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The Nobel Prize for Physics for the year 2009 was given to Charles K. Kao, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for their precious contributions to the fields of internet and digital camera.
Kao was cited "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication" whereas Boyle and Smith received the award for the invention of the CCD sensors.
Kao, a British and US citizen, was awarded half the prize worth 10 million kronor ($1.4 million).
Boyle, a Canadian and US citizen, and Smith, an American, share the recognition for their invention of the CCD, which is similar to the "digital camera's electronic eye".
"We are the ones that I guess started this profusion of little small cameras working all over the world," Boyle told the media.s
"The most important part of our invention that affected me personally was when the Mars probe was on the surface of Mars and used a camera like ours, and it would not have been possible without our invention," Boyle added. "We saw for the first time the surface of Mars. ... It was very exciting".
It has also been of importance for astronomy and "without CCD we would not have seen the astonishing images of space taken by the Hubble space telescope”.
Kao's discovery happened way back in 1966. The 73-year-old Kao, who was born in Shanghai, calculated the transmission of light over long distances by means of optical glass fibres.
The optic fibres, now, form a vital part of telecommunication industry and "text, music, images and video can be transferred around the globe in a split second”.
The physics prize is the second of this year's Nobel Prizes to be announced after the Nobel Prized in the field of medicine, which was announced on Monday.
