Nobel Prize 2025 Physics
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Nobel Prize 2025 Physics
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their groundbreaking discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit. This achievement represents a pivotal moment in quantum physics, bringing quantum phenomena from the subatomic realm into the observable macroscopic world.
The 2025 Winners and Their Contributions
John Clarke
University of California, Berkeley
John Clarke, a British-born physicist based at UC Berkeley since 1969, led the pioneering experiments that demonstrated quantum effects at macroscopic scales. His work with Josephson junctions laid the foundation for superconducting quantum circuits. Clarke expressed his astonishment at winning, stating: “To put it mildly, it was the surprise of my life. I am completely stunned. It had never occurred to me that this might be the basis of a Nobel prize”. Clarke noted that while he was “in principle the leader of the group,” the contributions of his co-winners were “overwhelming”.
Michel H. Devoret
Yale University and University of California, Santa Barbara
Devoret, a French physicist who joined Yale in 2002, is recognized for his fundamental contributions to quantum mechanical electronics and artificial atoms (qubits). His work at Yale, alongside colleagues Robert Schoelkopf and Steven Girvin, led to groundbreaking research in circuit quantum electrodynamics (circuit QED). Devoret developed the transmon qubit in 2002, which became widely used by quantum researchers worldwide due to its decreased sensitivity to charge noise. Currently, he also serves as chief scientist for Google Quantum AI.
John M. Martinis
University of California, Santa Barbara
Martinis, who was a graduate student during the original experiments in the 1980s, made crucial contributions to the quantum tunneling demonstrations. He later became a central figure in quantum computing development, leading Google’s quantum computing effort and claiming to achieve quantum supremacy in 2019. His work has been instrumental in the development of superconducting qubits that form the basis of many modern quantum computers.
The Groundbreaking Discovery
The trio’s Nobel Prize-winning work originated from experiments conducted in 1984 and 1985 at UC Berkeley. They built superconducting electrical circuits containing Josephson junctions – devices where two superconductors are separated by a thin insulating barrier. Their experiments demonstrated two fundamental quantum phenomena:
Quantum Tunnelling: They showed that a macroscopic system could tunnel between quantum states, essentially passing through an energy barrier that classical physics would deem impenetrable. This was revolutionary because quantum tunneling was previously only observed in individual particles or small particle systems.
Energy Quantisation: The team proved that their circuit absorbed and emitted energy only in discrete packets (quanta), exactly as predicted by quantum mechanics, but in a system large enough to be held in one’s hand.
As the Nobel Committee emphasized, this work “opened doors for advancing the next generation of quantum technologies, such as quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors”. The discovery proved that quantum mechanical properties could be made concrete on a macroscopic scale, bridging the gap between the microscopic quantum world and everyday objects.
Physics Nobel Prize Winners: Last Five Years (2020-2024)
2024: Artificial Intelligence Pioneers
Winners: John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton
Achievement: Foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks
Hopfield developed neural network models capable of storing and reconstructing data patterns, while Hinton pioneered algorithms enabling machines to autonomously identify elements in images. Their work laid the groundwork for modern AI applications, though both have expressed concerns about the potential risks of AI surpassing human intelligence.
2023: Attosecond Physics Breakthrough
Winners: Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz, and Anne L’Huillier
Achievement: Experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for studying electron dynamics in matter
These physicists created extremely short light pulses lasting only a few attoseconds (billionths of a billionth of a second) to observe electron movements inside atoms and molecules. Their work provided tools to study processes moving so quickly that they were previously impossible to track, with applications in medical diagnostics including early disease detection.
2022: Quantum Entanglement Experiments
Winners: Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger
Achievement: Experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science
Their work definitively proved quantum entanglement is real – demonstrating that two particles can behave as a single unified unit even when separated by vast distances. This research has enabled advances in quantum computing, quantum teleportation, and hack-free communications through quantum encrypted communication.
2021: Climate Science and Complex Systems
Winners: Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann (climate modeling) and Giorgio Parisi (disorder and fluctuations)
Achievement: Physical modeling of Earth’s climate and discovery of disorder-fluctuation interplay in physical systems
Manabe and Hasselmann laid the foundation for understanding Earth’s climate and human influence on it, demonstrating how increased CO2 levels lead to global warming. Parisi’s work on disordered materials and random processes advanced understanding of complex systems from atomic to planetary scales.
2020: Black Hole Discoveries
Winners: Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez
Achievement: Black hole formation predictions and discovery of supermassive black hole at galactic center
Penrose proved that black hole formation is a robust prediction of Einstein’s general relativity theory. Genzel and Ghez discovered Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, with a mass four million times that of the Sun.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics continues the tradition of recognizing work that fundamentally advances our understanding of the universe while paving the way for revolutionary technologies. From quantum mechanics to artificial intelligence, climate science to astrophysics, the past five years have celebrated discoveries that not only satisfy human curiosity about the cosmos but also provide practical foundations for technologies that will shape our future.
