow scientists — Alain Aspect and John F. Clauser. “But it is a very positive shock”, the Austrian scientist said.

Anton Zeilinger, currently based at the University of Vienna, has reportedly been the frontrunner for a Nobel Prize in Physics for more than a decade. The science trio also won the 2010 Wolf Prize in Israel, which is considered to be a stepping stone for the Nobel Prize.

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“This prize is an encouragement to young people – the prize would not be possible without more than 100 young people who worked with me over the years”, Zeilinger said in a statement after winning the award. Zeilinger spoke to the reporters at the conference via phone.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The award was given to them for discovering the way that particles known as photons can be linked, or “entangled,” with each other even when they are separated by large distances.

“Quantum information science is a vibrant and rapidly developing field,” said Eva Olsson, a member of the Nobel committee. “It has broad and potential implications in areas such as secure information transfer, quantum computing and sensing technology.”

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“Its origin can be traced to that of quantum mechanics,” she said. “Its predictions have opened doors to another world, and it has also shaken the very foundations of how we interpret measurements.”

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics was also shared by a group of three scientists — Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi. They worked on explaining and predicting complex forces of nature, thereby expanding our understanding of climate change.