aria. a coordinator from the red cross speaking with us earlier this year s nobel prize for physics has just been announced by the royal swedish academy of sciences in stockholm it s been awarded in two parts with half going to u.s. scientists arthur ashkan and the other half to a team of two physicists the frenchman gerard maule roo and canadian donna strickland the three were honored for their research in the field of laser physics . and derek williams joins us here in the studio to tell us a little bit more about the nobel committee s decision and why exactly they ve received this prize tell us a little bit more about laser physics and what they ve accomplished these are two fairly widely divergent fields but what they do have in common is laser physics ashton s work involved what are called optical tweezers so they allowed us on a micro he created a tool that allowed us on