The Noble Prize for Physics - 2018

The Nobel Prize is a set of annual international awards bestowed in several categories by Swedish and Norwegian institutions in recognition of academic, cultural, or scientific advances. The will of the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel established the five Nobel prizes in 1895.

The Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious award that learned people are honored with for their incredible contributions in various fields. On October 2, 2018, the three American, French and Canadian laser scientists won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics. The award was given to them for breakthroughs in laser technology that have turned light beams into precision tools for everything from eye surgery to micro-machining. The trio includes the first woman to win nobel prize in physics in the last 55 years. Dr. Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in the United States won half of the prize for inventing “optical tweezers” while Frenchman Gerard Mourou, who also has US citizenship, and Canada’s Donna Strickland shared the other half for work on high-intensity lasers.  On the other hand, Dr. Strickland, of the University of Waterloo, Canada, becomes only the third woman to win a Nobel Prize for physics. Dr. Marie Curie won in 1903 and Dr. Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963. After winning the prize, Dr. Strickland stated that she is excited as a woman for her achievement and she expects that in future more women will do better in the field of physics. Physics is male dominated field since always. The field has seen minimal contributions from women. Dr. Strickland is also the first female Nobel laureate in any field in three years. In order to strike a balance, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to take the initiative. They have informed that they would seek to more actively encourage nominations of women researchers.  The inventions by the three scientists date back to the mid-1980sand over the years they have revolutionised laser physics. The prize was worth nine million Swedish crown (S$1.37 million). The academy informed that the research would indeed open up unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial and medical applications. Dr. Ashkin’s work was based on the realisation that the pressure of a beam of light could push microscopic objects and trap them in position whereas Dr. Mourou and Dr. Strickland’s research emphasized on generating the most intense laser pulses that have ever been created by humans, opening the way for the precision instruments that in use today majorly for corrective eye surgery and industrial applications. The nobel prize for physics is the second nobel prize in the present year after the first one that was given away on October 1, 2018 for discoveries about how to harness and manipulate the immune system to fight cancer.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/nobel-prize-in-physics-2018-awarded-to-arthur-ashken-gerard-mourou-donna-strickland