London CNN –
Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievements in quantum mechanics – the study of the behavior of particles and atoms – the organizing committee announced this Tuesday in Stockholm.
The trio won “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell’s inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.”
Each winner has conducted experiments with “entangled quantum states”, which see two particles behaving as one and affecting each other, even though they are separate.
Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger were born in France, California and Austria respectively. His discoveries have added to and advanced the work of John Stewart Bell, whose theorem changed the scientific world’s understanding of quantum mechanics.
The trio’s work “has laid the foundation for a new era of quantum technology,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
It confirmed that “quantum mechanics really has utility in real-world applications,” Michael Moloney, director general of the American Institute of Physics, told CNN.
“It’s not just this theory to explain the whole counterintuitive nature of the quantum world. It showed that by measuring some of the predictions we can engage in applications like quantum computing and quantum cryptography.”
Moloney said the trio’s discoveries “will potentially change our world in terms of really practical things, like being able to do quantum computing; solutions that will help us with everything from vaccines to technology to weather forecasting.”
“There are so many different kinds of calculations that we can do using quantum information science that we can’t do with classical computers,” he added.
Tuesday’s winners have been highly regarded among academics for several decades. Analytics firm Clarivate said Tuesday it had predicted that Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger would win a Nobel Prize in 2011, “based on a series of widely cited and independently published papers that appeared in the 1960s, 1980s and 90 respectively”.
“Our selection also recognized the obvious importance of its experimental verification of ‘spooky action at a distance,’ a quantum mechanical phenomenon that strains our imaginations,” the company said.
The three scientists will share the prize of 10 million Swedish kroner ($915,000).
Throughout the week, the prestigious Nobel Prizes are being awarded; On Monday, Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo won the medicine prize for pioneering the use of ancient DNA to uncover secrets about human evolution.
Nobel prizes in the fields of chemistry, literature and peace will be announced later this week, with the 2022 list concluding on Monday with the economics prize.