2002 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Raymond Davis Jr., Masatoshi Koshiba and Riccardo Giacconi. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 8 October 2002.

The citation

Half of the prize goes jointly to Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos". Half of the prize goes to Riccardo Giacconi "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources".

The laureates

Raymond Davis Jr. was born in 1914 in Washington, D.C., the United States, and is affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Masatoshi Koshiba was born in 1926 in Toyohashi, Japan, and is affiliated with the University of Tokyo, Tokyo. Riccardo Giacconi was born in 1931 in Genoa, Italy, and is affiliated with Associated Universities Inc., Washington, D.C..

Why it matters

Davis and Koshiba detected neutrinos from the Sun and from an exploding star, and Giacconi built the instruments that found the first X-ray sources outside the solar system. Together they opened new windows on the universe.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.