A U.S. and a French scientist won the Nobel Prize in Physics for work that paved the way for precision clocks based on quantum physics and may lead to a new type of super-fast computer.
Serge Haroche, 68, from France’s Ecole Normale Superieure, and David J. Wineland, also 68, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, will share the $1.2 million prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Tuesday in Stockholm.
The two scientists’ research has led to the development of laser-cooled atomic clocks, the current state of the art in time and frequency standards, as well as the building blocks of quantum computers, which could solve problems such as breaking the most advanced encryption codes.
“The quantum computer is a dream that many physicists have, a computer that doesn’t work with zeros and ones,” Anne L’Huillier, a member of the Nobel committee, said at a press conference. “It can be much faster than current computers.”
A quantum particle is one that is isolated from everything else. In this situation, an atom or electron or photon takes on strange properties. It can be in two places at once, for example. It behaves in some ways like a wave. But these properties are instantly changed when it interacts with something else, such as when somebody observes it.
Working separately, the two scientists, developed “ingenious laboratory methods” that allowed them to manage and measure and control fragile quantum states, the academy said.
“Their ground-breaking methods have enabled this field of research to take the very first steps towards building a new type of superfast computer based on quantum physics,” the academy said. “The research has also led to the construction of extremely precise clocks that could become the future basis for a new standard of time.”
Haroche is a professor at the College de France and Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris.
Wineland is a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado.
The two researchers use opposite approaches to examine, control and count quantum particles, the academy said.
Wineland traps ions — electrically charged atoms — and measures them with light, while Haroche controls and measures photons, or light particles.
Haroche said he was walking on the street when his mobile phone rang and he saw the Swedish country code.
“I was in the street and passing a bench so I was able to sit down,” he said. “I didn’t see this coming.” He plans to celebrate by drinking champagne, he told the committee.
Wineland holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a master’s degree and doctorate in physics from Harvard.
Haroche, born in Casablanca, Morocco, studied at France’s Ecole Normale before getting a doctorate in Physics.
Last year’s physics prize went to Saul Perlmutter of the University of California at Berkeley, Brian P. Schmidt of the Australian National University in Canberra and Adam G. Riess of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 and the prizes were first handed out the following year. The first Nobel in physics was awarded to Wilhelm Roentgen for his discovery of X-rays
(The AP and Bloomberg contributed to this report.)
