Nobel Prize

Death of a star What happens to a star when it runs out of fuel and dies? In the 1920s, scientists assumed that when a star burns off all its energy supply its light fades, leaving behind the burnt-out and dense remains known as a white dwarf. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was the first to show how…

Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson, 1/2 of the prize The interference you see on an analogue television screen as you try to tune in to channels might seem an unlikely form of time travel, but within this static hiss lies a glimpse of the first moments of the universe. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson’s…

The 1974 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Sir Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish for their pioneering efforts to tune in to radio broadcasts from the stars. Their development and use of radio-based versions of telescopes has broadened our view of the universe by revealing information about stars in remarkable detail. Sir Martin Ryle…

“Why does the Sun shine?” is one of those questions asked by curious children to which adults struggle to provide a convincing answer. Hans Bethe received the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for revealing how the Sun behaves like a giant nuclear reactor to produce the vast amount of heat and light that supports life…

The protons and neutrons that make up every atomic nucleus behave not like the tiny ping-pong-ball like structures taught in school, but more like gyroscopes that spin about their axes in random directions, generating their own minute magnetic fields. Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell demonstrated how manipulating and analysing the movement of these subatomic spinning…

Lawrence Bragg might have been the youngest ever Nobel Prize laureate, but being part of a father-and-son team meant it was years before he received true recognition for his seminal work in X-ray crystallography. Receiving a Nobel Prize at the tender age of 25 can be a mixed blessing, especially if your fellow recipient happens…

When Max von Laue showed that X-rays are diffracted in crystals and form characteristic patterns on photographic film, he proved in a single experiment that X-rays are wave-like in nature, and that crystals have a lattice-like structure. What wasn’t clear was whether the structure of the crystal and the wavelength of X-rays had any influence…

An unusual and unorthodox series of scientific discussions in a café led to Max von Laue’s ingenious experiment that unmasked the true identity of X-rays. In the years before the 1914–1918 War, Munich was one of the world’s great hubs of scientific and artistic innovation. Painting, poetry and physics flourished in the capital of Bavaria…

The 1914 Nobel Prize for Physics united two issues of identity that had been perplexing physicists in the early 1900s. One was understanding the true nature of the mysterious X-rays. The other was how to prove the theory that crystals consist of atoms arranged in a regular lattice structure. Max von Laue received the award…

The world first discovered the sensational news that Wilhelm Röntgen’s mysterious X-rays could penetrate clothing and human skin, not through scientists but through the press. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a physicist who had little time for publicity. Like all other scientists the professor from Würzburg University in Franconia always sought recognition from his peers, but…