2005 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Roy J. Glauber, John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 4 October 2005.

The citation

Half of the prize goes to Roy J. Glauber "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence". Half of the prize goes jointly to John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch "for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique".

The laureates

Roy J. Glauber was born in 1925 in New York, the United States, and is affiliated with Harvard University, Cambridge. John L. Hall was born in 1934 in Denver, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of Colorado, JILA, Boulder and National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder. Theodor W. Hänsch was born in 1941 in Heidelberg, Germany, and is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich.

Why it matters

Glauber laid the foundations of quantum optics, the study of light at the level of single particles, while Hall and Hänsch developed ways of measuring the frequency of light with extraordinary precision.

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.