By The Canadian Press

CANADIAN NOBEL PRIZE

Canadian born James Peebles wins Nobel prize in physics this year

Oct 8, 2019 | 6:14 AM

STOCKHOLM — Canadian born scientist James Peebles is one of three people who have won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their contributions to the understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place within it.

Peebles, born in St. Boniface, Man., is a physics professor at Princeton University in New Jersey. He won the award “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology.”

In announcing the award in Sweden Tuesday, the Nobel committee said that Peebles’ work laid a foundation for the transformation of cosmology over the last 50 years and is the basis of our contemporary ideas about the universe.

Peebles told a news conference he was uneasy about starting work in the field in 1964 at the invitation of professor Robert Dicke, who was his mentor.

“But I could think of one or two things to do in cosmology and each of them suggested something else and I just kept going,” he said.

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“When the observations started catching up with the theory, I was at regular intervals startled at the great power in the advances in technology to test these ideas.”

Peebles said the awards and prizes are “very much appreciated” but said that’s not why young people should study the sciences.

“You should enter it for the love of the science,” he said.

“You should enter science because you are fascinated by it. That’s what I did.”

Peebles completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Manitoba before moving to Princeton for graduate school.

He received his PhD in physics from Princeton in 1962 and has taught at the university since, first as an instructor and researcher in the early 1960s and then as an assistant professor in 1965.

Peebles became an associate professor in 1968 and full professor in 1972. He transferred to emeritus status in 2000.

He says in his biography for Princeton that he has a “preference for underappreciated issues” in physical cosmology.

“They are not uncommon, despite the great advances from the small science I encountered a half century ago to today’s big science,” he writes in the bio.

“What might we learn from lines of research that are off the beaten track? They check accepted ideas, always a Good Thing, and there is the chance Nature has prepared yet another surprise for us.”

Peebles shares the prize with Swiss scientists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz won “for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star.”

Mayor and Queloz announced their discovery of the planet, known as 51 Pegasi B, 24 years ago.

The three men will share a 9 million kronor (C$1.2 million) cash award, a gold medal and a diploma. The laureates will receive them at a ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

This year’s double-header Literature Prizes will be awarded Thursday and the Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. The economics prize will be awarded on Oct. 14.

The 2018 literature prize was suspended after a scandal rocked the Swedish Academy. The body plans to award it this year, along with announcing the 2019 laureate.

— With files from The Associated Press

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2019.

The Canadian Press