2022 Nobel Prize In Physics
Nobel Prize in physics awarded for breakthroughs in quantum mechanics
By Joel Achenbach
Updated October 4, 2022 at 8:05 a.m. EDT|Published October 4, 2022 at 6:17 a.m. EDT
0:36 / 1:04
Physicists John F. Clauser, Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger received the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics on Oct. 4, for their research in quantum mechanics. (Video: AP)
The 2022 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to three physicists for their pioneering experiments in quantum information science, a burgeoning field that could revolutionize computing, cryptography and the transfer of information via what is known as “quantum teleportation.”
John F. Clauser, 79, an American physicist in Walnut Creek, Calif., was laureated along with Alain Aspect of Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique in France and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna in Austria.
“It was very kind to receive your phone call just about an hour ago. I’m still kind of shocked,” Zeilinger said in an interview conducted during the news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobels.
When asked by a reporter if, in 10,000 years, it will be possible to teleport one’s own body to another place, he answered that the teleportation of people is “science fiction.”
Quantum mechanics is an area of physics going back more than a century, and has already yielded applications that people use in everyday life, from transistors to lasers. But the potential applications of the principles of quantum mechanics appear limitless.
The physicists honored Tuesday found ways to confirm what had been previously theorized, including the “entanglement” of photons (particles of light).
In a press release, the Academy explained the phenomenon, which Albert Einstein famously referred to as “spooky action at a distance”: “What happens to one particle in an entangled pair determines what happens to the other, even if they are really too far apart to affect each other. The laureates’ development of experimental tools has laid the foundation for a new era of quantum technology.”
The experiments in quantum entanglement cited by the Academy began more than half a century ago. In 1972, Clauser and a colleague, Stuart Freedman — who died in 2012 — used an apparatus that emitted two entangled photons in a manner consistent with predictions of quantum mechanics, according to the Academy. As a French doctoral student, Aspect improved the efficiency of the experiments and the clarity of the results, and Zeilinger then explored systems that used more than two entangled particles, the Academy explained.
“These experiments have probed the very foundations of the quantum world, and have brought into focus the most striking and challenging aspects of quantum physics,” physicist Stephen Bartlett of the University of Sydney and the lead editor of the American Physical Society’s quantum journal, said Tuesday by email. “Specifically, they demonstrate that ‘entangled’ quantum particles behave in a way completely at odds with our notions of how independent, separate objects should behave.”
Asked after the news conference in Stockholm about the meaning of quantum mechanics, Thors Hans Hansson, a theoretical physicist and member of the Nobel committee for physics, told reporters, “That is something you never get finished with. You always wonder what is it, how do you understand it and you try to go deeper and deeper into it.”
Story continues below advertisement
The Academy’s physics prize tends to rotate through the many disciplines within the sprawling physics enterprise, which covers everything from subatomic particles to the origin of the universe. Last year the prize focused on climate change, with the prize going to Syukuro Manabe of the United States and Klaus Hasselmann of Germany for research on the human influence on climate, and to Giorgio Parisi, an Italian theorist whose work described fluctuating systems at different physical scales.
In 2020, black holes were the focus of the Academy, which awarded prizes to American astrophysicists Andrea Ghez of the United States and Reinhard Genzel of Germany, as well as the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
2022 Nobel Prize In Physics
Nobel Prize in physics awarded for breakthroughs in quantum mechanics
By Joel Achenbach
Updated October 4, 2022 at 8:05 a.m. EDT|Published October 4, 2022 at 6:17 a.m. EDT
0:36 / 1:04
Physicists John F. Clauser, Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger received the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics on Oct. 4, for their research in quantum mechanics. (Video: AP)
The 2022 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to three physicists for their pioneering experiments in quantum information science, a burgeoning field that could revolutionize computing, cryptography and the transfer of information via what is known as “quantum teleportation.”
John F. Clauser, 79, an American physicist in Walnut Creek, Calif., was laureated along with Alain Aspect of Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique in France and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna in Austria.
“It was very kind to receive your phone call just about an hour ago. I’m still kind of shocked,” Zeilinger said in an interview conducted during the news conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobels.
When asked by a reporter if, in 10,000 years, it will be possible to teleport one’s own body to another place, he answered that the teleportation of people is “science fiction.”
Quantum mechanics is an area of physics going back more than a century, and has already yielded applications that people use in everyday life, from transistors to lasers. But the potential applications of the principles of quantum mechanics appear limitless.
The physicists honored Tuesday found ways to confirm what had been previously theorized, including the “entanglement” of photons (particles of light).
In a press release, the Academy explained the phenomenon, which Albert Einstein famously referred to as “spooky action at a distance”: “What happens to one particle in an entangled pair determines what happens to the other, even if they are really too far apart to affect each other. The laureates’ development of experimental tools has laid the foundation for a new era of quantum technology.”
The experiments in quantum entanglement cited by the Academy began more than half a century ago. In 1972, Clauser and a colleague, Stuart Freedman — who died in 2012 — used an apparatus that emitted two entangled photons in a manner consistent with predictions of quantum mechanics, according to the Academy. As a French doctoral student, Aspect improved the efficiency of the experiments and the clarity of the results, and Zeilinger then explored systems that used more than two entangled particles, the Academy explained.
“These experiments have probed the very foundations of the quantum world, and have brought into focus the most striking and challenging aspects of quantum physics,” physicist Stephen Bartlett of the University of Sydney and the lead editor of the American Physical Society’s quantum journal, said Tuesday by email. “Specifically, they demonstrate that ‘entangled’ quantum particles behave in a way completely at odds with our notions of how independent, separate objects should behave.”
Asked after the news conference in Stockholm about the meaning of quantum mechanics, Thors Hans Hansson, a theoretical physicist and member of the Nobel committee for physics, told reporters, “That is something you never get finished with. You always wonder what is it, how do you understand it and you try to go deeper and deeper into it.”
Story continues below advertisement
The Academy’s physics prize tends to rotate through the many disciplines within the sprawling physics enterprise, which covers everything from subatomic particles to the origin of the universe. Last year the prize focused on climate change, with the prize going to Syukuro Manabe of the United States and Klaus Hasselmann of Germany for research on the human influence on climate, and to Giorgio Parisi, an Italian theorist whose work described fluctuating systems at different physical scales.
In 2020, black holes were the focus of the Academy, which awarded prizes to American astrophysicists Andrea Ghez of the United States and Reinhard Genzel of Germany, as well as the British mathematical physicist Roger Penrose.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.