A discovery becomes more intelligible when its motivating question, proposed explanation and actual measurement can be followed together. The photoelectric effect connects Albert Einstein's light-quantum reasoning with the Millikan photoelectric experiment. The Schrödinger equation and the Davisson–Germer experiment connect mathematical wave mechanics with a laboratory test of matter waves.
The Nobel Prize in Physics provides one route through these subjects. Following the original papers and the people who built the apparatus also brings collaborators into view: Lester Halbert Germer appears alongside Clinton J. Davisson in the Davisson–Germer experiment. The history belongs in the articles on those people and concepts as well as in award records.
Research organized around expensive shared facilities, large coordinated teams and sustained institutional funding. Large instruments can enable new questions while introducing management, budget and access constraints.
A material circulation used in René Descartes's natural philosophy to account for celestial motions. Isaac Newton's criticism concerned the compatibility of such circulation with observed orbital periods and cometary paths, not the impossibility of every modern fluid vortex.[ref]
A historian of physics.[ref]
https://www.einstein.caltech.edu/who-we-are/a-j-kox. Independent professional biography and identity
Official award records: www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-prizes-in-physics/
Francis Halzen received the full award for decisive contributions to IceCube and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources.[ref]
https://www.kva.se/en/news/the-nobel-prize-in-physics-2026/. 6 October 2026 announcement, award decision and motivation, lines 60–65
John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis shared the award equally for discovering macroscopic quantum tunnelling and quantized energy levels in an electric circuit.[ref]
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2025/summary/. Individual laureate entries, one-third shares and joint motivation
John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton shared the award equally for foundational discoveries and inventions enabling machine learning with artificial neural networks.[ref]
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2024/summary/. Individual laureate entries, half shares and joint motivation
Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier shared the award equally for experimental methods generating attosecond light pulses to study electron dynamics in matter.[ref]
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/summary/. Individual laureate entries, one-third shares and joint motivation
Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger shared the award equally for experiments with entangled photons, violations of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.[ref]
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2022/summary/. Individual laureate entries, one-third shares and joint motivation
Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann each received one quarter for physical climate models quantifying variability and predicting global warming. Giorgio Parisi received one half for discovering how disorder and fluctuations interact in physical systems from atomic to planetary scales.[ref]
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2021/summary/. Individual laureate entries, quarter/quarter/half shares and two distinct award contributions
One half went to Roger Penrose for showing that black hole formation is a robust prediction of general relativity. One quarter each went to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for discovering a supermassive compact object at the centre of the Milky Way.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Penrose one half for robust relativistic black-hole formation; Genzel and Ghez one quarter each for the Galactic-centre compact object.
One half went to James Peebles for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology. One quarter each went to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for discovering an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Peebles one half for physical cosmology; Mayor and Queloz one quarter each for an exoplanet around a solar-type star.
One half went to Arthur Ashkin for optical tweezers and their biological applications. One quarter each went to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland for a method of generating intense, ultrashort optical pulses.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Ashkin one half for optical tweezers and biological applications; Mourou and Strickland one quarter each for intense ultrashort optical pulses.
One half went to Rainer Weiss, and one quarter each to Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne, for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and observation of gravitational waves.[ref]
Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 by Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Official 3 October 2017 award decision: Weiss one half, remaining half jointly to Barish and Thorne; their individual official facts records explicitly give one quarter each.
One half went to David J. Thouless, and one quarter each to F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz, for theoretical discoveries concerning topological phase transitions and topological quantum matter.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Thouless one half; Haldane and Kosterlitz one quarter each for topological phase transitions and phases of matter.
Awarded in equal shares to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald for discovering neutrino oscillations, showing that neutrinos have mass.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Kajita and McDonald one half each; neutrino oscillations establish neutrino mass.
Awarded in equal thirds to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura for inventing efficient blue light-emitting diodes enabling bright, energy-saving white light sources.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2014 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Akasaki, Amano and Nakamura one third each; efficient blue LEDs enabling white lighting.
Awarded in equal shares to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism explaining the origin of mass in subatomic particles, confirmed by discovery of the predicted particle in the ATLAS experiment and CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2013 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Englert and Higgs one half each; theoretical mass mechanism and its experimental confirmation.
Awarded in equal shares to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland for experimental methods enabling measurement and manipulation of individual quantum systems.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2012 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Haroche and Wineland one half each; measurement and manipulation of individual quantum systems.
One half went to Saul Perlmutter, and one quarter each to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess, for discovering the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Perlmutter one half; Schmidt and Riess one quarter each; cosmic acceleration from distant supernovae.
Awarded in equal shares to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov for pioneering experiments on the two-dimensional material graphene.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Geim and Novoselov one half each; experiments on two-dimensional graphene.
One half went to Charles Kuen Kao for breakthroughs in transmitting light through optical fibers for communication. One quarter each went to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for inventing the charge-coupled device imaging sensor.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2009 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2009 summary: Kao one half for optical-fiber communication; Boyle and Smith one quarter each for the CCD imaging sensor.
One half went to Yoichiro Nambu for discovering the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking in subatomic physics. One quarter each went to Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa for explaining broken symmetry through a mechanism requiring at least three families of quarks.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2008 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2008 summary: Nambu one half; Kobayashi and Maskawa one quarter each, with the two distinct symmetry-breaking contributions specified.
Awarded in equal shares to Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg for discovering giant magnetoresistance.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2007 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2007 summary: Fert and Grünberg one half each for giant magnetoresistance.
Awarded in equal shares to John C. Mather and George F. Smoot for discovering the black-body radiation form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2006 summary: Mather and Smoot one half each; blackbody form and anisotropy of cosmic microwave background radiation.
One half went to Roy J. Glauber for contributions to the quantum theory of optical coherence. One quarter each went to John L. Hall and Theodor W. Hänsch for developing precision laser spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2005 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2005 summary: Glauber one half for quantum optical coherence; Hall and Hänsch one quarter each for laser-based precision spectroscopy including frequency combs.
Awarded in equal thirds to David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek for discovering asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2004 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2004 summary: Gross, Politzer and Wilczek one third each for asymptotic freedom in the strong interaction.
Awarded in equal thirds to Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg and Anthony J. Leggett for pioneering theoretical contributions to superconductors and superfluids.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2003 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2003 summary: equal thirds; theory of superconductors and superfluids.
One quarter each went to Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba for pioneering astrophysics through detection of cosmic neutrinos. One half went to Riccardo Giacconi for pioneering astrophysics leading to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2002 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2002 summary: Davis and Koshiba one quarter each for cosmic neutrinos; Giacconi one half for cosmic X-ray sources.
Awarded in equal thirds to Eric A. Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle and Carl E. Wieman for achieving Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute alkali atom gases and investigating the resulting condensates.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2001 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2001 summary: equal thirds; dilute alkali-gas condensation and early fundamental studies of condensate properties.
For foundational work in information and communication technology, Zhores I. Alferov and Herbert Kroemer received one quarter each for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed electronics and optoelectronics. Jack S. Kilby received one half for his part in inventing the integrated circuit.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2000 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 2000 summary: Alferov and Kroemer one quarter each for semiconductor heterostructures; Kilby one half for integrated circuits.
Awarded in equal shares to Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus J. G. Veltman for explaining the quantum field theory of electroweak interactions.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1999 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1999 summary: equal halves; quantum structure of electroweak interactions.
Awarded in equal thirds to Robert B. Laughlin, Horst L. Störmer and Daniel C. Tsui for discovering a new quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1998 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1998 summary: equal thirds; new quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations.
Awarded in equal thirds to Steven Chu, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips for developing methods to cool and trap chemical atoms using lasers.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1997 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1997 summary: three one-third shares; methods for cooling and trapping atoms with laser light.
Awarded in equal thirds to David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff and Robert C. Richardson for discovering superfluidity in helium-3.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1996 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1996 summary: three one-third shares; discovery of superfluidity in helium-3.
For pioneering experimental contributions to lepton physics, one half went to Martin Lewis Perl for discovering the tau lepton; the other half went to Frederick Reines for detecting the neutrino.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1995 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1995 summary: equal halves; tau-lepton discovery versus neutrino detection.
For pioneering neutron scattering techniques for studying condensed matter, Bertram Neville Brockhouse received one half for developing neutron spectroscopy, while Clifford Glenwood Shull received one half for developing neutron diffraction.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1994 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1994 summary: equal halves; Brockhouse neutron spectroscopy and Shull neutron diffraction are distinct contributions.
Awarded in equal shares to Russell Alan Hulse and Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. for discovering a new type of pulsar that opened new possibilities for studying gravity.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1993 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1993 summary: equal halves; discovery of a new pulsar type enabling gravitation studies.
Awarded to Georges Charpak for inventing and developing particle detectors, especially the multiwire proportional chamber.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1992 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official 14 October 1992 award decision names Georges Charpak alone; invention and development of particle detectors, particularly the multiwire proportional chamber.
Awarded to Pierre-Gilles de Gennes for extending methods for studying ordering in simple systems to complex matter, especially liquid crystals and polymers.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1991 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1991 summary: sole laureate; ordering methods extended to liquid crystals and polymers.
Awarded in equal thirds to Jerome Isaac Friedman, Henry Way Kendall and Richard Edward Taylor for investigations of deep inelastic scattering of electrons from protons and bound neutrons, essential to developing the quark model.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1990 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1990 summary: three one-third shares; deep inelastic electron scattering from protons and bound neutrons and its importance to the quark model.
Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr. received one half for inventing the separated oscillatory fields method and applying it to the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks. Hans G. Dehmelt and Wolfgang Paul received one quarter each for developing ion trap techniques.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1989 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1989 summary: Ramsey one half, Dehmelt and Paul one quarter each; separated fields and clocks versus ion trapping.
Awarded in equal thirds to Leon Max Lederman, Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger for the neutrino-beam method and demonstrating the doublet structure of leptons through discovery of the muon neutrino.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1988 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official Steinberger facts: one-third share, three named laureates and neutrino-beam/lepton-doublet motivation; the equal three-person partition follows from the official Nobel Foundation rule.
Awarded in equal shares to Johannes Georg Bednorz and Karl Alexander Müller for the breakthrough discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1987 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1987 summary: equal halves; breakthrough discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials.
Ernst Ruska received one half for fundamental work in electron optics and designing the first electron microscope. Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer received one quarter each for designing the scanning tunneling microscope.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1986 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1986 summary: Ruska one half for electron optics and the first electron microscope; Binnig and Rohrer one quarter each for scanning tunneling microscopy.
Awarded to Klaus von Klitzing for discovering the quantum Hall effect.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1985 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1985 summary: sole laureate, quantized Hall-effect discovery.
Awarded in equal shares to Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer for decisive contributions to the project that discovered the and particles mediating the weak interaction.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1984 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1984 summary: equal halves; decisive contributions to the project discovering W and Z, communicators of weak interaction.
One half went to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar for theoretical studies of processes governing stellar structure and evolution. The other half went to William Alfred Fowler for theoretical and experimental studies of nuclear reactions involved in forming the chemical elements in the universe.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1983 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1983 summary: equal halves; stellar structure/evolution and nuclear reactions forming chemical elements are distinct motivations.
Awarded to Kenneth Geddes Wilson for his theory of critical phenomena associated with phase transitions.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1982 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1982 summary: sole laureate, theory of critical phenomena and phase transitions; official summary uses Kenneth G. Wilson, expanded name verified separately in worker professional metadata.
Nicolaas Bloembergen and Arthur Leonard Schawlow received one quarter each for developing laser spectroscopy. Kai Manne Börje Siegbahn received one half for developing high-resolution electron spectroscopy.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1981 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual 1981 record reproduced in laser-physics lecture slides: Bloembergen and Schawlow one-quarter each, laser spectroscopy; Siegbahn one-half, electron spectroscopy. Official individual Siegbahn facts independently confirms his half and distinct motivation.
Awarded in equal shares to James Watson Cronin and Val Logsdon Fitch for discovering violations of fundamental symmetry principles in neutral kaon decay.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1980 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official 1980 summary: equal halves; fundamental symmetry violations in neutral K-meson decay.
Awarded in equal shares to Sheldon Lee Glashow, Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg for contributions to unified weak interactions and electromagnetic interactions, including the prediction of the neutral current.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1979 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: three equal thirds; unified weak and electromagnetic interactions and predicted neutral current.
One half went to Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitza for inventions and discoveries in low-temperature physics. Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson received one quarter each for discovering the cosmic microwave background.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1978 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Kapitza one-half for low-temperature work; Penzias and Wilson one-quarter each for cosmic microwave background discovery.
Awarded in equal shares to Philip Warren Anderson, Nevill Francis Mott and John Hasbrouck Van Vleck for theoretical investigations of electronic structure in magnetic and disordered systems.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1977 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Three individual official laureate records: each one-third, same electronic-structure/magnetic/disordered-system motivation.
Awarded in equal shares to Burton Richter and Samuel Chao Chung Ting for pioneering work discovering a new kind of heavy elementary particle.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1976 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: equal halves for pioneering discovery of a heavy elementary particle of a new kind.
Awarded in equal shares to Aage Niels Bohr, Ben Roy Mottelson and Leo James Rainwater for connecting collective motion with individual-particle motion in atomic nuclei and developing a theory of nuclear structure from that connection.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1975 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Reproduced individual official 1975 record: CERN-hosted slide 8 gives all three full names and one-third shares; IN2P3-hosted slide reproduces full individual official motivation and its canonical URL.
Awarded in equal shares to Martin Ryle and Antony Hewish for pioneering radio astrophysics: Ryle for observations and inventions, especially aperture synthesis, and Hewish for his decisive role in discovering pulsars.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1974 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: equal halves; Ryle aperture synthesis and Hewish decisive pulsar-discovery role distinguished.
One half was shared by Leo Esaki and Ivar Giaever for experimental discoveries of quantum tunnelling in semiconductors and superconductivity, respectively. The other half went to Brian D. Josephson for predicting supercurrents across a tunnel barrier and the Josephson effect.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1973 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: Esaki and Giaever one-quarter each, Josephson one-half; experimental and theoretical motivations separately.
Awarded in equal shares to John Bardeen, Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer for their jointly developed theory of superconductivity, the BCS theory.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1972 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: all three laureates, equal one-third shares, joint superconductivity theory.
Awarded to Dennis Gabor for inventing and developing holography.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1971 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: sole laureate and holographic-method invention/development motivation.
Awarded in equal shares to Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén for work in magnetohydrodynamics and its applications in plasma physics, and Louis Eugène Félix Néel for discoveries concerning antiferromagnetism and ferrimagnetism and their applications in solid-state physics.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1970 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official summary: equal halves; magnetohydrodynamics/plasma and antiferromagnetism/ferrimagnetism motivations distinct.
Awarded to Murray Gell-Mann for discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1969 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Reproduced individual official 1969 record: sole laureate, classification of elementary particles and their interactions.
Awarded to Luis Walter Alvarez for discoveries in elementary particle physics, especially particle resonances identified using hydrogen bubble chambers and analysis of their records.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1968 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Reproduced individual official 1968 record: sole laureate, resonance discoveries using hydrogen bubble chambers and data analysis.
Awarded to Hans Albrecht Bethe for contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially explaining energy production in stars.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1967 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Slide 13: reproduced individual official 1967 Nobel record; sole laureate and nuclear-reaction/stellar-energy motivation.
Awarded to Alfred Kastler for discovering and developing optical methods for studying radiofrequency resonances in chemical atoms.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1966 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official award summary: sole laureate and optical methods for Hertzian resonances in atoms.
Awarded in equal shares to Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Seymour Schwinger and Richard Feynman for fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with consequences for elementary particles.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official award summary: all three laureates, one-third shares, and common quantum-electrodynamics motivation.
One half went to Charles Hard Townes; the other half jointly to Nicolay Gennadiyevich Basov and Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, for quantum-electronics work leading to oscillators and amplifiers using the maser-laser principle.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1964 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official award summary: Townes one-half; Basov and Prokhorov one-quarter each; common quantum-electronics motivation.
One half went to Eugene Paul Wigner for theories of atomic nuclei and elementary particles, particularly symmetry principles; the other half jointly to Maria Goeppert Mayer and Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen for discoveries about the nuclear shell model.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1963 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Reproduced individual official Nobel record: Wigner one-half for nuclear/particle theory and symmetry; Mayer and Jensen one-quarter each for nuclear shell structure.
Awarded to Lev Davidovich Landau for pioneering theories of condensed matter, especially liquid helium.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1962 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official award summary: sole laureate and condensed-matter/liquid-helium theory motivation.
Awarded in equal shares to Robert Hofstadter for electron scattering studies of atomic nuclei and discoveries about nucleon structure, and Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer for resonance absorption of gamma rays and the Mössbauer effect.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1961 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Both laureates, equal shares and separate prize motivations
Awarded to Donald Arthur Glaser for inventing the bubble chamber.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1960 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Award year, laureate and bubble-chamber invention motivation
Awarded jointly to Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain for discovering the antiproton.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1959 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Both laureates, equal shares and antiproton-discovery motivation
Awarded jointly to Pavel Alekseyevich Cherenkov, Ilya Mikhailovich Frank and Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm for discovering and interpreting Cherenkov radiation.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1958 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official award motivation and presentation, printed pp. 419, 421–425; presentation closing names all three recipients
Awarded jointly to Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-Dao Lee for investigating parity conservation laws, leading to discoveries about elementary particles.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1957 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Both laureates, equal shares and parity-law investigation motivation
Awarded jointly to William Bradford Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain for research on semiconductors and discovery of the transistor effect.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1956 by Nobel Prize Outreach. All three laureates, equal shares and semiconductor/transistor motivation
Awarded in equal shares to Willis Eugene Lamb Jr. for discoveries concerning the fine structure of the hydrogen spectrum and Polykarp Kusch for precision determination of the electron magnetic moment.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1955 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official motivation, printed p. 281; PDF page 273, followed by presentation pp. 283–285
Awarded in equal shares to Max Born for fundamental quantum mechanics research, especially the statistical interpretation of the wave function, and Walther Bothe for the coincidence circuit and discoveries made with it.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1954 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Award year, both laureates, equal shares and separate prize motivations
Awarded to Frits Zernike for the phase-contrast microscopy method, particularly the phase-contrast microscope.[ref]
Awarded jointly to Felix Bloch and Edward Mills Purcell for new methods of precise nuclear magnetic measurement and related discoveries. The nuclear magnetic resonance article explains their distinct experiments.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1952 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official motivation, printed p. 197; PDF page 195, followed by presentation pp. 199–202
Awarded jointly to John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton for pioneering nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei using artificially accelerated particles.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1951 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Individual official motivation, printed p. 161; PDF page 160, followed by presentation pp. 163–166
Awarded to Cecil Frank Powell for developing the photographic method for studying nuclear reactions and discoveries about mesons made with it.[ref]
Awarded to Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett for developing the cloud chamber method and discoveries in nuclear physics and cosmic ray research. The Blackett-Occhialini triggered cloud-chamber experiment follows one of those methods.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1948 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: laureate, year and stated scientific subject
Awarded to Edward Victor Appleton for upper-atmosphere investigations, especially the Appleton layer. The ionosphere connects this work to radio propagation.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1947 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: laureate, year and stated scientific subject
Awarded to Percy Williams Bridgman for high-pressure apparatus and discoveries made with it. The pressure article develops the associated measurement problems.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1946 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: laureate, year and stated scientific subject
Awarded to Wolfgang Pauli for the Pauli exclusion principle, connecting atomic spectroscopy with allowed arrangements of fermions.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1945 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: laureate, year and stated scientific subject
Awarded to Isidor Isaac Rabi for the resonance method of recording magnetic properties of atomic nuclei. The Rabi cycle article explains a driven-state model and the beam experiment.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1944 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: laureate, year and stated scientific subject
Awarded to Otto Stern for the molecular beam method and discovery of the proton magnetic moment. The molecular beam article develops direct measurements of particle speeds.[ref]
Otto Stern - Facts by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: laureate, year and stated scientific subject
Awarded to Ernest Orlando Lawrence for the cyclotron and results obtained with it, connecting repeated acceleration to nuclear experiments.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1939 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: laureate, year and stated scientific subject
Awarded to Enrico Fermi for neutron-induced radioactivity and reactions brought about by slow neutrons. The neutron article follows the activation experiments and their interpretation.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1938 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: laureate, year and stated scientific subject
Clinton Davisson and George Paget Thomson shared the award equally for demonstrating electron diffraction by crystals.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1937 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official summary: laureates, prize shares and motivation
The Davisson–Germer experiment and Thomson electron transmission diffraction experiment connect different apparatus geometries to the matter waves.Awarded in equal shares to Victor Franz Hess for cosmic rays and Carl David Anderson for the Positron. The Hess cosmic-ray balloon experiment and Anderson positron track experiment explain the measurements.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1936 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: Hess and Anderson, half shares, cosmic radiation and positron
Awarded to James Chadwick for discovering the neutron. The Chadwick neutron discovery experiment follows the recoil measurements and competing interpretations.[ref]
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1935 by Nobel Prize Outreach. Official award record: Chadwick and neutron discovery
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Articles by others on the same topic
The history of physics is the chronicle of how humanity has understood and explained the nature of the physical world from ancient times to the present. It encompasses the development of concepts, theories, and empirical methods that shape our understanding of matter, energy, force, and the fundamental laws governing the universe. Here are some key phases and figures in the history of physics: ### Ancient and Classical Physics 1.
