GALAXY BRAIN

Black Hole Masterminds Win 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics

Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez have all had major parts to play in helping to unravel the mystery of black holes.

Three scientists have won the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics for their work that has shed some light on the mystery of black holes. British physicist Roger Penrose won half of the prize for his work, which demonstrated that black holes were a consequence of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, while Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez jointly scooped up the other half for their work, which provided the most convincing evidence yet of a supermassive black hole in the middle of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Ghez, a professor at UCLA, said: “I hope I can inspire other young women into the field. It’s a field that has so many pleasures, and if you are passionate about the science, there’s so much that can be done.”