Many physicists who win a Nobel prize find the freedom it brings lets them carve out new research paths. But often the shift in focus began long before their prize was conferred, as Physics World editors discover
When Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi received the time-honoured phone call from Stockholm last month telling them they had won the 2021 Nobel Prize for Physics, the trio surely knew their lives were going to change forever. Newer, rival awards might offer more money, but the Nobel prize is still the accolade that every physicist dreams of winning. Conferring prestige, kudos and honour, a Nobel immediately places the recipients in the pantheon of great physicists of the past.
The ability and confidence to venture into new territory and question the status quo is often what led these scientists to do their Nobel-prize-winning work in the first place
The prize also gives the winners new freedoms. Unfettered by the need to “prove” themselves or continue on the treadmill of bringing in grants, equipment and students, Nobel laureates can branch out into new research directions. But tackling novel topics is usually second nature for Nobel laureates. In fact, the ability and confidence to venture into new territory and question the status quo is often what led them to their Nobel-prize-winning work in the first place. You don’t, after all, win a Nobel prize by playing safe.
For Andrea Ghez, who shared one half of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics with Reinhard Genzel for discovering a huge black hole lurking in the middle of the Milky Way, the award has already opened new doors. “I’m really excited to take on a more ambitious and riskier research agenda that would not have been possible otherwise,” Ghez told Physics World. She wants to explore how gravity works near supermassive black holes and how these exotic, but poorly understood, objects regulate the formation and evolution of galaxies.
Overlooked for the Nobel: Lise Meitner
No doubt, Ghez will do more great studies in astrophysics – the field in which she made her name. But there are lots of Nobel-prize-winners of the past who’ve gained notoriety for work beyond their Nobel endeavours. Some changed direction even before winning the prize, while for others the switch has been forced on them due to personal circumstances.
In the run-up to this year’s Nobel prize announcement, Physics World editors profiled Ghez and four more Nobel laureates – finding out what motivated these physicists to strike out in new directions. You can read all their profiles online:
- Andrea Ghez: eyeing up new research directions
- Luis Walter Alvarez: from particles to palaeontology and pyramids
- Brian Josephson: from superconductors to the physics of the mind
- Russell Hulse: from pulsars to plasma physics
- Takaaki Kajita: from neutrinos to gravitational waves
