Three Americans Share Nobel Physics Prize 

By MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writer 

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Americans David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and 
Frank Wilczek won the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their 
explanation of the force that binds particles inside the atomic nucleus. 
  

Their work has helped science get closer to "a theory for everything," 
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in awarding the physics 
prize.

It was a 1973 breakthrough by the trio — researchers at the University 
of California, Santa Barbara, the California Institute of Technology and 
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites) — that 
explained how the so-called "strong force" works. The force keeps 
quarks, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, tightly bound to 
one another even though the positive electromagnetic charge of protons 
in the nucleus would break them apart.

"I'm shocked, very surprised and honored," Gross said of winning the 
prize.

Reached by Swedish radio at his home in Massachusetts, Wilczek, 53, said 
he was surprised and gratified.

"Of course it is something I've been dreaming about for quite a while 
now," he said.

He said he would spend the day "sort of floating six feet above the 
ground."

The three physicists came by their discovery through a brilliant and 
non-intuitive insight. They showed that unlike forces such as 
electromagnetism and gravity, which grow more powerful as two particles 
get closer to one another, the strong force actually gets weaker as two 
quarks converge. It is as if the particles were connected by a rubber 
band that pulls them together more tightly as it stretches.

Wilczek and Politzer, 55, were still graduate students at the time of 
the discovery; Gross, now 63, was a young professor. Their achievement 
cemented the theory of quantum chromodynamics, which describes the 
interactions of quarks and other subatomic particles inside the atomic 
nucleus.

It also filled a critical remaining gap in what physicists refer to as 
the Standard Model, the theory that governs physics at the microscopic 
scale. It accounts for the behavior of three out of nature's four 
fundamental forces — electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak 
force, which governs radioactive decay.

The ultimate goal of physics would be to unify the Standard Model with 
Einstein's theory of general relativity, which describes how gravity 
works and predicts the existence of black holes, wormholes and other 
far-out phenomena. The work of Wilczek, Gross and Politzer brought 
science one step closer to that "grand dream," the Swedish academy 
noted.

Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite 
who endowed the prizes, left only vague guidelines for the selection 
committee.

In his will, he said the prize should be given to those who "shall have 
conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" and "shall have made the most 
important discovery or invention within the field of physics."

The academy, which also chooses the chemistry and economics winners, 
invited nominations from previous recipients and experts in the fields 
before cutting down its choices.

Last year physicists Vitaly L. Ginzburg of Russia and Americans A. 
Abrikosov and Anthony J. Leggett were honored for their work on 
superconductivity and superfluidity, the motion of a fluid without 
internal friction.

This year's award announcements began Monday with the Nobel Prize in 
medicine going to Americans Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck.

Axel, 58, and Buck 57, were selected by a committee at Stockholm's 
Karolinska Institutet for their work on the sense of smell. They 
clarified the intricate biological pathway from the nose to the brain 
that lets people sense smells.

The winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry will be named Wednesday and 
the literature prize will be announced Thursday. The Bank of Sweden 
Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel will be announced 
Oct. 11.

The winner of the coveted peace prize — the only one not awarded in 
Sweden — will be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway. 

The prizes, which include a $1.3 million check, a gold medal and a 
diploma, are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 
1896.
___ 

Nobel Prizes: http://www.nobelprize.org 



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*  Madiba K. Saidy, Ph.D                                                      
                        
*  Research Scientist, Atomic Energy of Canada                                
             
*  Department of Energy & Natural Resources Canada
*  Government of Canada                                     
*  ====                                                                       
                                 
*  Secretary/Treasurer                                                        
                           
*  Joint Division of Surface Science                                          
                       
*  The Chemical Institute of Canada & The Canadian Association of Physicists  

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