List of Nobel laureates in Physics

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List of Nobel laureates in Physics

The Nobel Prize in Physics (Swedish: Nobelpriset i fysik) is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of physics. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel (who died in 1896), awarded for outstanding contributions in physics.[1] As dictated by Nobel's will, the award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.[2] The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death.[3] Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a monetary award prize that has varied throughout the years.[4]

Thumb
Front side (obverse) of the Nobel Prize Medal for Physics presented to Edward Victor Appleton in 1947

Statistics

Summarize
Perspective

The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to 226 individuals as of 2024.[5] The first prize in physics was awarded in 1901 to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, of Germany, who received 150,782 SEK. John Bardeen is the only laureate to win the prize twice—in 1956 and 1972.

William Lawrence Bragg was the youngest Nobel laureate in physics; he won the prize in 1915 at the age of 25. He was also the youngest laureate for any Nobel prize until 2014 (when Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 17).[6] The oldest Nobel Prize laureate in physics was Arthur Ashkin who was 96 years old when he was awarded the prize in 2018.[7]

Only five women have won the prize: Marie Curie (1903), Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1963), Donna Strickland (2018), Andrea Ghez (2020), and Anne L'Huillier (2023).[8] Before L'Huillier, each woman only ever received a quarter share of the prize, although Marie Curie did receive an unshared Nobel prize in chemistry in 1911. In 2023, L'Huillier received a one-third share.

There have been six years for which the Nobel Prize in Physics was not awarded (1916, 1931, 1934, 1940–1942). There were also nine years for which the Nobel Prize in Physics was delayed for one year:

A 2020 study reported that half of the Nobel Prizes for science awarded between 1995 and 2017 are clustered in few disciplines. Particle physics (14%), atomic physics (10.9%), and 3 non-physics disciplines dominate the prize in recent decades, followed by semiconductor physics and magnetics.[18]

Laureates

More information Year, Image ...
Year Image Laureate[a] Nationality Rationale[b] Ref
1901 Thumb Wilhelm Röntgen
(1845–1923)
German "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him" [19]
1902 Thumb Hendrik Lorentz
(1853–1928)
Dutch "in recognition of the extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomena" [20]
Thumb Pieter Zeeman
(1865–1943)
1903 Thumb Henri Becquerel
(1852–1908)
French "for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity" [21]
Thumb Pierre Curie
(1859–1906)
"for their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel"
Thumb Marie Curie
(1867–1934)
Polish
French
1904 Thumb Lord Rayleigh
(1842–1919)
British "for his investigations of the densities of the most important gases and for his discovery of argon in connection with these studies" [22]
1905 Thumb Philipp Lenard
(1862–1947)
Hungarian
German
"for his work on cathode rays" [23]
1906 Thumb J. J. Thomson
(1856–1940)
British "for his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases" [24]
1907 Thumb Albert A. Michelson
(1852–1931)
American "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid" [25]
1908 Thumb Gabriel Lippmann
(1845–1921)
French "for his method of reproducing colours photographically based on the phenomenon of interference" [26]
1909 Thumb Guglielmo Marconi
(1874–1937)
Italian "for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy" [27]
Thumb Karl Ferdinand Braun
(1850–1918)
German
1910 Thumb Johannes Diderik van der Waals
(1837–1923)
Dutch "for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids" [28]
1911 Thumb Wilhelm Wien
(1864–1928)
German "for his discoveries regarding the laws governing the radiation of heat" [29]
1912 Thumb Gustaf Dalén
(1869–1937)
Swedish "for his invention of automatic valves designed to be used in combination with gas accumulators in lighthouses and buoys" [30]
1913 Thumb Heike Kamerlingh Onnes
(1853–1926)
Dutch "for his investigations on the properties of matter at low temperatures which led, inter alia, to the production of liquid helium" [31]
1914 Thumb Max von Laue
(1879–1960)
German "For his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals", an important step in the development of X-ray spectroscopy. [9]
1915 Thumb William Henry Bragg
(1862–1942)
British "'For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays', an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography" [32]
Thumb Lawrence Bragg
(1890–1971)
1916 Not awarded due to World War I
1917 Thumb Charles Glover Barkla
(1877–1944)
British "'For his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements', another important step in the development of X-ray spectroscopy" [10]
1918 Thumb Max Planck
(1858–1947)
German "for the services he rendered to the advancement of physics by his discovery of energy quanta" [11]
1919 Thumb Johannes Stark
(1874–1957)
German "for his discovery of the Doppler effect in canal rays and the splitting of spectral lines in electric fields" [33]
1920 Thumb Charles Édouard Guillaume
(1861–1938)
Swiss "for the service he has rendered to precision measurements in physics by his discovery of anomalies in nickel-steel alloys" [34]
1921 Thumb Albert Einstein
(1879–1955)
German
Swiss
"for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect" [12]
1922 Thumb Niels Bohr
(1885–1962)
Danish "for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them" [35]
1923 Thumb Robert Andrews Millikan
(1868–1953)
American "for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect" [36]
1924 Thumb Manne Siegbahn
(1886–1978)
Swedish "for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy" [13]
1925 Thumb James Franck
(1882–1964)
German "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom" [14]
Thumb Gustav Hertz
(1887–1975)
1926 Thumb Jean Baptiste Perrin
(1870–1942)
French "for his work on the discontinuous structure of matter, and especially for his discovery of sedimentation equilibrium" [37]
1927 Thumb Arthur Compton
(1892–1962)
American "for his discovery of the effect named after him" [38]
Thumb Charles Thomson Rees Wilson
(1869–1959)
British "for his method of making the paths of electrically charged particles visible by condensation of vapour"
1928 Thumb Owen Willans Richardson
(1879–1959)
British "for his work on the thermionic phenomenon and especially for the discovery of the law named after him" [15]
1929 Thumb Louis de Broglie
(1892–1987)
French "for his discovery of the wave nature of electrons" [39]
1930 Thumb C. V. Raman
(1888–1970)
Indian "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him" [40]
1931 Not awarded
1932 Thumb Werner Heisenberg
(1901–1976)
German "for the creation of quantum mechanics, the application of which has, inter alia, led to the discovery of the allotropic forms of hydrogen" [16]
1933 Thumb Erwin Schrödinger
(1887–1961)
Austrian "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory" [41]
Thumb Paul Dirac
(1902–1984)
British
1934 Not awarded
1935 Thumb James Chadwick
(1891–1974)
British "for the discovery of the neutron" [42]
1936 Thumb Victor Francis Hess
(1883–1964)
Austrian "for his discovery of cosmic radiation" [43]
Thumb Carl David Anderson
(1905–1991)
American "for his discovery of the positron"
1937 Thumb Clinton Davisson
(1881–1958)
American "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals" [44]
Thumb George Paget Thomson
(1892–1975)
British
1938 Thumb Enrico Fermi
(1901–1954)
Italian "for his demonstrations of the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, and for his related discovery of nuclear reactions brought about by slow neutrons" [45]
1939 Thumb Ernest Lawrence
(1901–1958)
American "for the invention and development of the cyclotron and for results obtained with it, especially with regard to artificial radioactive elements" [46]
1940 Not awarded due to World War II
1941 Not awarded due to World War II
1942 Not awarded due to World War II
1943 Thumb Otto Stern
(1888–1969)
American "for his contribution to the development of the molecular ray method and his discovery of the magnetic moment of the proton" [17]
1944 Thumb Isidor Isaac Rabi
(1898–1988)
American "for his resonance method for recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei" [47]
1945 Thumb Wolfgang Pauli
(1900–1958)
Austrian "for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli principle" [48]
1946 Thumb Percy Williams Bridgman
(1882–1961)
American "for the invention of an apparatus to produce extremely high pressures, and for the discoveries he made there within the field of high pressure physics" [49]
1947 Thumb Edward Victor Appleton
(1892–1965)
British "for his investigations of the physics of the upper atmosphere especially for the discovery of the so-called Appleton layer" [50]
1948 Thumb Patrick Blackett
(1897–1974)
British "for his development of the Wilson cloud chamber method, and his discoveries therewith in the fields of nuclear physics and cosmic radiation" [51]
1949 Thumb Hideki Yukawa
(1907–1981)
Japanese "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces" [52]
1950 Thumb C. F. Powell
(1903–1969)
British "for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method" [53]
1951 Thumb John Cockcroft
(1897–1967)
British "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles" [54]
Thumb Ernest Walton
(1903–1995)
Irish
1952 Thumb Felix Bloch
(1905–1983)
Swiss
American
"for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith" [55]
Thumb Edward Mills Purcell
(1912–1997)
American
1953 Thumb Frits Zernike
(1888–1966)
Dutch "for his demonstration of the phase contrast method, especially for his invention of the phase contrast microscope" [56]
1954 Thumb Max Born
(1882–1970)
West German
British
"for his fundamental research in quantum mechanics, especially for his statistical interpretation of the wavefunction" [57]
Thumb Walther Bothe
(1891–1957)
West German "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith"
1955 Thumb Willis Lamb
(1913–2008)
American "for his discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum" [58]
Thumb Polykarp Kusch
(1911–1993)
"for his precision determination of the magnetic moment of the electron"
1956 Thumb John Bardeen
(1908–1991)
American "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect" [59]
Thumb Walter Houser Brattain
(1902–1987)
Thumb William Shockley
(1910–1989)
1957 Thumb Lee Tsung-Dao
(1926–2024)
Chinese "for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles" [60]
Thumb Yang Chen-Ning
(b. 1922)
1958 Thumb Pavel Cherenkov
(1904–1990)
Soviet "for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov effect" [61]
Thumb Ilya Frank
(1908–1990)
Thumb Igor Tamm
(1895–1971)
1959 Thumb Emilio Segrè
(1905–1989)
Italian
American
"for their discovery of the antiproton" [62]
Thumb Owen Chamberlain
(1920–2006)
American
1960 Thumb Donald A. Glaser
(1926–2013)
American "for the invention of the bubble chamber" [63]
1961 Thumb Robert Hofstadter
(1915–1990)
American "for his pioneering studies of electron scattering in atomic nuclei and for his thereby achieved discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons" [64]
Thumb Rudolf Mössbauer
(1929–2011)
West German "for his researches concerning the resonance absorption of gamma radiation and his discovery in this connection of the effect which bears his name"
1962 Thumb Lev Landau
(1908–1968)
Soviet "for his pioneering theories for condensed matter, especially liquid helium" [65]
1963 Thumb Eugene Wigner
(1902–1995)
Hungarian
American
"for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles" [66]
Thumb Maria Goeppert-Mayer
(1906–1972)
American "for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure" [66]
Thumb J. Hans D. Jensen
(1907–1973)
West German
1964 Thumb Nikolay Basov
(1922–2001)
Soviet "for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maserlaser principle" [67]
Thumb Alexander Prokhorov
(1916–2002)
Thumb Charles H. Townes
(1915–2015)
American
1965 Thumb Richard Feynman
(1918–1988)
American "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics (QED), with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles" [68]
Thumb Julian Schwinger
(1918–1994)
Thumb Shin'ichirō Tomonaga
(1906–1979)
Japanese
1966 Thumb Alfred Kastler
(1902–1984)
French "for the discovery and development of optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms" [69]
1967 Thumb Hans Bethe
(1906–2005)
American "for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars" [70]
1968 Thumb Luis Alvarez
(1911–1988)
American "for his decisive contributions to elementary particle physics, in particular the discovery of a large number of resonance states, made possible through his development of the technique of using hydrogen bubble chamber and data analysis" [71]
1969 Thumb Murray Gell-Mann
(1929–2019)
American "for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions" [72]
1970 Thumb Hannes Alfvén
(1908–1995)
Swedish "for fundamental work and discoveries in magneto-hydrodynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physics" [73]
Thumb Louis Néel
(1904–2000)
French "for fundamental work and discoveries concerning antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism which have led to important applications in solid state physics"
1971 Thumb Dennis Gabor
(1900–1979)
Hungarian
British
"for his invention and development of the holographic method" [74]
1972 Thumb John Bardeen
(1908–1991)
American "for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, usually called the BCS-theory" [75]
Thumb Leon Cooper
(1930–2024)
Thumb John Robert Schrieffer
(1931–2019)
1973 Thumb Leo Esaki
(b. 1925)
Japanese "for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively" [76]
Thumb Ivar Giaever
(b. 1929)
Norwegian
American
Thumb Brian Josephson
(b. 1940)
British "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effect"
1974 Thumb Martin Ryle
(1918–1984)
British "for their pioneering research in radio astrophysics: Ryle for his observations and inventions, in particular of the aperture synthesis technique, and Hewish for his decisive role in the discovery of pulsars" [77]
Thumb Antony Hewish
(1924–2021)
1975 Thumb Aage Bohr
(1922–2009)
Danish "for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection" [78]
Thumb Ben Roy Mottelson
(1926–2022)
American
Danish
Thumb James Rainwater
(1917–1986)
American
1976 Thumb Samuel C. C. Ting
(b. 1936)
American "for their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind" [79]
Thumb Burton Richter
(1931–2018)
1977 Thumb Philip Warren Anderson
(1923–2020)
American "for their fundamental theoretical investigations of the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems" [80]
Thumb Nevill Francis Mott
(1905–1996)
British
Thumb John Hasbrouck Van Vleck
(1899–1980)
American
1978 Thumb Pyotr Kapitsa
(1894–1984)
Soviet "for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics" [81]
Thumb Arno Allan Penzias
(1933–2024)
American "for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation"
Thumb Robert Woodrow Wilson
(b. 1936)
1979 Thumb Sheldon Glashow
(b. 1932)
American "for their contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current" [82]
Thumb Abdus Salam
(1926–1996)
Pakistani
Thumb Steven Weinberg
(1933–2021)
American
1980 Thumb James Cronin
(1931–2016)
American "for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons" [83]
Thumb Val Logsdon Fitch
(1923–2015)
1981 Thumb Nicolaas Bloembergen
(1920–2017)
Dutch
American
"for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy" [84]
Thumb Arthur Leonard Schawlow
(1921–1999)
American
Thumb Kai Siegbahn
(1918–2007)
Swedish "for his contribution to the development of high-resolution electron spectroscopy" [84]
1982 Kenneth G. Wilson
(1936–2013)
American "for his theory for critical phenomena in connection with phase transitions" [85]
1983 Thumb Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
(1910–1995)
Indian
American
"for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars" [86]
Thumb William Alfred Fowler
(1911–1995)
American "for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe"
1984 Thumb Carlo Rubbia
(b. 1934)
Italian "for their decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction" [87]
Thumb Simon van der Meer
(1925–2011)
Dutch
1985 Thumb Klaus von Klitzing
(b. 1943)
West German "for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect" [88]
1986 Ernst Ruska
(1906–1988)
West German "for his fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope" [89]
Thumb Gerd Binnig
(b. 1947)
"for their design of the scanning tunneling microscope" [89]
Thumb Heinrich Rohrer
(1933–2013)
Swiss
1987 Thumb Georg Bednorz
(b. 1950)
West German "for their important break-through in the discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials" [90]
Thumb K. Alex Müller
(1927–2023)
Swiss
1988 Thumb Leon M. Lederman
(1922–2018)
American "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino" [91]
Melvin Schwartz
(1932–2006)
Thumb Jack Steinberger
(1921–2020)
1989 Thumb Norman Foster Ramsey Jr.
(1915–2011)
American "for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks" [92]
Hans Georg Dehmelt
(1922–2017)
"for the development of the ion trap technique"
Wolfgang Paul
(1913–1993)
West German
1990 Thumb Jerome I. Friedman
(b. 1930)
American "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics" [93]
Thumb Henry Way Kendall
(1926–1999)
Thumb Richard E. Taylor
(1929–2018)
Canadian
1991 Thumb Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
(1932–2007)
French "for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers" [94]
1992 Thumb Georges Charpak
(1924–2010)
French "for his invention and development of particle detectors, in particular the multiwire proportional chamber" [95]
1993 Thumb Russell Alan Hulse
(b. 1950)
American "for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation" [96]
Thumb Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr.
(b. 1941)
1994 Thumb Bertram Brockhouse
(1918–2003)
Canadian "for the development of neutron spectroscopy" and "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter" [97]
Thumb Clifford Shull
(1915–2001)
American "for the development of the neutron diffraction technique" and "for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter"
1995 Thumb Martin Lewis Perl
(1927–2014)
American "for the discovery of the tau lepton" and "for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics" [98]
Thumb Frederick Reines
(1918–1998)
"for the detection of the neutrino" and "for pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics"
1996 Thumb David Lee
(b. 1931)
American "for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3" [99]
Thumb Douglas D. Osheroff
(b. 1945)
Thumb Robert Coleman Richardson
(1937–2013)
1997 Thumb Steven Chu
(b. 1948)
American "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light." [100]
Thumb Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
(b. 1933)
French
Thumb William Daniel Phillips
(b. 1948)
American
1998 Thumb Robert B. Laughlin
(b. 1950)
American "for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations" [101]
Thumb Horst Ludwig Störmer
(b. 1949)
German
Thumb Daniel C. Tsui
(b. 1939)
American
1999 Thumb Gerard 't Hooft
(b. 1946)
Dutch "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics" [102]
Thumb Martinus J. G. Veltman
(1931–2021)
2000 Thumb Zhores Alferov
(1930–2019)
Russian "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and optoelectronics" [103]
Thumb Herbert Kroemer
(1928–2024)
German
Thumb Jack Kilby
(1923–2005)
American "for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit"
2001 Thumb Eric Allin Cornell
(b. 1961)
American "for the achievement of Bose–Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates" [104]
Thumb Carl Wieman
(b. 1951)
Thumb Wolfgang Ketterle
(b. 1957)
German
2002 Thumb Raymond Davis Jr.
(1914–2006)
American "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos" [105]
Thumb Masatoshi Koshiba
(1926–2020)
Japanese
Thumb Riccardo Giacconi
(1931–2018)
Italian
American
"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"
2003 Thumb Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov
(1928–2017)
Russian
American
"for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids" [106]
Thumb Vitaly Ginzburg
(1916–2009)
Russian
Thumb Anthony James Leggett
(b. 1938)
British
American
2004 Thumb David Gross
(b. 1941)
American "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" [107]
Hugh David Politzer
(b. 1949)
Thumb Frank Wilczek
(b. 1951)
2005 Thumb Roy J. Glauber
(1925–2018)
American "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence" [108]
Thumb John L. Hall
(b. 1934)
"for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"
Thumb Theodor W. Hänsch
(b. 1941)
German
2006 Thumb John C. Mather
(b. 1946)
American "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation" [109]
Thumb George Smoot
(b. 1945)
2007 Thumb Albert Fert
(b. 1938)
French "for the discovery of giant magnetoresistance" [110]
Thumb Peter Grünberg
(1939–2018)
German
2008 Thumb Makoto Kobayashi
(b. 1944)
Japanese "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature" [111]
Thumb Toshihide Maskawa
(1940–2021)
Thumb Yoichiro Nambu
(1921–2015)
Japanese
American
"for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics"
2009 Thumb Charles K. Kao
(1933–2018)
Chinese
British
"for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication" [112]
Thumb Willard S. Boyle
(1924–2011)
Canadian "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor"
Thumb George E. Smith
(b. 1930)
American
2010 Thumb Andre Geim
(b. 1958)
Russian
British
"for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene" [113]
Thumb Konstantin Novoselov
(b. 1974)
2011 Thumb Saul Perlmutter
(b. 1959)
American "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae" [114]
Thumb Brian P. Schmidt
(b. 1967)
Australian
Thumb Adam G. Riess
(b. 1969)
American
2012 Thumb Serge Haroche
(b. 1944)
French "for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems." [115]
Thumb David J. Wineland
(b. 1944)
American
2013 Thumb François Englert
(b. 1932)
Belgian "for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles, and which recently was confirmed through the discovery of the predicted fundamental particle, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider" [116]
Thumb Peter Higgs
(1929–2024)
British
2014 Thumb Isamu Akasaki
(1929–2021)
Japanese "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources" [117]
Thumb Hiroshi Amano
(b. 1960)
Thumb Shuji Nakamura
(b. 1954)
Japanese
American
2015 Thumb Takaaki Kajita
(b. 1959)
Japanese "for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass" [118]
Thumb Arthur B. McDonald
(b. 1943)
Canadian
2016 Thumb David J. Thouless
(1934–2019)
British "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter" [119]
Thumb Duncan Haldane
(b. 1951)
Thumb John M. Kosterlitz
(b. 1943)
British
American
2017 Thumb Rainer Weiss
(b. 1932)
American "for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves" [120]
Thumb Kip Thorne
(b. 1940)
Thumb Barry Barish
(b. 1936)
2018 Thumb Arthur Ashkin
(1922–2020)
American "for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics", in particular "for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems" [121]
Thumb Gérard Mourou
(b. 1944)
French "for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics", in particular "for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses"
Thumb Donna Strickland
(b. 1959)
Canadian
2019 Thumb James Peebles
(b. 1935)
Canadian
American
"for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology" [122]
Thumb Michel Mayor
(b. 1942)
Swiss "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star"
Thumb Didier Queloz
(b. 1966)
2020 Thumb Roger Penrose
(b. 1931)
British "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity" [123]
Thumb Reinhard Genzel
(b. 1952)
German "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy"
Thumb Andrea M. Ghez
(b. 1965)
American
2021 Thumb Syukuro Manabe
(b. 1931)
Japanese
American[124]
"for the physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming" [125]
Klaus Hasselmann
(b. 1931)
German
Thumb Giorgio Parisi
(b. 1948)
Italian "for the discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales"
2022 Thumb Alain Aspect
(b. 1947)
French "for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science" [126]
Thumb John Clauser
(b. 1942)
American
Thumb Anton Zeilinger
(b. 1945)
Austrian
2023 Thumb Anne L'Huillier
(b. 1958)
French "for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter" [127]
Thumb Ferenc Krausz
(b. 1962)
Hungarian
Austrian
Thumb Pierre Agostini
(b. 1941)
French
2024 Thumb John Hopfield
(b. 1933)
American "for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks" [128]
Thumb Geoffrey Hinton
(b. 1947)
British
Canadian
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Number of Nobel laureates in Physics by country

More information Country, Number of Nobel laureates ...
Country Number of Nobel laureates
 United States91
 Germany26
 United Kingdom25
 France16
 Russia/ Soviet Union10
 Netherlands9
 Japan9
 Canada6
 Switzerland6
 Italy6
 Austria5
 Hungary4
 Sweden4
 Denmark3
 India2
 Republic of China (1912–1949)2
 Republic of China (Taiwan)2
 Australia1
 Norway1
 Poland1
 Ireland1
 Pakistan1
 Belgium1
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See also

Notes

  1. The form and spelling of the names are taken from the official website of the Nobel Foundation. Alternative spellings and name forms, where they exist, are given at the articles linked from this column. Where available, an image of each Nobel laureate is provided. For the official pictures provided by the Nobel Foundation, see the pages for each Nobel laureate at nobelprize.org.
  2. The citation for each award is quoted (not always in full) from the official website of the Nobel Foundation.

References

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