Austria's Nobel Anton Zeilinger Laureate Receives Honor from President
Austrian quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger was awarded the "Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria" by Austria's Federal President Van der Bellen.
Presentation of the Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver with Star to Anton Zeilinger. / Picture: © Österreichische Präsidentschaftskanzlei / Peter Lechner/HBF
Ten days after he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in Stockholm, Anton Zeilinger was honored again in Austria on Tuesday. President Alexander Van der Bellen awarded the highly decorated Viennese quantum physicist with the "Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver with Star for Services to the Republic of Austria". Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Minister of Education Martin Polaschek also attended the ceremony at the Presidential Chancellery.
The 77-year-old professor emeritus at the University of Vienna, who works at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, shares this year's Nobel Prize in Physics with French physicist Alain Aspect and his U.S. colleague John Clauser, Vindobona.org reported. They were honored "for experiments with entangled photons, proof of the violation of Bell's inequalities and pioneering quantum information science."
"Anton Zeilinger has shaped the image of science in recent decades like no one else," Van der Bellen stated solemnly, highlighting not only the scientific merits of the physicist, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. His numerous other activities are also a reason for his success.
Specifically, this refers to Zeilinger's founding of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) in Klosterneuburg, which was created based on an idea of the Nobel laureate, as well as his presidency at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) from 2013 to 2022.