O Nobel Prize This year’s physics course will be announced this Tuesday 3rd at 6:45 a.m. Brazilian time. In addition to the medal and diploma, the laureate takes home a significant amount of money, 11 million Swedish kroner (around R$4.8 million).
This Monday the 2nd Nobel Prize The Physiology and Medicine Prize went to the person who developed the mRNA vaccine technology: the Hungarian biochemist Katalin Kariko and the American immunologist Drew Weissman. The duo’s discoveries, the result of basic science research, led to the development of vaccines against Covid19 in record time in 2020, less than a year after the new coronavirus was identified.
The Physics Prize has been awarded since its inception in 1901 and follows the guidelines left posthumously in the will of the Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel (18331896). Since 1901, 116 physics prizes have been awarded to 222 scientists (prizes can be shared by up to three people).
In addition to the medal, Nobel Prize winners receive a diploma and 11 million Swedish crowns (around R$4.8 million). Photo: Nobel Organization
Last year’s physics prize was awarded to scientists Alain Aspect, John F. Clauserand and Anton Zeilinger for their independently conducted work “which laid the foundation for a new era of quantum technology,” according to the prize’s organizing committee. The research paved the way for a new generation of tamperproof computers and encryption systems.
Of the 225 scientists who received the Nobel Prize in Physics, only four were women. The most famous of these is Marie Curie, who received the prize in 1903 for her research on polonium. She also received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.
A new physics prize for a woman only existed 60 years later, in 1963, when Maria GoeppertMayer was awarded together with two other colleagues. Another 55 years passed until Canadian Donna Strickland won in 2018. Two years later, Andrea Ghez received the prize for the discovery of a supermassive and compact object at the center of our galaxy.
Studying physics appears to be a family affair, data from the Nobel organization shows. Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Courie shared the prize in 1903.
And no fewer than four fatherson pairs were also honored, not necessarily in the same year: in 1915, William Bragg and Lawrence Bragg (who was only 25 and the youngest recipient); 1922 Niels Bohr and 53 years later Aage N. Bohr; 1924 Manne Siegbahn and 1981 Kai Siegbahn; 1906 JJ Thomson and 1937 George Paget Thomson.