Black hole discoveries draw 2020 Nobel Prize for Physics

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gravitated to black holes this year in their awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics.

The academy awarded Roger Penrose the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity” and Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy,” according to a post on the website of the American Physical Society. Half of the prize will go to Penrose, and the other half to Genzel and Ghez.

Ghez joins the ranks of such great scientists as Marie Curie as a Nobel Laureate in Physics, according to the post.

“I’m pleased to see the Swedish academy recognize a fourth woman Nobel Laureate,” said APS President Phil Bucksbaum. “Andrea Ghez joins Donna Strickland, Maria Goeppert Mayer, and Marie Curie as the only women with that distinction.”

The American Physical Society (APS) CEO Kate Kirby also issued a general congratulation to all of the 202 Nobel Laureates.

“I sincerely hope that this award will inspire the next generation of physicists, especially young women, whom we are committed to supporting at every level,” Kirby was quoted as saying in the release.

Genzel and Ghez are both APS fellows, according to the post. Their research has led to some of the strangest evidence that the Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center.

“I’m thrilled that the Nobel Committee has recognized the critical importance of the work of Genzel and Ghez, which established beyond a doubt the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and the work of Penrose with Stephen Hawking, predicting the existence of black holes,” Glennys Farrar, chair of the APS Division of Astrophysics, was quoted as saying in the post.