Swiss Nobel laureates say receiving prize ‘simply extraordinary’

STOCKHOLM: The two Swiss scientists who shared Tuesday’s Nobel Prize in Physics with a US-Canadian colleague are delighted at their win. “This discovery is the most exciting of our entire career, and to be awarded a Nobel Prize is simply extraordinary,” Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz say, according to a press release from the University of Geneva where they both work. The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics will be shared by at trio of scientists “for contributions to (the) understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday. One-half of the prize - worth 9 million kronor ($908,000 dollars) - went to James Peebles, a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology” over the past two decades that have enriched modern astronomy’s timeline of the universe, from the Big Bang on wards. Peebles’ breakthroughs centred on the “ancient radiation” that originated during the Big Bang 14 billion years ago and continues to surround us. “The results showed us a universe in which just 5 per cent of its content is known, the matter which constitutes stars, planets, trees- and us,” the academy said. — dpa