Nobel Prize for physics awarded to scientists from Japan, Germany, Italy

Three Laureates share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for their studies of chaotic and apparently random phenomena. SyukuroManabe and Klaus Hasselmann laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how humanity influences it. Giorgio Parisi is rewarded for his revolutionary contributions to the theory of disordered materials and random processes.

Complex systems are characterised by randomness and disorder and are difficult to understand. This year’s Prize recognises new methods for describing them and predicting their long-term behaviour.

Around 1980, Giorgio Parisi discovered hidden patterns in disordered complex materials. His discoveries make it possible to understand and describe many different and apparently entirely random materials and phenomena, not only in physics but also in other very different areas, such as mathematics, biology, neuroscience and machine learning.