The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to two theoretical physicists, Britain’s Peter Higgs and Belgium’s Francois Englert, for their work in discovering the Higgs boson that could explain how particles acquire their mass.
Scientist Francois Englert (left) and Peter Higgs (right) (Photo: Reuters)
Peter W. Higgs, 84, is at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and François Englert, 80, at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.
In the 1960s, they were among several physicists who described a new theory of how certain particles can acquire mass, which has come to be known as the “Higgs mechanism”.
The Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle”, could explain how the universe’s elementary particles obtained their mass shortly after the Big Bang.
The two scientist will share a prize of 8 million Swedish kroner (about USD1.2 million), awarded at a ceremony in Stockholm in December 10.
The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded 107 times to 196 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2013. John Bardeen is the only Nobel Laureate who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice, in 1956 and 1972.
On October 7, the Nobel Committee announced that the Nobel Prize in Medicine will be awarded to the team of scientists who discoveredhow bubble-like packets or “vesicles” are able to pass through the maze of compartments in a cell and identify the correct location for delivering their cargo of chemicals./.
Đăng ký: VietNam News
