Three scientists receive the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded by the prize committee to three scientists for their work on complex physical systems that help people understand climate change.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences named Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi at 11:45 am on October 5 (16:45 Hanoi time) to receive the prestigious award of 2021.

Three scientists won this year's Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on chaotic and seemingly random phenomena. Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann laid the foundation for humanity's understanding of Earth's climate and human impact . Meanwhile Giorgio Parisi was honored for his groundbreaking contributions to the theory of chaotic materials and stochastic processes.

Complex systems, characterized by chaos and randomness, are difficult to grasp. This year's Nobel Prize in Physics honors new methods for describing and predicting their long-term behavior.

Accordingly, Giorgio Parisi received half the prize for discovering the mutual influence of oscillations and disturbances in physical systems from the atomic to the planetary scale.

Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann shared the other half of the prize for physically modeling Earth's climate, quantifying variability, and reliably predicting global warming.

Three scientists win the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics.

A complex system vital to humanity is the Earth's climate. Manabe Syukuro pointed out the increase in CO ₂ in the atmosphere leads to a surface temperature of the Earth increases like. In the 1960s, he developed physical models of the Earth's climate and was the first to explore the interaction between the radiative balance and the longitudinal displacement of gas masses. His work laid the foundation for the development of climate models today.

About 10 years later, Klaus Hasselmann created a model linking weather and climate, answering the question of why climate models remain reliable despite turbulent and changing weather. He also developed methods for identifying certain signals that are hallmarks of both natural phenomena and human activity in the climate system. His methods were used to demonstrate that the increase in temperature in the atmosphere was caused by human emissions of CO ₂ .

Graph showing the relationship between CO2 density and atmospheric temperature from research by Syukuro Manabe. (Photo: RSAS)

Around 1980, Giorgio Parisi discovered patterns hidden in complex and chaotic materials. His findings are among the most important contributions to the theory of complex systems. They make it possible to understand and describe many seemingly random phenomena and materials, not only in physics but also in other fields such as mathematics, biology, neuroscience, and machine learning.

"The findings honored this year show that our knowledge of the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation, based on the analysis of meticulous observations. This year's three laureates all contributed. part helps us to understand more about the properties and evolution of complex physical systems," commented Thors Hans Hansson, chair of the Nobel Assembly for Physics.

The graph shows the impact of anthropogenic and natural sources on atmospheric warming. (Photo: RSAS)

1. Professor Syukuro Manabe (90 years old) born in Shingu, Japan , is currently a meteorologist at Princeton University (USA).
2. Professor Klaus Hasselmann (90 years old) was born in Hamburg, Germany , currently works at the Max Planck Meteorological Institute (Germany).
3. Professor Giorgio Parisi (73 years old) was born in Rome, Italy, currently works at the University of Rome Sapienza (Italy).

Since Alfred Nobel created the prize, 114 Nobel Prizes in Physics have been awarded to 215 scientists. The prize is presented by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, only four are women: Marie Curie, Maria Goeppert-Mayer, Donna Strickland and Andrea Ghez. John Bardeen is the only scholar to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice, in 1956 and 1972. The youngest laureate was Lawrence Bragg, who received the prize with his father in 1915, at the age of 25. The oldest is Arthur Ashkin, who won the prize in 2018, at the age of 96.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics belongs to three researchers Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for the discoveries of supermassive black holes, one of the most mysterious objects in the universe.

The Nobel Prize is an international prize established by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm in 1901 based on the property of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor and businessman.

The award is presented annually to individuals and organizations with outstanding contributions in the fields of Medicine, Chemistry, Physics, Literature, and Peace. In 1968, the Central Bank of Sweden created the Bank of Sweden Prize for Economic Sciences in memory of Nobel, also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Each award consists of a medal, a personal certificate and a bonus. From 1901-2020, the award was given 603 times to 962 individuals and organizations around the world.