Nobel Prize In Physics 2020

Moumita Bose

BSc 3^rd Sem (Physics Major)

The Nobel Prize in physics 2020 was divided, one half awarded to Roger Penrose “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”, the other half jointly to Reinhard Genzel and Amdrea Ghez “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy”.

Roger Penrose used ingenious mathematical methods in his proof that black holes are a direct consequence of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Einstein did not himself believe that black holes really exist, these super heavy weight monsters that capture everything that enters them. Nothing can escape, not even light.

In January 1965, ten years after Einstein’s death, Roger Penrose proved that black holes really can form and described them in details; at their heart, black holes hide a singularity in which all the known laws of nature cease. This ground breaking articles is still regarded as the most important contribution to the general theory of relativity since Einstein.

Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez each lead a group of astronomers that, since the early 1990s, has focused on a region called Sagittarious-A at the centre of our galaxy. The orbits of the brightest stars closest to the middle of the milky way have been mapped with increasing precision. The measurement of these two groups agree with both finding an extremely heavy, invisible object that pulls on the jumbles of the stars, causing them to rush around at dizzying speeds.

Using the world’s largest telescopes, Genzel and Ghez developed methods to see through the huge clouds of interstellar gas and dust to the centre of the milky way. Their pioneering work has given us the most convincing evidence yet of a supermassive black hole at the centre of the milky way.

“The discoveries of this year’s Laureates have broken new ground in the study of compact and supermassive objects. But these exotic objects still pose many questions that beg for answers and motivate future research. Not only questions about their structure, but also questions about how to test our theory of gravity under the extreme conditions in the immediate vicinity of a black hole” says David Haniland, Chair of the Nobel Comittee for physics.