WASHINGTON, October 6, 2020 — The 2020 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded in two parts, half to Roger Penrose and the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez, for their work on black holes, described by the Nobel committee as “the darkest secrets in the universe.”
“I am struck today at how we are celebrating not only magnificent discoveries about the fundamental nature of the universe but also the cutting-edge application of the scientific method to use the motion of stars to identify large unseen objects, as predicted by prior theoretical work,” said Michael Moloney, CEO for AIP.
“Roger Penrose took an established theoretical framework developed by Albert Einstein and showed that black holes are a direct consequence of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
“Then, Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel used some of the world’s newest and largest telescopes, coupled with recently developed observing tools, to stretch the technical limitations of astronomical observations and focus on the motion of stars at the center of our galaxy to show that a massive black hole lurks there, otherwise unseen. This celebration of the scientific method is all the more important when many in society appear today to doubt its application or utility.”
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According to the Nobel committee announcement, Penrose was honored “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity.” Genzel and Ghez were awarded the prize “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.”
In the 1960s, Penrose, currently a professor at the University of Oxford, developed the mathematical tools that showed that, in a universe that operates under the rules of general relativity, black holes are a proven outcome.
His work predicts that when a dying star implodes beyond a point of no return, its gravitational field will irresistibly create what is known as a gravitational singularity in space-time, where the known laws of physics cease to exist. These predictions are a direct result of Einstein’s general relativity and together point to one culprit, black holes.
Using telescopes in observatories based in Hawaii and Chile, Genzel, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Ghez, a professor at UCLA, measured how more than two dozen stars were orbiting something they couldn’t see at the center of our galaxy, around 26,000 light-years away from Earth. The object, Sagittarius A*, is compact and more than 4 million times the mass of our sun. The only explanation is a supermassive black hole.
The discoveries of Penrose, Genzel, and Ghez illuminate the nature of these massive yet compact celestial objects, and more surprises are likely in store.
The three winners will split a prize of 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.12 million U.S.), half to Penrose and half to Genzel and Ghez.
Ghez has a number of longtime connections to AIP. She is a member of Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics honor society and an organization of AIP. Ghez has won awards from AIP Member Societies, including the American Physical Society’s Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award and the American Astronomical Society’s Newton Lacy Pierce Prize, and she is a 2019 APS Fellow. She is the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics.
“I hope I can inspire other young women into the field,” Ghez said. “It’s a field that has so many pleasures, and if you are passionate about the science, there’s so much that can be done.”
Genzel also won the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize from AAS and was named an APS Fellow in 1985.
Penrose won the 1971 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics from AIP and APS “for his contribution to general relativity including new mathematical techniques, new conservation laws and his theorem on singularities in space-time, each represented by an outstanding publication in the field of Mathematical Physics.”
Statement from Michael Moloney, CEO of AIP
“I am struck today at how we are celebrating not only magnificent discoveries about the fundamental nature of the universe but also the cutting-edge application of the scientific method to use the motions of stars to identify large unseen objects, as predicted by prior theoretical work.
“Roger Penrose took an established theoretical framework developed by Albert Einstein and showed that black holes are a direct consequence of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Then, Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel used some of the world’s newest and largest telescopes, coupled with recently developed observing tools, to stretch the technical limitations of astronomical observations and focus on the motion of stars at the center of our galaxy to show that a massive black hole lurks there, otherwise unseen. This celebration of the scientific method is all the more important when many in society appear today to doubt its application or utility.
“I am particularly delighted to recognize Andrea’s being only the 4th woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics. When Donna Strickland was recognized in 2018, I said that her being the first woman in 55 years to win was ‘way too long.’ This statement remains true today. We have a long way to go yet to achieve gender equity in physics and a longer path yet to achieve true inclusivity and belonging in our field.”
Statement from Alix Vance, CEO of AIP Publishing
“It is exciting to see the Nobel committee award this year’s Nobel Prize for physics to a collaboration between theory and experiment. Roger Penrose’s work to use Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity to predict the existence of black holes in 1965 lead to the observation by Andrea Ghez and Reinhard Genzel using some of the world’s newest and largest telescopes in the 1990s.
“I am particularly delighted to recognize Andrea’s being only the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize in physics and the second woman to win in the last two years. Though we have a long way to go to achieve gender equality in physics, this represents an important step and indication that we can close the gap.”
Key Papers from AIP Publishing, Physics Today; Oral History from Niels Bohr Library & Archives
- “The Nature of Space and Time,” Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and Curt Cutler, American Journal of Physics 65, 676 (1997); https://doi.org/10.1119/1.18628
- “The Galactic Center large program,” Reinhard Genzel et al, AIP Conference Proceedings 1053, 91 (2008); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3009530
- Oral history interview with Roger Penrose, Jan. 24, 1989: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/34322
- Imaging black holes (April 2018, Physics Today); https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.3906
Information Resources from AIP
- Nobel Prize Resources from AIP
- William F. Meggers Gallery of Nobel Laureates
- Physics Today Nobel Prize Coverage
- Inside Science Nobel Prize
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