Woman wins Nobel physics prize for first time since 1963

THE Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded to a woman for the first time in 55 years, days after a scientist was suspended for claiming the discipline was “built by men”.

Prof Donna Strickland was one of three who will share the prize, the first female to achieve the accolade since Maria Goeppert-mayer in 1963 and only the third woman in history, the first being Marie Curie.

“We need to celebrate women physicists because we’re out there and hopefully, in time, it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate,” she said in a phone call to the Nobel press conference. “I’m honoured to be one of those women.”

The announcement that a woman had been awarded the prize for physics came a day after Prof Alessandro Strumia, the Italian scientist, was suspended by Cern, the European organisation for nuclear research, for saying that “physics was invented and built by men”. Cern said it was reassessing its relationship with the researcher.