Arthur Bruce McDonald, physicist and Director of Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Institute in Sudbury, Ontario, has been co-awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Japan’s Takaaki Kajita.
According to the announcement on the Nobel Prize website, McDonald and Kajita were awarded the prize for their “discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass.”
McDonald, born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, holds a Ph.D. in physics from the California Institute of Technology. He previously worked as a professor at Princeton University in the 1980s, before leaving to join Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where he currently serves at University Research Chair, as well as a board member at the Premier Institute for Theoretical Physics.
McDonald joins 23 other Canadian Nobel Prize winners, including author and poet Alice Munro, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, Ralph M. Steinman, who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, all the way back to Ernest Rutherford, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908, and who – while born in New Zealand – was presented with the award for his work at McGill University and is thus considered the first Canadian to win the prize.
BREAKING NEWS The 2015 #NobelPrize in Physics to Takaaki Kajita @UTokyo_news_en and Arthur B. McDonald @queensu pic.twitter.com/ipvzm0EEFN
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2015
Congratulations to #queensu Prof Emeritus Art McDonald, winner of an @NobelPrize for Physics http://t.co/cxsPcSM11t pic.twitter.com/9phjYB8FrQ — Queen’s University (@queensu) October 6, 2015
”It’s ironic, in order to observe the sun you have to go kilometers under ground.” Arthur McDonald: https://t.co/HEt4wAqa2c #NobelPrize
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 6, 2015