Physics Nobel for laser pioneers includes first woman in 55 years

By Niklas Pollard and Ben Hirschler

 

A combination picture shows the Nobel Prize for Physics 2018 award winners (L-R) Arthur Ashkin of the U.S., Gerard Mourou of France and Donna Strickland of Canada, October 2, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/Charles Platiau/Peter Power

 

STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Reuters) - A trio of American, French and Canadian scientists won the 2018 NobelPrize for Physics on Tuesday for breakthroughs in laser technology that have turned light beams into precision tools for everything from eye surgery to micro-machining.

 

They include the first female physics prize winner in 55 years.

 

Canada's Donna Strickland, of the University of Waterloo, becomes only the third woman to win a Nobel for physics, after Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963.

 

Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in the United States won half of the 2018 prize for inventing "optical tweezers", while Strickland shared the remainder with Frenchman Gerard Mourou, who also has U.S. citizenship, for work on high-intensity lasers.

 

"Obviously we need to celebrate women physicists," Strickland said shortly after learning of the prize.

 

The Nobel prizes have long been dominated by male scientists, and none more so than physics.

 

Strickland is the first female Nobel laureate in any field in three years. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said last year it would seek to more actively encourage nominations of women researchers to begin addressing the imbalance.

 

Strickland later spoke of how her predecessor, Goeppert Mayer, had been "allowed to follow her husband from job to job while he ... went up the ranks as a professor", while she was only allowed to teach or do unpaid research.

 

"Women have come a long way," she told a news conference in Canada.

 

Her win comes a day after Europe's physics research center CERN suspended an Italian scientist, Alessandro Strumia, for telling a seminar at the organization's Swiss headquarters last week that physics was "invented and built by men" and that women were now being favored in hiring for research positions.

 

Jessica Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London who was at the CERN event and unhappy about Strumia's comments, said having a female Nobel winner was also important given the current fight over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who is facing sexual misconduct allegations.

 

"This news could not come at a better time," Wade told Reuters. "After a week where a woman has been forced to describe her sexual assault to a live television audience of billions, and an academic at a prestigious university has said that women are unfairly promoted into senior positions in physics, even I – the eternal optimist – was starting to lose hope."

 

PRECISION INSTRUMENTS

The inventions by the three scientists awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Physics date back to the mid-1980s and over the years they have revolutionized laser physics.

 

"Advanced precision instruments are opening up unexplored areas of research and a multitude of industrial and medical applications," the academy said on awarding the nine million Swedish crown ($1 million) prize.

 

Ashkin's work was based on the realization that the pressure of a beam of light could push microscopic objects and trap them in position. A breakthrough came in 1987, when he used the new optical tweezers to grab living bacteria without harming them.

 

At 96, Ashkin is the oldest ever Nobel prize winner, but he is still busy with fresh research.

 

"I am busy working right now, writing an important paper on solar energy," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

 

"I'm surprised," Ashkin said about winning the prize. "A guy called me up on the phone and woke me up."

 

Mourou and Strickland's research centered on developing the most intense laser pulses ever created by humans, paving the way for the precision instruments used today in corrective eye surgery and industrial applications.

 

The prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace have been awarded since 1901 in accordance with the will of Swedish business tycoon Alfred Nobel, whose discovery of dynamite generated a vast fortune used to fund the prize.

 

Physics is the second of this year's crop of prizes and comes after the medicine prize was awarded on Monday for discoveries about how to harness and manipulate the immune system to fight cancer.

 

However, for the first time in decades no Nobel Prize for literature will be given this year after a scandal over sexual misconduct allegations saw a string of members leave the board of the Swedish Academy that awards it.

 

Nobel laureates graphic: http://tmsnrt.rs/2y6ATVW

 

($1 = 9.0113 Swedish crowns)

 

(Additional reporting by Kate Kelland, Matt Scuffham, Brendan O'Brien, Esha Vaish, Daniel Dickson and Helena Soderpalm. Editing by Andrew Heavens and Gareth Jones)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-10-03

8 minutes ago, webfact said:

Her win comes a day after Europe's physics research center CERN suspended an Italian scientist, Alessandro Strumia, for telling a seminar at the organization's Swiss headquarters last week that physics was "invented and built by men" and that women were now being favored in hiring for research positions.

That was a total disgrace, right out of the Donald Trump book of women put downs.

8 minutes ago, Basil B said:

That was a total disgrace, right out of the Donald Trump book of women put downs.

I assume it is entirely true however.

56 minutes ago, canuckamuck said:

I assume it is entirely true however.

And on what basis do you assume it to be true.

 

Because it’s something you’ld like to believe?!

6 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

And on what basis do you assume it to be true.

 

Because it’s something you’ld like to believe?!

The British should be very grateful to 'Miss Shilling's Orifice'

 

Well done that woman-and many others-working in science.

9 minutes ago, Odysseus123 said:

The British should be very grateful to 'Miss Shilling's Orifice'

 

Well done that woman-and many others-working in science.

   Yes mate the UK should be grateful for Miss Shillings orifice, but how many people other than you and me know what it was?

Come on members who knows?

Heres a clue........ It was in 1940 and involved a type of aircraft.

2 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

And on what basis do you assume it to be true.

 

Because it’s something you’ld like to believe?!

1) "Men invented and built the science of physics". Yes we can follow history and prove this to be true. It doesn't mean that women didn't become part of it or that women are not skilled in physics.

2) "Women are now being favored in hiring for research positions". Unless you have been living under a rock, you must have noticed that organizations everywhere are hiring more women and minorities to address perceived imbalances in hiring equity.

Edited October 3, 20187 yr by canuckamuck

Troll post has been removed. 

2 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

And on what basis do you assume it to be true.

 

Because it’s something you’ld like to believe?!

You can read it for yourself here .........

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-on-average-females-have-a-higher-IQ-than-males

 

"Dominic Tarro, studies Psychology & Economics at Florida State University 

With regard to intelligence factor g, no, men and women both have means at 100. There is evidence that was shown in another answer to reveal men have more variance–that is, distribution of scores–in IQ hence the higher frequency of male geniuses as well as intellectually disabled persons." 

 

"Susanna Viljanen, works at Aalto University

There is no difference on average IQ on females and males. On females, the bell curve is narrower than on men: women are more inclined towards average IQ while men are over-represented at both extremes."

Edited October 3, 20187 yr by BritManToo

I came here to see the celebration of new sciences and physics. 

 

I left seeing that the topic had nothing to do with it. 

2 hours ago, colinneil said:

   Yes mate the UK should be grateful for Miss Shillings orifice, but how many people other than you and me know what it was?

Come on members who knows?

Heres a clue........ It was in 1940 and involved a type of aircraft.

It made a spitfire able to fly upside down without engine cutting out owing to the carburettors used in RR engines at the time!  

8 hours ago, colinneil said:

   Yes mate the UK should be grateful for Miss Shillings orifice, but how many people other than you and me know what it was?

Come on members who knows?

Heres a clue........ It was in 1940 and involved a type of aircraft.

The Luftwaffe certainly knew about Miss Shillings orifice when they had a Spitfire on their tail .. the device itself helped prevent  the engine stuttering and missing from temporary loss of fuel in the Carb's during dives , loops and other such manoeuvres which was something its adversary the ME109 didn't suffer from as it was fuel injected .. But the Spit' prevailed ..

Edited October 3, 20187 yr by Justgrazing
Sp