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Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize in Physics

List of Nobel Prize laureates in physics 1901-2002.

1900s

• 1901

  • Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

  • "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him"

• 1902

  • Hendrik Antoon Lorentz and Pieter Zeeman

  • "in recognition of the extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomena"

• 1903

  • Antoine Henri Becquerel

  • "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity"

  • Pierre and Marie Curie

  • "in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel"

• 1904

  • Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt)

  • "for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery of argon in connection with these studies"

• 1905

  • Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard

  • "for his work on cathode rays"

• 1906

  • Sir Joseph John Thomson

  • "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases"

• 1907

  • Albert Abraham Michelson

  • "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid"

• 1908

  • Gabriel Lippmann

  • "for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference"

• 1909

  • Guglielmo Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun

  • "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy"

1910s

• 1910

  • Johannes Diderik van der Waals

  • "for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids"

• 1911

  • Wilhelm Wien

  • "for his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat"

• 1912

  • Nils Gustaf Dalén

  • "for his invention of automatic regulators for use in conjunction with gas accumulators for illuminating lighthouses and buoys"

• 1913

  • Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes

  • "for his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium"

• 1914

  • Max von Laue

  • "for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals"

• 1915

  • Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg

  • "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays"

• 1916

  • The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.

• 1917

  • Charles Glover Barkla

  • "for his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements"

• 1918

  • Max Planck

  • "in recognition of the services he rendered to the advancement of Physics by his discovery of energy quanta"

• 1919

  • Johannes Stark

  • "for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields"

1920s

• 1920

  • Charles Edouard Guillaume

  • "in recognition of the service he has rendered to precision measurements in Physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel steel alloys"

• 1921

  • Albert Einstein

  • "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"

• 1922

  • Niels Henrik David Bohr

  • "for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them"

• 1923

  • Robert Andrews Millikan

  • "for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect"

• 1924

  • Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn

  • "for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy"

• 1925

  • James Franck and Gustav Ludwig Hertz

  • "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom"

• 1926

  • Jean Baptiste Perrin

  • "for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter, and especially for his discovery of sedimentation equilibrium"

• 1927

  • Arthur Holly Compton

  • "for his discovery of the effect named after him"

  • Charles Thomson Rees Wilson

  • "for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour"

• 1928

  • Owen Willans Richardson

  • "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him"

• 1929

  • Prince Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond de Broglie

  • "for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons"

1930s

• 1930

  • Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

  • "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him"

• 1931

  • The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section.

• 1932

  • Werner Karl Heisenberg

  • "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen"

• 1933

  • Erwin Schrödinger and Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac

  • "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory"

• 1934

  • The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.

• 1935

  • James Chadwick

  • "for the discovery of the neutron"

• 1936

  • Victor Franz Hess

  • "for his discovery of cosmic radiation"

  • Carl David Anderson

  • "for his discovery of the positron"

• 1937

  • Clinton Joseph Davisson and George Paget Thomson

  • "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals"

• 1938

  • Enrico Fermi

  • "for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons"

• 1939

  • Ernest Orlando Lawrence

  • "for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements"

1940s

• 1940

  • The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.

• 1941

  • The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.

• 1942

  • The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section.

• 1943

  • Otto Stern

  • "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton"

• 1944

  • Isidor Isaac Rabi

  • "for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei"

• 1945

  • Wolfgang Pauli

  • "for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli principle"

• 1946

  • Percy Williams Bridgman

  • "for the invention of an apparatus to produce extremely high pressures, and for the discoveries he made therewith in the field of high pressure physics"

• 1947

  • Sir Edward Victor Appleton

  • "for his investigations of the physics of the upper atmosphere especially for the discovery of the so-called Appleton layer"

• 1948

  • Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett

  • "for his development of the Wilson cloud chamber method, and his discoveries therewith in the fields of nuclear physics and cosmic radiation"

• 1949

  • Hideki Yukawa (湯川 秀樹)

  • "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces"

1950s

• 1950

  • Cecil Frank Powell

  • "for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method"

• 1951

  • Sir John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton

  • "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles"

• 1952

  • Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell

  • "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith"

• 1953

  • Frits (Frederik) Zernike

  • "for his demonstration of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast microscope"

• 1954

  • Max Born

  • "for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction"

  • Walther Bothe

  • "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith"

• 1955

  • Willis Eugene Lamb

  • "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum"

  • Polykarp Kusch

  • "for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron"

• 1956

  • William Bradford Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Houser Brattain

  • "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect"

• 1957

  • Chen Ning Yang (楊振寧 Pinyin: Yáng Zhènníng) and Tsung-Dao Lee (李政道 Pinyin: Lǐ Zhèngdào)

  • "for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles"

• 1958

  • Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov (Павел Алексеевич Черенков), Il'ia Frank (Илья Михайлович Франк), and Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm (Игорь Евгеньевич Тамм)

  • "for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov-Vavilov effect"

• 1959

  • Emilio Gino Segre and Owen Chamberlain

  • "for their discovery of the antiproton"

1960s

• 1960

  • Donald Arthur Glaser

  • "for the invention of the bubble chamber"

• 1961

  • Robert Hofstadter

  • "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons"

  • Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer

  • "for his researches concerning the resonance absorption of gamma radiation and his discovery in this connection of the effect which bears his name"

• 1962

  • Lev Davidovich Landau (Лев Давидович Ландау)

  • "for his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium"

• 1963

  • Eugene Paul Wigner

  • "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles"

  • Maria Goeppert-Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen

  • "for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure"

• 1964

  • Charles Hard Townes, Nicolay Gennadiyevich Basov (Николай Геннадиевич Басов), and Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov (Александр Михайлович Прохоров)

  • "for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle"

• 1965

  • Sin-Itiro Tomonaga (朝永 振一郎), Julian Schwinger, and Richard P. Feynman

  • "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles"

• 1966

  • Alfred Kastler

  • "for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms"

• 1967

  • Hans Albrecht Bethe

  • "for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars"

• 1968

  • Luis Walter Alvarez

  • "for his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chamber and data analysis"

• 1969

  • Murray Gell-Mann

  • "for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions"

1970s

• 1970

  • Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén

  • "for fundamental work and discoveries in magneto-hydrodynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physics"

  • Louis Eugene Félix Néel

  • "for fundamental work and discoveries concerning antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism which have led to important applications in solid state physics"

• 1971

  • Dennis Gabor

  • "for his invention and development of the holographic method"

• 1972

  • John Bardeen, Leon Neil Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer

  • "for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory"

• 1973

  • Leo Esaki (江崎 玲於奈) and Ivar Giaever

  • "for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively"

  • Brian David Josephson

  • "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects"

• 1974

  • Sir Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish

  • "for their pioneering research in radio astrophysics: Ryle for his observations and inventions, in particular of the aperture synthesis technique, and Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars"

• 1975

  • Aage Niels Bohr, Ben Roy Mottelson, and Leo James Rainwater

  • "for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection"

• 1976

  • Burton Richter and Samuel Chao Chung Ting (丁肇中 Pinyin: Dīng Zhàozhōng)

  • "for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind"

• 1977

  • Philip Warren Anderson, Sir Nevill Francis Mott, and John Hasbrouck van Vleck

  • "for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems"

• 1978

  • Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa (Петр Леонидович Капица)

  • "for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics"

  • Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson

  • "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation"

• 1979

  • Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam, and Steven Weinberg

  • "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current"

1980s

• 1980

  • James Watson Cronin and Val Logsdon Fitch

  • "for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"

• 1981

  • Nicolaas Bloembergen and Arthur Leonard Schawlow

  • "for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy"

  • Kai Manne Boerje Siegbahn

  • "for his contribution to the development of high-resolution electron spectroscopy"

• 1982

  • Kenneth G. Wilson

  • "for his theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions"

• 1983

  • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

  • "for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars"

  • William Alfred Fowler

  • "for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe"

• 1984

  • Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer

  • "for their decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction"

• 1985

  • Klaus von Klitzing

  • "for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect"

• 1986

  • Ernst Ruska

  • "for his fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope"

  • Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer

  • "for their design of the scanning tunneling microscope"

• 1987

  • J. Georg Bednorz and K. Alexander Müller

  • "for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials"

• 1988

  • Leon M. Lederman, Melvin Schwartz, and Jack Steinberger

  • "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino"

• 1989

  • Norman F. Ramsey

  • "for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks"

  • Hans G. Dehmelt and Wolfgang Paul

  • "for the development of the ion trap technique"

1990s

• 1990

  • Jerome I. Friedman, Henry W. Kendall, and Richard E. Taylor

  • "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics"

• 1991

  • Pierre-Gilles de Gennes

  • "for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers"

• 1992

  • Georges Charpak

  • "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber"

• 1993

  • Russell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Taylor Jr.

  • "for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation"

• 1994

  • "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter"

  • Bertram N. Brockhouse

  • "for the development of neutron spectroscopy"

  • Clifford G. Shull

  • "for the development of the neutron diffraction technique"

• 1995

  • "for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics"

  • Martin L. Perl

  • "for the discovery of the tau lepton"

  • Frederick Reines

  • "for the detection of the neutrino"

• 1996

  • David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff, and Robert C. Richardson

  • "for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3"

• 1997

  • Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, and William D. Phillips

  • "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light"

• 1998

  • Robert B. Laughlin, Horst L. Störmer, and Daniel C. Tsui

  • "for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations"

• 1999

  • Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus J.G. Veltman

  • "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"

2000s

• 2000

  • Zhores Ivanovich Alferov (Жорес Иванович Алферов)

  • "for basic work on information and communication technology"

  • Herbert Kroemer

  • "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and opto-electronics"

  • Jack S. Kilby

  • "for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit"

• 2001

  • Eric Allin Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle, and Carl Edwin Wieman

  • "for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates"

• 2002

  • Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba (小柴 昌俊)

  • "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos"

  • Riccardo Giacconi

  • "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"

• 2003

  • Alexei Alexeevich Abrikosov (Алексей Алексеевич Абрикосов), Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg (Виталий Лазаревич Гинзбург) and Anthony James Leggett

  • "for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids"

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