- US scientists David Gross, David Politzer and Frank
Wilczek
have won the 2004 Nobel Prize for physics. They have been honoured for
their insights into the deep structure of matter - the materials that build
atoms and the forces that hold them together.
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- The Swedish committee behind the prize said their work
on quarks and the strong force brought science closer to its dream of
"a
theory for everything".
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- The physicists will each receive a medal and share of
the $1.3m prize.
-
- The honour is named after Alfred Nobel, the wealthy
Swedish
industrialist and inventor of dynamite.
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- Colour collection
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- This year's physics Nobel follows in a tradition that
goes back to the very first awards in 1901, celebrating discoveries about
the most fundamental constituents of the Universe.
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- Three decades ago, Gross, Politzer and Wilczek came up
with a theory to describe the force that holds together quarks, the
elementary
particles with which nature constructs the neutrons and protons that make
up the nuclei of atoms.
-
- They fancifully described their force in terms of
"colour",
saying that quarks could be red, green or blue, rather like electrical
charge can be positive or negative; and just as electrical opposites
attract,
so combinations of quark colour can make for stable collections of
quarks.
-
- Their theory successfully explained why quarks tended
to group in threes. It also explained why, paradoxically, the "colour
charge" weakens as the quarks move together and strengthens when they
move apart.
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- It is a property that has been compared to a rubber band.
The more the band is stretched, the stronger the force.
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- The researchers' discoveries, published in 1973, led
to the theory of quantum chromodynamics, or QCD.
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- Unified theory
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- "This theory was an important contribution to the
Standard Model, the theory that describes all physics connected with the
electromagnetic force (which acts between charged particles), the weak
force (which is important for the Sun's energy production) and the strong
force (which acts between quarks)," the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences
said in awarding the prize.
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- "Thanks to their discovery, David Gross, David
Politzer
and Frank Wilczek have brought physics one step closer to fulfilling a
grand dream, to formulate a unified theory comprising gravity as well -
a theory for everything," the academy's citation added.
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- These ideas continue to be investigated in the world's
particle accelerators.
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- Gross is attached to the Institute for Theoretical
Physics,
at the University of California-Santa Barbara; Politzer is from the
California
Institute of Technology; and Wilczek works at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology Center for Theoretical Physics.
-
- On Monday, two US scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize
for Medicine for uncovering the secrets of the human sense of smell.
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- © BBC MMIV
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3716460.stm
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