The Nobel Prize, started in 1901 by Alfred Nobel, is awarded in six categories each year — Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Economics, and Peace Prize. On Tuesday, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to John F. Clauser, Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger for “experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.”
Eva Olsson, a member of the Nobel committee said: “Quantum information science is a vibrant and rapidly developing field. It has broad and potential implications in areas such as secure information transfer, quantum computing and sensing technology.”
Also Read | What is quantum mechanics?
“Its origin can be traced to that of quantum mechanics,” she added. “Its predictions have opened doors to another world, and it has also shaken the very foundations of how we interpret measurements.”
Only two Indians have won the Nobel Prize for physics so far, CV Raman in 1930 and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in 1983.
CV Raman was awarded the price for his discovery of the Raman effect, in which light that passes through a material is scattered and the wavelength of the scattered light is changed as it causes an energy state transition in the material’s molecules.
He was the uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics, with William Fowler.
Also Read | Anton Zeilinger on winning Nobel Prize in Physics: ‘Still kind of shocked’
Chandrasekhar was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars.
According to the Nobel Prize website, the award was divided equally between Chandrasekhar “for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars” and Fowler “for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe.”
