His reflections on the origins of mass sparked a nearly five-decade, multi-billion dollar search for a subatomic particle, later known as the 'Higgs boson', which was thought to hold the key to understanding the nature of the universe.
The Higgs filled a gap with its explanation for mass. Knowing the exact characteristics of the Higgs allows scientists to make better guesses of the structure of the universe in the first 10 microseconds after the Big Bang, says Devangshu Datta.
Sweden held its lavish annual Nobel awards ceremony on Tuesday attended by laureates and royals, but their ranks were depleted when many VIPs flocked to the memorial for anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
Science is a young person's game. An award to a young scientist could free up that person to do productive work, or help win more grants by enhancing reputation, argues Devangshu Datta.
Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano of Japan and US scientist Shuji Nakamura won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes, a breakthrough that spurred the development of LED technology used to light up computer screens and modern smartphones.
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