Nobel Prize in Physics 2020, awarded scientists who study black holes: Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Roger penrose, “For having discovered that the formation of a black hole is a clear prediction of the general theory of relativity” and in conjunction with Reinhard genzel me Andrea Ghez “For the discovery of a supermassive compact object in the center of our galaxy.” The Nobel Committee awarded this prize for the discovery of “the darkest mysteries of the universe.” Penrose worked extensively with cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who died two years ago.

BREAKING NEWS:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award 2020 #Nobel Prize in Physics with half for Roger Penrose and the other half jointly for Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez. pic.twitter.com/MipWwFtMjz

– The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2020

Penrose (left in photo), who is also a mathematician and philosopher, earned his Ph.D. from Cambridge University and has conducted research at Princeton and Syracuse. He was a researcher at King’s College (1961-63) and later Professor of Applied Mathematics at Birkbeck College in London, he taught at Oxford. During his career he has obtained awards and recognitions, among which are: Eddington Medal along with Hawking, the Royal Medal, the Dirac Medal, the Einstein Medal, the Naylor Prize, and the De Morgan Medal (2004). Order of merit in 2000, he received honorary degrees from various universities.

Genzel was born in 1952 in Germany, in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe. He graduated in 1978 from the German University of Bonn e then he directed the Institute Max planck for Extraterrestrial Physics. She later moved to the United States to teach at the University of California in Berkeley. The youngest of the winners, Andrea Ghez, was born in 1965 in the United States, in New York, and in 1992 she graduated from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She currently teaches at the University of California at Los Angeles.

The prestigious award was given to those who study “the most exotic phenomena in the Universe”: Penrose demonstrated that the General Theory of Relativity leads to the formation of black holes, and while Genzel and Ghez found that a An invisible and extremely heavy object governs the orbits of the stars. in the center of our galaxy. A supermassive black hole is the only currently known explanation, emphasizes the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which this year had to announce the most prestigious scientific recognition online due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded half of the SEK 10 million to “Roger Penrose, who used ingenious mathematical methods to show that black holes are a direct consequence of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Einstein himself did not believe that black holes really existed, these super-heavy monsters that capture everything that goes into them. Nothing can escape, not even light ”emphasizes the Academy.

“In January 1965, ten years after Einstein’s death, Roger Penrose showed that black holes can form and described them in detail; in their hearts, black holes hide a singularity in which all known laws of nature cease. His groundbreaking article is still considered the most important contribution to the theory of general relativity since Einstein, ”reports the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The other two Nobel Prize-winning scientists, tied for the other half, the other SEK 5 million, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, who “each head a ’90, centered on a region called Sagittarius A * in the center of our galaxy. “” The orbits of the brightest stars closest to the center of the Milky Way have been mapped with increasing precision. The measurements of these two groups agree, both find an extremely heavy and invisible object that attracts the jumble of stars, making them run at dizzying speeds. About four million solar masses are grouped in a region no larger than our solar system. “

A black hole, which ‘weighs’ around 4 million solar masses, all concentrated in a single region no larger than our solar system. “His work is pioneering, it has provided us with the greatest evidence ever gathered from a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. “Using the world’s largest telescopes, Genzel and Ghez were able to see through huge clouds of interstellar gas and dust, created new techniques to compensate for the distortion caused by our atmosphere, and built unique instruments. , dedicating himself entirely to this long-term research. “I felt doubt, but also emotion.”Said Professor Ghez, the fourth woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics, when asked what it felt like to notice an unknown object in the Milky Way. “Never before has the importance of studying science and world phenomena been understood. I am honored to have received the award, I gladly accept the responsibility of inspiring other women to study in the field. “