James Peebles, a physicist at Princeton University, worked for over two decades on a model describing how the universe evolved from the Big Bang to the present day. On October 8, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his achievement.
“His theoretical framework, developed since the mid-1960s, is the basis of our contemporary ideas about the universe,” stated the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that chooses the Nobel Prize recipients in physics each year.
Peebles shares the 2019 prize with Michel Mayor, a physicist at the University of Geneva, and Didier Queloz, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge. They won the other half for the first discovery of a planet orbiting another star in 1995.
First awarded in 1901, the Nobel Prize is awarded annually in six categories and considered the world’s most prestigious award for each field.
"We have clear evidence that the universe expanded from a hot dense state. But we must admit that dark energy and dark matter are mysterious. There are still many open questions – what is dark matter and Einstein’s cosmological constant?" James Peebles #Physics #NobelPrize 2019 pic.twitter.com/ifkeIWQlqZ
— Physics World (@PhysicsWorld) October 8, 2019
Americans also won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
