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Italy's Giorgio Parisi among winners of Nobel Prize for Physics

AFP/The Local
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Italy's Giorgio Parisi among winners of Nobel Prize for Physics
Goran K. Hansson (C), Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and members of the Nobel Committee for Physics Thors Hans Hansson (L) and John Wettlaufer (R) sit in front of a screen displaying the co-winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics (L-R) Syukuro Manabe (US-Japan), Klaus Hasselmann (Germany) and Giorgio Parisi (Italy) at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 5, 2021. - US-Japanese scientist Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany and Giorgio Parisi of Italy won the Nobel Physics Prize for climate models and the understanding of physical systems, the jury said. Manabe and Hasselmann share one half of the prize for their research on climate models, while Parisi won the other half for his work on the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)

Italian physicist Giorgio Parisi of Rome's Sapienza University won the Nobel Prize for Physics along with Syukuro Manabe & Klaus Hasselmann, the jury announced.

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Rome-born Parisi, 73, won the prize for his research on complex systems.

Parisi was spotlighted for his work in the 1980s that was said by the Nobel Committee to be "among the most important contributions" to the theory of complex systems.

His work made it possible for physicists to understand apparently entirely random materials, with wide-ranging applications including mathematics, biology, and machine learning.

A theoretical physicist at Rome's La Sapienza University and the National Nuclear Physics Institute (INFN), Parisi is also vice president of the Accademia dei Lincei.

 He shared the prize with Syukuro Manabe of Japan and Germany's Klaus Hasselmann.

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The two researchers won for their work on climate models and global warming.

 "I'm happy, I didn't expect it, but I knew there might be a chance (of winning)," Parisi said via videolink with the Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.

Italy has now won 20 Nobels including 12 for science and two for women: Grazia Deledda for literature in 1926 and Rita Levi Montalcini for medicine 60 years later in 1986.

The prestigious honour is the second Nobel of the season after the medicine prize on Monday went to a US duo David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for discoveries on receptors for temperature and touch.

The Nobel season continues on Wednesday with the award for chemistry, followed by the much-anticipated prizes for literature on Thursday and peace on Friday before the economics prize winds things up on Monday, October 11.

While the names of the Nobel laureates are kept secret until the last minute, the Nobel Foundation has already announced that the glittering prize ceremony and banquet held in Stockholm in December for the science and
literature laureates will not happen this year due to the pandemic.

Like last year, laureates will receive their awards in their home countries. 

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