Stephen Hawking in his office, surrounded by some of the memorabilia now on display at the Science Museum.
Image: Science Museum, London
The foundation of a Russian billionaire announced Tuesday (Dec. 11) that it would hand out two $3-million physics prizes — one to legendary cosmologist Stephen Hawking and the other to group of CERN scientists who spearheaded this year's discovery of a Higgs-like particle at the world's largest atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in Geneva.
The Fundamental Physics Prize, nearly three times as lucrative as the Nobel Prize, was founded last year by physicist-turned-entrepreneur Yuri Milner and stands as world's richest science award.
Hawking is being honored for his work on black holes and his "deep contributions to quantum gravity and quantum aspects of the early universe," according to a statement. In particular, he was cited for theorizing what is now called "Hawking radiation," a faint glimmer of radiation emanating from black holes.
The prolific physicist said he was "delighted and honoured" to receive the prize, in an email to the Guardian.
"No one undertakes research in physics with the intention of winning a prize. It is the joy of discovering something no one knew before," Hawking wrote. "Nevertheless prizes like these play an important role in giving public recognition for achievement in physics. They increase the stature of physics and interest in it." [Stephen Hawking Biography]
Hawking added that he will use the money to help his daughter with her autistic son and "maybe buy a holiday home, not that I take many holidays because I enjoy my work in theoretical physics."
The other award is set to go to LHC particle physicists, who announced they'd finally found what looks to be the Higgs boson after decades of searches have turned up nothing. Scientists first predicted the existence of the Higgs boson, nicknamed the "God particle" by some in the popular media, in the 1960s to explain why other particles have mass.
That multimillion-dollar prize will be split between seven scientists involved in the discovery, including: Peter Jenni and Fabiola Gianotti of the LHC's ATLAS particle-detection experiment; Michel Della Negra, Tejinder Singh Virdee, Guido Tonelli and Joe Incandela of the CMS experiment; and LHC project leader Lyn Evans.
"Choosing this year's recipients from such a large pool of spectacular nominations was a very difficult task," Nima Arkani-Hamed, a theoretical physicist who was on the prize's selection committee, said in a statement. "The selected physicists have done transformative work spanning a wide range of areas in fundamental physics."
The award ceremony will take place on March 20, 2013, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which is home of the LHC.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt this point in time it seems a bit strange to start throwing money at the old paradigms of particle physics and cosmology. Clearly the "nightmare scenario" unfolding at the LHC and the large number of completely unexpected discoveries in astrophysics over the last decade are telling us that the old paradigms have reached their useful limits.
We need a new unified paradigm that can make and pass definitive predictions.
Theories of principle like special and general relativity can make definitive predictions that allow relatively straightforward yes/no tests. Einstein said that if the eclipse experiment did not yield the predicted effect on space-time, then GR would be wrong - end of story.
For over 40 years theoretical physics has been based on model-building in which an ad hoc model is fitted to empirical results (and vice versa), i.e., the Ptolemaic method. There are no guiding principles and so no definitive predictions.
Instead we get pseudo-scientific hypotheses like the "ad hoc WIMP conjecture". No predictions of the masses or the exact physical properties are possible. Not a single "WIMP" has showed itself in over 40 years of dogged and very expensive snipe hunting.
String theory has yet to offer a single prediction after 44 years.
SUSY predictions are "adjustable predictions", which amount to no predictions. If "sparticles" fail to show up at the LHC, then they just say that they must be at higher energies. Sure, or perhaps off on astral planes.
Bottom Line: No guiding fundamental principles = no definitive predictions = pseudo-science. Haven't we had enough of that rubbish over the last 40 years?
Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
A prize for almost doing it???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"they'd finally found what looks to be the Higgs boson"
How about saving the prize for the scientist who actually does find the Higgs Boson, not the the almost likely probability it isn't an anomaly or error in one of the many predicted ways of finding what is possibly a Higgs Boson?
So when someone does actually find a real higgs boson or proves its existence with certainty, what prize will he get?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe rumor from CERN that I heard today is that they are measuring slightly different masses for the July boson resonance (which may or not be the higgledly-piggledly god particle) depending on the decay channel.
This type of thing could throw a monkey wrench into the hypothetical and super-fantastical Higgs Mechanism (see back of cereal box for details).
If the resonance's spin is other than 0, the hapless heros are going to have to put the bubbly back in the bottles.
Robert L. Oldershaw
Discrete Scale Relativity
http://www3.amherst.edu/~rloldershaw
I like Stephen Hawking, but Hawking Radiation remains a speculative idea that has not been experimentally verified ( and yes I am familiar with the experiments that attempt to mimic the alleged process- however, since physics as we know it breaks down in a black hole one can only speculate what goes on inside one). Black holes remain poorly understood at this time, therefore, the awarding of prizes may prove to be an embarrassing mistake in the not so distant future. The same goes for prizes for the alleged discovery of the Higgs boson.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCongratulation to Stephen Hawking and other 7 scientists for Prize from CERN. Thanks to Authority in this regards.
About Hawking`s work in short and New Quantum Circulation of Black Hole by Nirmalendu Das.
Birth, properties & classification of black hole star
The black hole, strange occurrences as a non-visible star which has enormous mass with high attractive power, is one of the pioneer subjects in general relativity for explaining the quasars and theory of it continues. Hawking`s working on the black hole follows four laws which are the internal mechanism to be revisited by the complete unified theory and expects some new findings. The four laws of black holes mechanism are of the form.
i) The zeroth law : In a stationary or equilibrium surface gravity, κ of a black hole is constant over the horizon.
ii) The first law : In a transformation from one state to a nearby state, the energy of the system changes by
Δ E = c^2 κ ΔA / 8Gπ + W ------ (1)
Where A is the surface of the horizon, W is the total of any work done in changing the rotation of the black hole or by any matter outside the black hole.
iii) The second law : During any process in an isolated system total area of all horizons is non-decreasing.
iv) Third law : It is possible by any finite sequence of steps to bring the surface gravity to the value zero (κ = 0) .
In this configuration the energy changes from one state to a nearby state in the surface gravity is expressed as: Δ E =c^2κ ΔA / 8Gπ + W
But the energy is nothing but the coagulation of photons. So the photon has the important role in the black hole also. If we re-arrange the photon equation, then we will get properties as like as :
a) 2πh/c^2 =4.632280426x10^-50 kg / sec.
This equation indicates that black hole cannot radiate energy, the value of quantum circulation of particle is h/2me = 3.63694807x10^-4 m^2 / sec
b) In the case of black hole, the quantum circulation will ( 2πhG/c )^1/2 = 3.0440727x10^-26 m^2 / sec
c)First radiation constant 2πhc^2=C1=3.7417749x10^-16w m^2
d)Planck length= lp =(ћ G/c^3)^1/2=1.611605x10^-35m
The Complete Unified Theory is single theory. This theory is applicable particle to the universe. At present what is happening inside of the CERN equipment on the particles behaviors, I wrote this history and published book Complete Unified Theory in the year 1998. But lot of things is there in the book, which able to solve all. The scientists of the world are thinking now, but not getting way to solve. I am requesting to all scientists, please go through the book and solve target to use this new idea for the mankind.
COMPLETE UNIFIED THEORY, Nirmalendu Das,
Email: nirmalgopa@gmail.com
Dated: 16-12-2012.