A Stanford University research scientist has won $100,000 prize for his research on providing fundamental insights about quantum field theory, gravity and quantum information.
34-year-old Aron Wall won the 2019 Breakthrough New Horizons in Physics Prize, which is given to emerging researchers who have an important piece of work to their credit.
Wall will share the award with Daniel Jafferis of Harvard University and Daniel Harlow of MIT at an award ceremony to be held on November 4.
“It’s very humbling to get an award like this, especially when I know so much of the great work that other people do,” said Wall.
In last one decade, he has dug deeper into various topics ranging from black hole thermodynamics to quantum information theory. In 2017, he authored a paper showing how to create a stable tunnel between two distant black holes by using quantum effects to connect them.
“This is the only known way to construct a traversable wormhole in string theory. Unfortunately, the method we used for opening the wormhole automatically prevents you from using it for faster-than-light travel. You can still get through it, but it’s slower than if you go around the long way,” Wall said about his research.
Wall who earlier received Bergmann-Wheeler Thesis Prize in 2013, Philippe Meyer Prize in Theoretical Physics and Young Scientist Prize in 2018 will join Cambridge University as a lecturer in 2019.
