Woman wins physics Nobel

THE Nobel Prize in Physics went to a woman for the first time in 55 years yesterday.

Laser physicist Donna Strickland is only the third female recipient of the award.

Her win came a day after an Italian scientist caused a sexism storm by claiming ‘physics was invented and built by men’.

Canadian Professor Strickland called on female physicists to be ‘celebrated’ after her award, with French collaborator Gerard Mourou, for developing the powerful pulses used in laser eye surgery.

Alessandro Strumia was suspended on Monday for his ‘highly offensive’ presentation at the Cern centre in Switzerland.

Marie Curie won the Nobel in 1903 for her research on radiation, and American Maria Goeppert-Mayer won in 1963 for her work on the structure of atoms.