[Physics FAQ] - [Copyright]

Originally compiled by Scott Chase, Phil Gibbs, and Johan Wevers.


Nobel Prizes for Physics, 1901–2021

The following is a complete listing of Nobel Prize awards, from the first award in 1901.  Prizes were not awarded in every year.  The date in brackets is the approximate date of the work.  The description following the names is an abbreviation of the official citation.

The Physics prize is announced near the beginning of October each year.  One of the quickest ways to get the announcement is to watch the Nobel Foundation web site at http://nobelprize.org.


1901  [1895]  Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen          Discovery of X rays.


1902  [1896]  Hendrik Antoon Lorentz          Magnetism in radiation phenomena.
              Pieter Zeeman


1903  [1896]  Antoine Henri Bequerel          Spontaneous radioactivity.
      [1898]  Pierre Curie
              Marie Sklodowska-Curie 


1904  [1894]  Lord Rayleigh                   Density of gases and discovery of argon.
              (a.k.a. John William Strutt)


1905  [1899]  Pilipp Eduard Anton von Lenard  Cathode rays.


1906  [1897]  Joseph John Thomson             Conduction of electricity by gases.


1907          Albert Abraham Michelson        Precision meteorological investigations.


1908          Gabriel Lippman                 Reproducing colors photographically, based on the phenomenon of interference.


1909  [1901]  Carl Ferdinand Braun            Wireless telegraphy.
              Guglielmo Marconi


1910  [1873]  Johannes Diderik van der Waals  Equation of state of fluids.


1911  [1896]  Wilhelm Wien                    Laws of radiation of heat.


1912  [1909]  Nils Gustaf Dalén               Automatic gas flow regulators.


1913  [1911]  Heike Kamerlingh Onnes          Matter at low temperature.


1914  [1912]  Max von Laue                    Crystal diffraction of X rays.


1915  [1913]  William Henry Bragg             X-ray analysis of crystal structure.
              William Lawrence Bragg


1916  No award.


1917  [1911]  Charles Glover Barkla           Characteristic X-ray spectra of elements.


1918  [1900]  Max Planck                      Energy quanta.


1919  [1913]  Johannes Stark                  Splitting of spectral lines in electric fields.


1920          Charles-Edouard Guillaume       Anomalies in nickel–steel alloys.


1921  [1905]  Albert Einstein                 Photoelectric effect.


1922  [1913]  Niels Bohr                      Structure of atoms.


1923  [1909]  Robert Andrew Millikan          Elementary charge of electricity.


1924          Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn       X-ray spectroscopy.


1925  [1914]  James Franck                    Impact of an electron on an atom.
              Gustav Hertz


1926          Jean Baptiste Perrin            Sedimentation equilibrium.


1927  [1924]  Arthur Holly Compton            Compton effect.
      [1912]  Charles Thomson Rees Wilson     Invention of the cloud chamber.


1928  [1903]  Owen Willans Richardson         Thermionic phenomena, Richardson's Law.


1929  [1923]  Prince Louis-Victor de Broglie  Wave nature of electrons.


1930  [1928]  Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman Scattering of light, Raman effect.


1931  No award.


1932  [1925]  Werner Heisenberg               Quantum Mechanics.


1933  [1926]  Erwin Schrödinger               Atomic theory.
      [1928]  Paul Dirac


1934  No award.


1935  [1932]  James Chadwick                  The neutron.


1936  [1932]  Carl Anderson                   The positron.
      [1911]  Victor Franz Hess               Cosmic rays.


1937  [1925]  Clinton Joseph Davisson         Crystal diffraction of electrons.
              George Paget Thomson


1938  [1935]  Enrico Fermi                    New radioactive elements.


1939  [1929]  Ernest Orlando Lawrence         Invention of the cyclotron.


1940–1942   No award.


1943  [1933]  Otto Stern                      Proton magnetic moment.


1944  [1935]  Isador Isaac Rabi               Magnetic resonance in atomic nuclei.


1945  [1924]  Wolfgang Pauli                  The exclusion principle.


1946  [1925]  Percy Williams Bridgman         Production of extremely high pressures.


1947  [1924]  Sir Edward Victor Appleton      Physics of the upper atmosphere.


1948  [1932]  Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett Cosmic ray showers in cloud chambers.


1949  [1935]  Hideki Yukawa                   Prediction of mesons.


1950  [1947]  Cecil Frank Powell              Photographic emulsion for meson studies.


1951  [1932]  Sir John Douglas Cockroft       Artificial acceleration of atomic particles and transmutation of nuclei.
              Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton


1952  [1946]  Felix Bloch                     Nuclear magnetic precision methods.
              Edward Mills Purcell


1953  [1935]  Frits Zernike                   Phase-contrast microscope.


1954  [1926]  Max Born                        Fundamental research in quantum mechanics.
      [1925]  Walther Bothe                   Coincidence counters.


1955  [1947]  Polykarp Kusch                  Electron magnetic moment.
      [1947]  Willis Eugene Lamb              Hydrogen fine structure.


1956  [1948]  William Shockley                Transistors.
              John Bardeen
              Walter Houser Brattain


1957          Tsung Dao Lee                   Parity violation.
      [1956]  Chen Ning Yang


1958  [1934]  Pavel Aleksejevic Cerenkov      Interpretation of the Cerenkov effect.
      [1937]  Il'ja Mickajlovic Frank
              Igor' Evgen'evic Tamm


1959          Owen Chamberlain                The antiproton.
      [1955]  Emilio Gino Segre


1960  [1952]  Donald Arthur Glaser            The bubble chamber.


1961  [1953]  Robert Hofstadter               Electron scattering on nucleons.
              Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer         Resonant absorption of photons.


1962  [1941]  Lev Davidovic Landau            Theory of liquid helium.


1963  [1931]  Eugene Wigner                   Fundamental symmetry principles.
      [1949]  Hans Jensen                     Nuclear shell structure.
              Maria Goeppert Mayer


1964          Nikolai Basov                   Maser-Laser principle.
              Alexander Prochorov
      [1958]  Charles Townes


1965  [1948]  Richard Feynman                 Quantum electrodynamics.
              Julian Schwinger
              Sin-Itiro Tomonaga


1966  [1950]  Alfred Kastler                  Study of hertzian resonance in atoms.


1967  [1938]  Hans Albrecht Bethe             Energy production in stars.


1968  [1955]  Luis W. Alvarez                 Discovery of many-particle resonances.


1969  [1964]  Murray Gell-Mann                Quark model for particle classification.


1970  [1942]  Hannes Alfvén                   Magneto-hydrodynamics in plasma physics.
      [1932]  Louis Néel                      Ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism.


1971  [1947]  Dennis Gabor                    Principles of holography.


1972  [1957]  John Bardeen                    Theory of superconductivity.
              Leon Cooper
              Robert Schrieffer


1973  [1960]  Leo Esaki                       Tunneling in superconductors.
              Ivar Giaever 
      [1962]  Brian Josephson                 Super-current through tunnel barriers.


1974  [1974]  Antony Hewish                   Discovery of pulsars.
      [1958]  Sir Martin Ryle                 Pioneering radioastronomy work.


1975  [1950]  Aage Bohr                       Structure of the atomic nucleus.
              Ben Mottelson
              James Rainwater


1976  [1974]  Burton Richter                  Discovery of the J/Psi particle.
              Samual Chao Chung Ting


1977  [1958]  Philip Warren Anderson          Electronic structure of magnetic and disordered solids.
      [1967]  Nevill Francis Mott
              John Hasbrouck Van Vleck


1978  [1932]  Pyotr Kapitsa                   Liquefaction of helium.
      [1965]  Arno Penzias                    Cosmic microwave background radiation.
              Robert Wilson


1979  [1961]  Sheldon Glashow                 Electroweak theory, especially weak neutral currents.
      [1967]  Steven Weinberg
      [1968]  Abdus Salam                     


1980  [1964]  James Cronin                    Discovery of CP violation in the asymmetric decay of neutral K mesons.
              Val Fitch


1981          Kai Seigbahn                    High-resolution electron spectroscopy.
      [1962]  Nicolaas Bloembergen            Laser spectroscopy.
              Arthur Schawlow


1982  [1972]  Kenneth Wilson                  Critical phenomena in phase transitions.


1983  [1935]  Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar      Evolution of stars.
      [1957]  William Fowler


1984  [1970]  Simon van der Meer              Stochastic cooling for colliders.
      [1983]  Carlo Rubbia                    Discovery of W and Z particles.


1985  [1977]  Klaus von Klitzing              Discovery of (integer) quantum Hall effect.


1986  [1981]  Gerd Binnig                     Scanning tunneling microscopy.
              Heinrich Rohrer
      [1932]  Ernst August Friedrich Ruska    Electron microscopy.


1987  [1986]  Georg Bednorz                   High-temperature superconductivity.
              Alex Müller 


1988  [1962]  Leon Max Lederman               Discovery of the muon neutrino, leading to classification of particles into families.
              Melvin Schwartz
              Jack Steinberger


1989          Hans Georg Dehmelt              Penning trap for charged particles.
              Wolfgang Paul                   Paul trap for charged particles.
              Norman Ramsey                   Control of atomic transitions by the separated oscillatory fields method.


1990  [1972]  Jerome Isaac Friedman           Deep inelastic scattering experiments leading to the discovery of quarks.
              Henry Way Kendall
              Richard Edward Taylor


1991          Pierre-Gilles de Gennes         Order-disorder transitions in liquid crystals and polymers.


1992          Georges Charpak                 Multiwire proportional chamber.


1993  [1974]  Russell Hulse                   Discovery of the first binary pulsar and subsequent tests of general relativity.
              Joseph Taylor


1994  [1960]  Bertram Brockhouse              Neutron scattering experiments.
      [1946]  Clifford Shull 


1995  [1975]  Martin Perl                     Discovery of the tau lepton.
      [1953]  Frederick Reines                Detection of the neutrino.


1996          David Lee                       Superfluidity in helium-3.
              Douglas Osheroff
              Robert Richardson


1997  [1985]  Steven Chu                      Development of methods to trap and cool atoms with laser light.
              Claude Cohen-Tannoudji
              William Phillips


1998  [1982]  Robert Laughlin                 Discovery and theory of the fractional quantum Hall effect.
              Horst Störmer
              Daniel Tsui


1999  [1972]  Gerard 't Hooft                 Development of a renormalisation scheme for non-abelian gauge theories.
              Martin Veltman


2000  [1957]  Herbert Kroemer                 Growing of heterostructures.
      [1963]  Zhores Alferov                  Semiconductor laser based on heterostructures.
      [1958]  Jack Kilby                      Invention of the integrated circuit.


2001          Eric Cornell                    Bose–Einstein condensation of alkali metals.
              Carl Wieman
              Wolfgang Ketterle


2002          Raymond Davis Jr                Detection of cosmic neutrinos.
              Masatosh Koshiba
              Riccardo Giacconi               Detection of cosmic X rays.


2003          Alexei Abrikosov                Pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids.
      [1950]  Vitaly Ginzburg
      [1970]  Anthony Leggett


2004  [1973]  David Gross                     Discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.
              David Politzer
              Frank Wilczek


2005          Roy Glauber                     Quantum theory of optical coherence.
              John Hall                       Development of ultra-high precision measurements of light.
	      Theodor Hänsch                    


2006          John Mather                     Study of the early universe, and developing the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) experiment.
              George Smoot


2007          Albert Fert                     Discovery of giant magnetoresistance.
              Peter Grünberg


2008          Yoichiro Nambu                  Discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking.      
              Makoto Kobayashi                Discovery of the origin of symmetry breaking.
              Toshihide Maskawa


2009          Charles Kao                     Achievements concerning transmission of light in optical fibres.
              Willard Boyle                   Invention of the charge-coupled device (CCD).
              George Smith


2010          Andre Geim                      Experiments in graphene.
              Konstantin Novoselov


2011          Saul Perlmutter                 Discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe.
              Brian Schmidt
              Adam Riess


2012          Serge Haroche                   New experimental methods for studying individual quantum systems.
              David Wineland


2013          François Englert                Theory of the Higgs mechanism.
              Peter Higgs


2014          Isamu Akasaki                   Invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes.
              Hiroshi Amano
              Shuji Nakamura


2015          Takaaki Kajita                  Discovery of neutrino oscillations.
              Arthur McDonald


2016          David Thouless                  Discoveries involving topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.
              F. Haldane
              J. Kosterlitz


2017          Rainer Weiss                    Contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.
              Barry Barish
              Kip Thorne


2018          Arthur Ashkin                   Inventions in the field of laser physics.
              Gérard Mourou
              Donna Strickland


2019          James Peebles                   Contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth's place in the cosmos.
              Michel Mayor
              Didier Queloz


2020          Roger Penrose                   The discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of general relativity.
              Reinhard Genzel                 The discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy.
              Andrea Ghez


2021          Syukuro Manabe                  The physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming.
              Klaus Hasselmann
              Giorgio Parisi                  The discovery of the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems, from atomic to planetary scales.