Nobel Prize: Two Lecturers, One Researcher Shares N399m For Experiments In Physics

Three researchers namely Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger have jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.”

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which founded the nobel award, said in a statement on Tuesday that 10 million Swedish kronor (N399,200,000) are to be shared equally between the laureates.

Aspect is a Professor at Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France, Clauser is a Research Physicist, J.F. Clauser & Assoc., Walnut Creek, CA, USA, while Zeilinger is a Professor at University of Vienna, Austria.

The aim of the prize is to promote the sciences and strengthen their influence in society.

The statement partly reads, “ John Clauser developed John Bell’s ideas, leading to a practical experiment. When he took the measurements, they supported quantum mechanics by clearly violating a Bell inequality. This means that quantum mechanics cannot be replaced by a theory that uses hidden variables.

“Some loopholes remained after John Clauser’s experiment. Alain Aspect developed the setup, using it in a way that closed an important loophole. He was able to switch the measurement settings after an entangled pair had left its source, so the setting that existed when they were emitted could not affect the result.

“Using refined tools and long series of experiments, Anton Zeilinger started to use entangled quantum states. Among other things, his research group has demonstrated a phenomenon called quantum teleportation, which makes it possible to move a quantum state from one particle to one at a distance.”