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STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Reuters) -
Canadian-American cosmologist James Peebles and Swiss scientists
Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz won the 2019 Nobel Prize for
Physics on Tuesday for revealing the wonder of the evolution of
the universe and discovering planets orbiting distant suns.
Peebles, of Princeton University in the United States, was
awarded half of the 9-million-Swedish-crown ($910,000) prize
while Mayor and Queloz, from Switzerland's University of Geneva
and Britain's Cambridge University, shared the rest.
"This year's Nobel laureates have painted a picture of our
universe far stranger and more wonderful than we could ever have
imagined," Ulf Danielsson, a professor and member of the Nobel
Committee for Physics, told reporters as the prize was
announced.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the scientists'
research had "transformed our ideas about the cosmos".
Mayor and Queloz said it was "simply extraordinary" to be
awarded a Nobel for what they described as "the most exciting
discovery of our entire career".
Peebles thanked the Nobel committee for the award but said his
advice to young people wanting to go into science would be not
to be lured by the prospect of such prizes.
"The awards and prizes, well, they are charming and very much
appreciated, but...you should enter science because you are
fascinated by it. That's what I did," he told reporters via
telephone after the award announcement.
Physics is the second Nobel to be awarded this week; William
Kaelin, Gregg Semenza and Peter Ratcliffe shared the medicine
prize on Monday for discoveries about how cells respond to
oxygen levels.
Among the Nobels, physics has often taken centre stage with
winners featuring some of the greatest names in science like
Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Niels Bohr, as well as
ground-breaking inventors such as radio pioneer Guglielmo
Marconi.
Using theoretical tools and calculations, Peebles was able to
interpret trace radiation from the infancy of the universe and
so discover new physical processes, the academy said.
It said that Mayor and Queloz announced the first discovery of a
planet outside our own solar system, a so-called "exoplanet",
starting a revolution in astronomy. Over 4,000 exoplanets have
since been found in the Milky Way.
"With numerous projects planned to start searching for
exoplanets, we may eventually find an answer to the eternal
question of whether other life is out there," it said.
For a graphic of Nobel laureates:
https://graphics.reuters.com/NOBEL-PRIZE/010050ZC27H/index.html
(Reporting by Niklas Pollard, Simon Johnson, Anna Ringstrom,
Johannes Hellstrom, Johan Ahlander, Helena Soderpalm and Colm
Fulton in Stockholm; Writing by Kate Kelland; Editing by Mark
Heinrich)
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