The Nobel Prize in physics 2025 has been awarded to British, French and American scientists for their work on quantum mechanics.
John Clarke, a British physicist based at the University of California at Berkeley, Michel Devoret, a French physicist based at Yale University, and John Martinis, of the University of California Santa Barbara, share the 11 million Swedish kronor (€1 million) prize announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.
The trio led a series of experiments that demonstrated that the bizarre properties of the quantum world can translate into measurable effects in the everyday.
This included developing a superconducting electrical system that could tunnel from one physical state to another, the equivalent of a ball passing straight through a wall rather than bouncing back.
The breakthrough paved the way for the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers and quantum sensors.
Speaking at a press conference, Prof Clarke, who learned of the award through a phone call, said: “My feelings are that I’m completely stunned. Of course it had never occurred to me in any way that this might be the basis of a Nobel prize.”
Speaking by phone, he said: “I’m speaking on my cell phone and I suspect that you are too, and one of the underlying reasons that the cell phone works is because of all this work.”
British-born, Prof Clarke is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States.
Mr Devoret, born in France, is a professor at Yale University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, also in the US, where Mr Martinis is also a professor.
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Mr Martinis, an American, headed Google’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab until he resigned in 2020.
“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises. It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology,” Olle Eriksson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said.
The Nobel physics prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
The Nobel Prizes were established through the will of Alfred Nobel, who amassed a fortune from his invention of dynamite.
Since 1901, with occasional interruptions, the prizes have annually recognised achievements in science, literature and peace. Economics was a later addition.
Physics was the first category mentioned in Nobel’s will, likely reflecting the prominence of the field during his time. Today the Nobel Prize in physics remains widely regarded as the most prestigious award in the discipline.
Past winners of the Nobel physics prize include some of the most influential figures in the history of science, such as Albert Einstein, Pierre and Marie Curie, Max Planck and Niels Bohr, himself a pioneer of quantum theory.
Last year’s prize was won by US scientist John Hoopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton for breakthroughs in machine learning that spurred the artificial intelligence boom, a development about which both have also expressed concerns.
In keeping with tradition, physics is the second Nobel to be awarded this week, after two American and one Japanese scientists won the medicine prize for breakthroughs in understanding the immune system.
The chemistry prize is due next, on Wednesday.
The science, literature and economics prizes are presented to the laureates by the Swedish king at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10th, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death, followed by a lavish banquet at city hall.
