Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Gauran K. Hanson said at a ceremony in Stockholm on Tuesday that this year’s prize was about “the dark secrets of the universe”.
Penrose “is a strong predictor of the general principle of relativity for the discovery that the formation of black holes.” Ganzel and Gage were “honored for discovering a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.”
Professor Gaz, of the University of California, Los Angeles, is the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. It was awarded to a woman in 2018 for the first time in 55 years.
“I think today I am more excited about teaching my job,” he said after the announcement. “Because it is so important to persuade the younger generation that their ability to inquire, and their ability to think, is crucial to the future of the world.”
Ghez added, “I am delighted to receive the award and I will take the responsibility associated with it very seriously, as you said I am the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize. I hope I can inspire other young women in this field.”
Marie Curie, the only woman to be twice honored by the Nobel Committee, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Penrose, a professor at Oxford University, worked with fellow physicist Stephen Hawking to merge Einstein’s theory of relativity into quantum theory, suggesting that space and time would begin with the Big Bang and end in black holes.
Genzel is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced on Wednesday, followed by the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, and the Prize in Economic Sciences next Monday.
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