PHYSICS NOBEL WINNERS INCLUDE 1ST WOMAN IN 55 YRS

Stockholm, Oct. 2: A trio of American, French and Canadian scientists won the Nobel Prize for Physics on Tuesday for breakthroughs in laser technology that have turned light beams into precision tools for everything from eye surgery to micro-machining. They include the first female physics prize winner in 55 years.

Arthur Ashkin of Bell Laboratories in the US won half of the prize while Frenchman Gerard Mourou, and Canada’s Donna Strickland shared the other half.

Stockhom, Oct. 2: Donna Strickland, from Canada, has become the third woman to win a Nobel prize in physics in the history of the awards. The two other women who won the award earlier are Marie Curie, in 1903, and Maria Goeppert-Mayer, in 1963

The award comes close on the heels of a physicist who gave a “highly offensive” lecture at the Cern particle physics laboratory in Geneva. He had said that physics was “built by men” and that male scientists were being discriminated against. Before Strickland and Mourou’s pioneering work, the peak power of laser pulses was limited because, when cranked up to high intensities, they would destroy the material used for amplifying its energy.

Reacting to her win, Dr Strickland, who is based at the University of Waterloo in Canada, said: “First of all you have to think it’s crazy, so that was my first thought. And you do always wonder if it's real. As far as sharing it with Gerard, of course he was my supervisor and mentor and he has taken CPA (Chirped Pulse Amplification) to great heights so he definitely deserves this award. And I’m so happy Art Ashkin also won.”

She added: “I think that he made so many discoveries early on that other people have done great things with that it's fantastic that he is finally recognised.” German-born American physicist Maria Goeppert-Mayer, the last woman to win the physics prize, was honoured for discoveries about the nuclei of atoms.