French scientist Serge Haroche said on Tuesday that he was delighted to share the Nobel Prize in physics with fellow scientist American, David Wineland for finding ways to measure quantum particles without destroying them, which could make it possible to build a new kind of computer far more powerful than any seen before.
Haroche along with Wineland, both 68, found ways to manipulate the very smallest particles of matter and light to observe strange behavior that previously could only be imagined in equations and thought experiments.
Wineland has described his own work as a "parlour trick" that performed the seemingly magical feat of putting an object in two places at once. Other scientists praised the achievements as bringing to life the wildest dreams of science fiction.
Physics is the second of this year's crop of awards; scientists from Britain and Japan shared the first prize on Monday, in medicine, for adult stem cell research. The prizes, which reward achievements in science, literature and peace, were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of Swedish dynamite millionaire Alfred Nobel.
