nobel honors NUMBER for astrophysics work tuesday october NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER pm stockholm sweden ap two americans and a japanese won the nobel prize in physics tuesday for using some of the most obscure particles and waves in nature to understand the workings of astronomy s grandest wonders riccardo giacconi NUMBER of the associated universities inc in washington d c will get half of the NUMBER million prize for his role in pioneering contributions to astrophysics which have led to the discovery of cosmic x ray sources raymond davis jr NUMBER of the university of pennsylvania shares the other half of the prize with japanese scientist masatoshi koshiba NUMBER of the university of tokyo the two men pioneered the construction of giant underground chambers to detect neutrinos elusive particles that stream from the sun by the billion neutrinos offer an unparalleled view of the sun s inner workings because they are produced in its heart by the same process that causes it to shine in fact davis early experiments performed during the NUMBERs in a south dakota gold mine confirmed that the sun is powered by nuclear fusion koshiba won his share of the prize for his work at the kamiokande neutrino detector in japan that experiment confirmed and extended davis work and also discovered neutrinos coming from distant supernova explosions some of the brightest objects in the universe the italian born giacconi a u s citizen was awarded half of the prize for building the first x ray telescopes that provided completely new and sharp images of the universe the academy said his research laid the foundation for x ray astronomy which has led to the discovery of black holes and allowed researchers to peer deep into the hearts of the dusty young galaxies where stars are born when academy officials reached giacconi by phone at his home outside washington he said he was dumbstruck to learn of the prize koshiba also was phoned at home in tokyo but the academy was still trying to reach davis spokesman erling norrby said this year s nobel awards started monday with the naming of britons sydney brenner NUMBER and sir john e sulston NUMBER and american h robert horvitz NUMBER as winners of the medicine prize selected by a committee at the karolinska institute the researchers shared it for discoveries about how genes regulate organ growth and a process of programmed cell deaths that shed light on how viruses and bacteria invade human cells including in conditions such as aids strokes cancer and heart attacks the winner of the nobel prize in chemistry will be named on wednesday morning and the bank of sweden prize in economic sciences in memory of alfred nobel later the same day the literature prize winner will be announced on thursday the swedish academy said on tuesday the winner of the coveted peace prize the only one not awarded in sweden will be announced friday in oslo norway the award committees make their decisions in deep secrecy and candidates are not publicly revealed for NUMBER years alfred nobel the wealthy swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite who endowed the prizes left only vague guidelines for the selection committees in his will he said the prize being revealed on tuesday should be given to those who shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind and shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics the royal swedish academy of sciences which also chooses the chemistry and economics winners invited nominations from previous recipients and experts in the fields before cutting down its choices deliberations are conducted in strict secrecy the prizes are presented on dec NUMBER the anniversary of nobel s death in NUMBER in stockholm and in oslo on the net nobel site URL yahoo groups sponsor plan to sell a home URL to unsubscribe from this group send an email to forteana unsubscribe URL your use of yahoo groups is subject to URL 