3 Americans share Nobel prize in chemistry
Posted October 9, 2013 9:36 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The Nobel prize in chemistry has been awarded to three American scientists.
Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel will share the prize for laying the foundation for computer modeling that’s now used to understand and predict chemical processes.
Their research in the 1970s helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes, such as the purification of exhaust fumes and the photosynthesis in green leaves, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday.
“The work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton’s classical physics work side-by-side with the fundamentally different quantum physics,” the academy said. “Previously, chemists had to choose to use either/or.”
On Monday, the academy awarded the Nobel prize in medicine to James Rothman of Yale University, Randy Schekman of the University of California at Berkeley and Thomas Sudhof, of Standford University, who solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system.
On Tuesday, the academy awarded the Nobel Prize in physics to Francois Englert and Peter Higgs “for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles.”
The academy will announce the winner of the Nobel prize for Literature on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the Nobel for economic sciences on Monday.
The Nobel laureates will be given their awards on Dec. 10.
