Special Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics awarded to Steven Weinberg

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, September 11, 2020
Adjust font size:

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to Steven Weinberg, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

The selection committee on Thursday commended Weinberg's "continuous leadership in fundamental physics, with broad impact across particle physics, gravity and cosmology, and for communicating science to a wider audience." Weinberg was awarded a prize of three-million-dollars.

"Steven Weinberg has developed many of the key theoretical tools that we use for the description of nature at a fundamental level," said Juan Maldacena, the chair of the selection committee.

Weinberg will be recognized at the Breakthrough Prize ceremony, which has been postponed until March 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the annual winners of the Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences, Mathematics and Fundamental Physics, said the announcement.

The Special Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics can be awarded by the selection committee at any time and the prize is not limited to recent discoveries, according to the selection committee.

This is the sixth Special Prize awarded. Previous winners are Stephen Hawking; seven CERN scientists whose leadership led to the discovery of the Higgs boson; the entire LIGO collaboration that detected gravitational waves; Jocelyn Bell Burnell for her discovery of pulsars; and Sergio Ferrara, Daniel Freedman and Peter van Nieuwenhuizen for their theory of Supergravity, the announcement said.

The Breakthrough Prize is hailed as the "Oscars of Science." Since its inception in 2012, the Breakthrough Prize has awarded more than 250 million dollars to honor the world's top scientists for their paradigm-shifting research in fundamental physics, life sciences and mathematics. Enditem

Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation.
ChinaNews App Download
Print E-mail Bookmark and Share

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)

No comments.

Add your comments...

  • User Name Required
  • Your Comment
  • Enter the words you see:   
    Racist, abusive and off-topic comments may be removed by the moderator.
Send your storiesGet more from China.org.cnMobileRSSNewsletter