NIST fellow wins Nobel Prize for physics

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics to David J. Wineland. Wineland is a physicist at the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and receives the award “for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems,” according to an Oct. 9 press release. This is NIST’s fourth Nobel Prize in Physics in the past 15 years.

Wineland, who said he learned of the award when Academy officials called his Colorado home at 3:30 a.m., shortly before making the official Oct. 9 announcement, shares the honor with French native and longtime friend Serge Haroche of the Collège de France and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Wineland holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and is currently based in Boulder, Colo., as a NIST Fellow.