2022 Physics Nobel Laureates
The Nobel Prize in Physics is perhaps the most prestigious honor one could receive for their insurmountable works in the field of Physics. The success and glamour of the award during that one day a year is but a mere drop in the ocean of life’s work one has put into. The award is a symbol of respect and validation given to a person whose work benefits humanity to an unfathomable depth. This year Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three prolific minds namely Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger.
Why did they win?
In 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen had a thought process come to fruition in the form of a paradox called the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox (EPR paradox). The conclusions drawn from this paradox were so counterintuitive to the fundaments of Quantum Mechanics that they believed that the basic foundational principle on which Quantum mechanics stands on must be flawed and incomplete.
In a paper written in 1935, Einstein argued that the field of Quantum mechanics was illogical pointing out one of the principles of this field
“Measurement of one particle could instantaneously affect the measurement of another particle, no matter the distance of separation between them.”
He argued his presumption about the field to be true, stating
“God does not play dice with the universe.”
But little did Einstein know that the Quantum Weirdness is even weirder than what he could have imagined and these gentlemen’s work proved it. All three have worked independently to explore and solve the paradoxes in this field over the past 50 years. They confirmed the reality of an effect that Einstein had considered to be unworthy of attention as ‘Spooky action at a distance.’ They proved that even though the particles are separated light years away from each other, one’s measurement is going to affect the measurement of the other.
Their extraordinary works with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science rightfully deserves to be explored. Here is a brief look through their professional life:
Alain Aspect
His academic career speaks for itself when it comes to his reputation and his achievements in the field of Physics. Alain Aspect completed his Bachelor's degree from École Normale Supérieure de Cachan (ENS Cachan). From Université d’Orsay he completed his master’s and Ph.D. He passed his Civil service examination in Physics in 1969 and also worked as a teacher in Cameron from 1971–74. Currently, He is a senior scientist at the Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l’Institut d’Optique and also a Professor at École Polytechnique.
John F. Clauser
He received his Bachelor's degree in Physics from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1964. After his undergraduate degree, he continued on with his studies for the graduate program in the field of Physics at Columbia University. He got his Masters's degree in 1966 and received his Ph.D. in 1969. He worked as a senior scientist at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in the 1980s. He also worked as a member of the Physics department at the University of California, Berkley in 1990. He has been self-employed and has been working as a private consultant since 1997.
Anton Zeilinger
He attended the University of Vienna from 1963–71 until he got his doctorate in Physics. In 1979, he completed his habilitation to teach at the Vienna University of Technology. He also served as a visiting associate professor at MIT from 1981–83. During the 1980s he accepted the professorship at several other institutions such as the Technical University of Munich and the University of Innsbruck. Since 2013, he has been a professor of Physics emeritus at the University of Vienna and a senior scientist at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Contributed by Rishab Karki and curated by the author.
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