Trump Takes Credit for Nobel Prize Awarded for Research Done in the 1980s
AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein
President Donald Trump took credit for winning the Nobel Prize in Physics, which was awarded this month to three scientists.
On Oct. 7, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced it awarded this year’s prize to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis.
“A major question in physics is the maximum size of a system that can demonstrate quantum mechanical effects,” the committee stated in a press release. “This year’s Nobel Prize laureates conducted experiments with an electrical circuit in which they demonstrated both quantum mechanical tunnelling and quantised energy levels in a system big enough to be held in the hand.”
The release went on to note that in 1984 and 1985, the three men “conducted a series of experiments with an electronic circuit built of superconductors, components that can conduct a current with no electrical resistance.”
Their work became the foundation for superconducting quantum computing.
On Thursday, Trump took to Truth Social, where he touted a purported statement from Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, seemingly giving the president credit for the prize. The statement mentioned “A former Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist,” which presumably refers to Clarke, a British scientist who worked at the Berkeley Lab four decades ago:
Chris Wright: “A former Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist won the Nobel Prize in physics for work in Quantum physics. Quantum computing, along with AI and Fusion, are the three signature Trump science efforts. Trump 47 racks up his first Nobel Prize!!”
Trump’s Truth Social is the only source for Wright’s statement.
The president has long been fixated on winning a Nobel Peace Prize, as he has repeatedly claimed – dubiously – that he has ended eight wars. This year’s Peace Prize, however, went to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who nevertheless dedicated her award to Trump.
“We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy,” she wrote this month.
