Nobel Laureates in Physics: Born in October

Brief information about fourteen scientists who won Nobel Prize in Physics and born in October.

Vitaly Ginzburg

Born: 4 October 1916, Moscow, Russian Empire

Died: 8 November 2009

Nobel Prize in Physics: 2003 

"for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids."

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton

Born: 6 October 1903, Dungarvan, Ireland

Died: 25 June 1995, Belfast, Northern Ireland

Affiliation at the time of the award: Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Prize motivation: "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles."

Prize share: 1/2

Riccardo Giacconi

Born: 6 October 1931, Genoa, Italy

Affiliation at the time of the award: Associated Universities Inc., Washington, DC, USA

Prize motivation: "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources."

Prize share: 1/2

Niels Henrik David Bohr

Born: 7 October 1885, Copenhagen, Denmark

Died: 18 November 1962, Copenhagen, Denmark

Affiliation at the time of the award: Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark

Prize motivation: "for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them."

Prize share: 1/1

Max von Laue

Born: 9 October 1879, Pfaffendorf, Germany

Died: 23 April 1960, Berlin, West Germany (now Germany)

Affiliation at the time of the award: Frankfurt-on-the-Main University, Frankfurt-on-the-Main, Germany

Prize motivation: "for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals."

Prize share: 1/1

Raymond Davis Jr.

Born: 14 October 1914, Washington, DC, USA

Died: 31 May 2006, Blue Point, NY, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Prize motivation: "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos."

Prize share: 1/4

Subramanyan Chandrasekhar

Born: 19 October 1910, Lahore, India (now Pakistan)

Died: 21 August 1995, Chicago, IL, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Prize motivation: "for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars."

Prize share: 1/2

James Chadwick

Born: 20 October 1891, Manchester, United Kingdom

Died: 24 July 1974, Cambridge, United Kingdom

Affiliation at the time of the award: Liverpool University, Liverpool, United Kingdom

Prize motivation: "for the discovery of the neutron."

Prize share: 1/1

Wolfgang Ketterle

Born: 21 October 1957, Heidelberg, West Germany (now Germany)

Affiliation at the time of the award: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA

Prize motivation: "for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates."

Prize share: 1/3

Clinton Joseph Davisson

Born: 22 October 1881, Bloomington, IL, USA

Died: 1 February 1958, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Bell Telephone Laboratories, New York, NY, USA

Prize motivation: "for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals."

Prize share: 1/2

Felix Bloch

Born: 23 October 1905, Zurich, Switzerland

Died: 10 September 1983, Zurich, Switzerland

Affiliation at the time of the award: Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Prize motivation: "for their development of new methods for nuclear magnetic precision measurements and discoveries in connection therewith."

Prize share: 1/2

Il´ja Mikhailovich Frank

Born: 23 October 1908, Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Russia

Died: 22 June 1990, Moscow, USSR (now Russia)

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Moscow, Moscow, USSR, P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, USSR

Prize motivation: "for the discovery and the interpretation of the Cherenkov effect."

Prize share: 1/3

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes

Born: 24 October 1932, Paris, France

Died: 18 May 2007, Orsay, France

Affiliation at the time of the award: Collège de France, Paris, France

Prize motivation: "for discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers."

Prize share: 1/1

Theodor W. Hänsch

Born: 30 October 1941, Heidelberg, Germany

Affiliation at the time of the award: Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching, Germany , Ludwig-Maximilians- Universität, Munich, Germany

Prize motivation: "for their contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique."

Prize share: 1/4