A rchive Date
[ 10-10-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Sweden ]

http://canoe.ca/CNEWSScience0010/10_nobels-ap.html

Nobels awarded

By KIM GAMEL

-- The Associated Press

October 10, 2000

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- A Russian and two U.S.-based researchers won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for work that helped create modern information technology, leading to everyday devices like pocket calculators, CD players and cell phones. Also Tuesday, the chemistry prize went to two Americans and a Japanese scientist for their discoveries that plastic can be made electrically conductive. The discovery by winners Alan J. Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa have led to improvements in film, TV screens and windows, the Royal

Swedish Academy of Sciences

said.

In physics, Zhores I. Alferov of the A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Herbert Kroemer, a German-born researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara, will share half the prize for work in developing technology used in satellite communications and cellular phones. Jack Kilby, 76, of Texas Instruments in Dallas will get the other half for his part in the invention and development of the integrated circuit, the forerunner of the microchip, and as a co-inventor of the pocket calculator.

The prize this year is worth $915,000. Hermann Grimmeiss, a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

, said the work of the three men had been invaluable in the development of modern information technology.

"Without Kilby it would not have been possible to build the personal computers we have today, and without Alferov it would not be possible to transfer all the information from satellites down to the earth or to have so many telephone lines between cities," Grimmeiss said. The academy in this year's selections cited scientists for their work in a practical realm instead of more esoteric branches of physics like subatomic particles and quantum physics that have been honored the previous two years.

Kroemer and Alferov, 70, were cited as being early leaders in semiconductor research that has been used in mobile phones and satellite links. The same technology is used to build laser diodes, which drive the flow of information on the Internet and are found in compact disc players, bar-code readers and laser pointers. Kilby's work led to the microchip, which has "led to our environment being flooded with small electronic apparatuses, anything from electronic watches and TV games to mini-calculators and personal computers," according to the citation.

Reached by phone at his institute in St. Petersburg, Alferov said, "My colleagues and I are now going to uncork a bottle of champagne and celebrate." Asked whether he expected the honor, he said, "Not really, but maybe a very little bit."

The three winners were cited for work done independently. In chemistry, laureates Heeger, MacDiarmid and Shirakawa will share the $915,000 prize for the "discovery and development of conductive polymers," according to the academy's citation.

Heeger, 64, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, MacDiarmid, 73, of the University of Pennsylvania and Shirakawa, 64, of the University of Tsukuba learned that plastics can, with modifications, be made to conduct electricity as well as insulate. The three developed conductive polymers that have been used to reduce static electricity and interference on photographic film and computer screens. The plastics have also been used in the development of new color television screens and "smart windows" that reflect sunlight.

A week of Nobel awards started Monday with the naming of Arvid Carlsson of Sweden, Paul Greengard and Eric Kandel of the United States, as the winners of this year's medicine prize for discoveries about how messages are transmitted between brain cells, leading to treatments of Parkinson's disease and depression. The economics prize was to be announced Wednesday and the literature prize on Thursday in Stockholm. The coveted peace prize will be awarded Friday in Oslo, Norway.

Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite, endowed the physics, chemistry, literature, medicine and peace prizes in his will but left only vague guidelines for the selection committees. The economics prize was first awarded in 1969.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

, which also chooses the physics and economics winners, invited nominations from previous recipients and experts in the fields before whittling down its choices, but deliberations are conducted in strict privacy.

Ahmed Zewail, an Egyptian-American, won last year's chemistry prize for pioneering the use of rapid-fire laser flashes that illuminate the motion of atoms in a molecule. The prizes always are presented Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Recent Nobel winners in physics

1999: Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus J.G. Veltman, Netherlands, for their theoretical work on the structure and motion of subatomic particles.
1998: Robert C. Laughlin, United States; Horst L. Stoermer, Germany; Daniel C. Tsui, United States, for discovering a new form of quantum fluid that gives more profound insights into the general inner structure and dynamics of matter.
1997: Steven Chu and William Phillips of the United States and Claude Cohen Tannoudji of France, for their work in cooling and trapping atoms with laser light.
1996: David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff, Robert C. Richardson, United States, for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3.
1995: Martin L. Perl, United States; Frederick Reines, United States, for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics.
1994: Bertram N. Brockhouse, Canada; Clifford G. Shull, United States, for developing methods of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter.
1993: Russell A. Hulse, Joseph H. Taylor, Jr., United States, for finding a twin star: a binary pulsar that helped prove Einstein's theory of relativity.
1992: Georges Charpak, France, for developing particle detectors and the multiwire proportional chamber.
1991: Pierres-Gilles de Gennes, France, for developing systems for analyzing complex matter such as liquid crystals and polymers.
1990: Jerome I. Friedman, Henry W. Kendall, United States; Richard E. Taylor, Canada, for investigating the scattering of electrons and refining models of quarks.
1989: Norman Ramsey, Hans Dehmelt, United States; Wolfgang Paul, West Germany, for inventing methods used in atomic clocks and ion trap techniques.
1988: Leon Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, Jack Steinberger, United States, for developing the neutrino beam and discovering new types of neutrinos.
1987: Georg Bednorz, West Germany; Alexander Muller, Switzerland, for work revealing superconductivity in ceramics.
1986: Ernst Ruska, Gerd Binnig, West Germany; Heinrich Rohrer, Switzerland, for designing the electron and scanning tunneling microscopes.
1985: Klaus von Klitzing, West Germany, for discovering the quantized Hall effect.
1984: Carlo Rubbia, Italy; Simon van der Meer, Netherlands, for contributions to discovery of field particles involved in weak interaction.
1983: Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, William Fowler, United States, for theories explaining the chemical and physical process between stars and the universe.
1982: Kenneth G. Wilson, United States, for developing the theory of phase transitions.
1981: Nicolaas Bloembergen, Arthur L. Schawlow, United States; Kai M. Siegbahn, Sweden, for contributing to development of laser and electron spectroscopy.
1980: James W. Cronin, Val L. Fitch, United States, for discovering new aspects of neutral K-mesons.
1979: Sheldon L. Glashow, Steven Weinberg, United States; Salam Abdus, Pakistan, for deepening the understanding of unified electromagnetic interaction and predicting the weak neutral current.
1978: Peter Leonidovitch Kapitsa, Soviet Union; Arno A. Penzias, Robert W. Wilson, United States, for discoveries in low-temperature physics and cosmic microwave radiation.
1977: Philip W. Anderson, John H. Van Vleck, United States; Neville F. Mott, Britain, for probing the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems.
1976: Burton Richter, Samuel C.C. Ting, United States, for discovering heavy elements.

Associated Press

Recent Nobel winners in chemistry

1999: Ahmed H. Zewail, United States, for pioneering investigation of fundamental chemical reactions, using ultra-short laser flashes, on the time scale on which the reactions actually occur.
1998: Walter Kohn, Austria, for development of density-functional theory in the 1960s that simplifies the mathematical description of the bonding between atoms that make up molecules, and John Pople, Britain, for developing computer techniques to test the chemical structure and details of matter.
1997: Paul D. Boyer of the United States, John E. Walker of Britain and Jens C. Skou of Denmark for their work on how the body's cells store and transfer energy.
1996: Harold W. Kroto of Britain and Robert F. Curl Jr. and Richard E. Smalley of the United States for their discovery of "buckyballs," a type of soccer ball-shaped carbon molecule.
1995: Paul Crutzen of the Netherlands and Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland of the United States for their work on the formation and decomposition of the ozone layer.
1994: George A. Olah of the United States for his contributions to carbocation chemistry.
1993: Kary B. Mullis of the United States and Michael Smith of Canada for developing two new methods that led to decisive progress in gene technology.
1992: Rudolph A. Marcus of the United States for contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems.
1991: Richard R. Ernst of Switzerland for contributions to the development of the high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, spectroscopy.
1990: Elias James Corey of the United States for developing the theory and methodology of organic synthesis.
1989: Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman, United States, for showing independently that RNA, once thought to be merely a genetic messenger, could actively aid chemical reactions.
1988: Johann Diesenhofer, Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel, West Germany, for determining the structure of certain proteins needed in photosynthesis.
1987: Donald J. Cram and Charles J. Pedersen, United States, and Jean-Marie Lehn, France, for synthesis of molecules that mimic important biological processes.
1986: Dudley R. Herschbach and Yuan T. Lee, United States, and John C. Polanyi, Canada, for research showing how basic chemical reactions take place.
1985: Herbert A. Hauptman and Jerome Karle, United States, for developing methods to determine molecular structure of crystals.
1984: R. Bruce Merrifield, United States, for development of methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix.
1983: Henry Taube, United States, for work in explaining chemical reaction in everything from photosynthesis in plants to batteries and fuel cells.
1982: Aaron Klug, Britain, for work on the structure of genes.
1981: Kenichi Fukui, Japan, and Roald Hoffmann, United States, for work in theoretical chemistry in anticipating the course of chemical reactions.
1980: Paul Berg, United States, for fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids. Walter Gilbert, United States, and Frederick Sanger, Britain, for contributions concerning the base sequences in nucleic acids.
1979: Herbert C. Brown, United States, and George Wittig, West Germany, for development of use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds as important reagents in organic synthesis.
1978: Peter Mitchell, Britain, for discovery of the energy-generating potential of certain enzymes.
1977: Ilya Prigogine, Belgium, for formulating the theory of dissipative structures.

Associated Press

]

Cross-Indexed:

Some pages may require Adobe Acrobat Reader^™