California scientist shares Nobel Prize in physics

(4 Oct 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Walnut Creek, California - 4 October 2022
1. Nobel prize winner John F. Clauser answers front door
2. Clauser talking to reporter on phone in his office
3. SOUNDBITE (English) John F. Clauser, Nobel prize winner for physics:
"I had long ago stopped holding my breath that I might actually win. But of course every scientist wants to win a Nobel Prize. So I don't know what else to say. I'm very happy to get the news."
4. Clauser drinking cup of coffee
5. SOUNDBITE (English) John F. Clauser, Nobel prize winner for physics:
"Well It's been a long time. This is all work that I did 50, more than 50 years ago. I started when I was a graduate student. I wrote a paper in 1969 proposing to do an original experiment testing the foundations of quantum mechanics."
6. Einstein book on shelf
7. SOUNDBITE (English) John F. Clauser, Nobel prize winner for physics:
"The results are now quite important for quantum and encryption in particular for sending secure communications."
8. Clauser walking in his living room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) John F. Clauser, Nobel prize winner for physics:
"Well, a final vindication here. When I originally proposed doing the experiment and I actually was doing it, everybody told me I was nuts, that I would ruin my career. Everybody knew what the result would be, wasting time and money and wasting my career. But I was having fun doing some really challenging."
10. Wolf Prize award hanging on wall
11. SOUNDBITE (English) John F. Clauser, Nobel prize winner for physics:
"The way I would describe it is and I think on Star Trek, they worried about this okay? You have a box. When you step into this box, every atom of your body will be destroyed and a replica of you will appear elsewhere. Would you step into that box?"
12. Clauser sitting on sofa
STORYLINE:
Three scientists jointly won this year's Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their work on quantum information science that has significant applications, for example in the field of encryption.
Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger were cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for discovering the way that unseen particles, such as photons or tiny bits of matter, can be linked, or "entangled," with each other even when they are separated by large distances.
It all goes back to a feature of the universe that even baffled Albert Einstein and connects matter and light in a tangled, chaotic way.
Clauser, 79, was awarded his prize for a 1972 experiment that helped settle a famous debate about quantum mechanics between Einstein and famed physicist Niels Bohr. Einstein described "a spooky action at a distance" that he thought would eventually be disproved.
Clauser, Aspect, and Zeilinger have figured in Nobel speculation for more than a decade. In 2010 they won the Wolf Prize in Israel, seen as a possible precursor to the Nobel.
While physicists often tackle problems that appear at first glance to be far removed from everyday concerns — tiny particles and the vast mysteries of space and time — their research provides the foundations for many practical applications of science.
The Nobel committee said Clauser developed quantum theories first put forward in the 1960s into a practical experiment. Aspect, 75, was able to close a loophole in those theories, while Zeilinger demonstrated a phenomenon called quantum teleportation that effectively allows information to be transmitted over distances.
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