Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 awarded to scientists who made ‘impossible’ breakthrough

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three scientists for discovering a way to study the world at a level previously thought impossible. The Nobel Assembly announced that Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier would receive the 2023 prize “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”. “The laureates’ contributions have enabled the investigation of processes that are so rapid they were previously impossible to follow,” the committee announced during a ceremony in Stockholm on Tuesday. Applications for the research include molecular fingerprinting applied to biological samples like blood plasma. By observing minute changes with this technique, it is hoped that in the future it will be possible to detect cancers at a very early stage. The award comes a day after the Nobel Assembly awarded Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against Covid-19.” The awards for chemistry, literature, peace and economics are set to be announced between Wednesday, 4 October, and Monday, 9 October. More to follow Read More Solar airship targets first non-stop round-the-world flight without fossil fuels Zuckerberg says Metaverse can bring back the dead – virtually Apple blames Instagram for overheating iPhones