Takaaki Kajita, Arthur McDonald win Nobel in physics
Japanese scientist Takaaki Kajita and Canadian physicist Arthur B McDonald have won the Nobel prize in Physics 2015 "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass".
Neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles which make up the universe. These subatomic particles produced by the decay of radioactive elements that lack an electric charge.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Science's this year's prize is about changes of identity among some of the most abundant inhabitants in this universe.
The two scientists received the Nobel for conducting key experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos change identities. This metamorphosis requires that neutrinos have mass.
Professor Mcdonald said "it was a very daunting experience when I came to know about the prize. There is great camaraderie associated with this work". "The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe," the Academy said.
The Academy said, "We live in a world of neutrinos. Thousands of billions of neutrinos are flowing through your body every second. You cannot see them and you do not feel them. Neutrinos rush through space almost at the speed of light and hardly ever interact with matter. Where do they come from? Some were created already in the Big Bang, others are constantly being created in various processes in space and on Earth - from exploding supernovas, the death of massive stars, to reactions in nuclear power plants and naturally occurring radioactive decays."
It added, "Even inside our bodies an average of 5,000 neutrinos per second is released when an isotope of potassium decays. The majority of those that reach the Earth originate in nuclear reactions inside the Sun. Second only to particles of light, photons, the neutrinos are the most numerous particles in the entire universe."
The Institute says that for a long time, however, their existence was not even certain.
This year's Nobel Prize in physics awards a discovery that solved a long-standing neutrino puzzle. Since the 1960s, scientists had theoretically calculated the number of neutrinos that were created in the nuclear reactions that make the Sun shine, but when carrying out measurements on Earth, up to two thirds of the calculated amount was missing.
Where did the neutrinos go? There was no lack of suggestions. Maybe there was something wrong with the theoretical calculations of how the neutrinos are produced in the Sun? One of the other suggestions to solve the solar neutrino puzzle was that the neutrinos change identities.
According to the Standard Model of particle physics there are three types of neutrinos - electron-neutrinos, muon-neutrinos and tau-neutrinos. Each has its respective charged partner, the electron, and its two much heavier and short-lived relatives, the muon and the tau. The Sun only produces electron-neutrinos. But if they would be transformed to muon-neutrinos or tau-neutrinos on their way to Earth, that would make the deficit of the captured electron-neutrinos understandable.
The Nobel in Physics in 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".
White LED lamps emit a bright white light, are long-lasting and energy-efficient. As about one fourth of world electricity consumption is used for lighting purposes, the LEDs contribute to saving the Earth's resources, the Nobel Institute had sad. Materials consumption is also diminished as LEDs last up to 100,000 hours, compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights.
The Institute had said that the LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.
Japanese scientist Takaaki Kajita and Canadian physicist Arthur B McDonald have won the Nobel prize in Physics 2015 "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass".
Neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles which make up the universe. These subatomic particles produced by the decay of radioactive elements that lack an electric charge.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Science's this year's prize is about changes of identity among some of the most abundant inhabitants in this universe.
The two scientists received the Nobel for conducting key experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos change identities. This metamorphosis requires that neutrinos have mass.
Professor Mcdonald said "it was a very daunting experience when I came to know about the prize. There is great camaraderie associated with this work". "The discovery has changed our understanding of the innermost workings of matter and can prove crucial to our view of the universe," the Academy said.
The Academy said, "We live in a world of neutrinos. Thousands of billions of neutrinos are flowing through your body every second. You cannot see them and you do not feel them. Neutrinos rush through space almost at the speed of light and hardly ever interact with matter. Where do they come from? Some were created already in the Big Bang, others are constantly being created in various processes in space and on Earth - from exploding supernovas, the death of massive stars, to reactions in nuclear power plants and naturally occurring radioactive decays."
It added, "Even inside our bodies an average of 5,000 neutrinos per second is released when an isotope of potassium decays. The majority of those that reach the Earth originate in nuclear reactions inside the Sun. Second only to particles of light, photons, the neutrinos are the most numerous particles in the entire universe."
The Institute says that for a long time, however, their existence was not even certain.
This year's Nobel Prize in physics awards a discovery that solved a long-standing neutrino puzzle. Since the 1960s, scientists had theoretically calculated the number of neutrinos that were created in the nuclear reactions that make the Sun shine, but when carrying out measurements on Earth, up to two thirds of the calculated amount was missing.
Where did the neutrinos go? There was no lack of suggestions. Maybe there was something wrong with the theoretical calculations of how the neutrinos are produced in the Sun? One of the other suggestions to solve the solar neutrino puzzle was that the neutrinos change identities.
According to the Standard Model of particle physics there are three types of neutrinos - electron-neutrinos, muon-neutrinos and tau-neutrinos. Each has its respective charged partner, the electron, and its two much heavier and short-lived relatives, the muon and the tau. The Sun only produces electron-neutrinos. But if they would be transformed to muon-neutrinos or tau-neutrinos on their way to Earth, that would make the deficit of the captured electron-neutrinos understandable.
The Nobel in Physics in 2014 was awarded jointly to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources".
White LED lamps emit a bright white light, are long-lasting and energy-efficient. As about one fourth of world electricity consumption is used for lighting purposes, the LEDs contribute to saving the Earth's resources, the Nobel Institute had sad. Materials consumption is also diminished as LEDs last up to 100,000 hours, compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights.
The Institute had said that the LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.
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