..for design and implementation of neutrino detectors:

[link|http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/09/science/09PHYS.html|http://www.nytimes..../09PHYS.html]
[link|http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/2002/press.html|http://www.nobel.se...2/press.html]

The most spectacular result was detection of a neutrino burst from a distant supernova.

Davis was born in 1914, 2 years before general relativity was published. Koshiba was born in 1926, the year of the Schroedinger equation and the mathematical description of spin. Wow! What lives these guys have led.

The physics Nobel almost always is well deserved. The importance of neutrino physics cannot be overstated - everything depends on these ghosts that can pass through light years of lead without a scattering event. The Kamiokande experiment is the most important one in the world until the antimatter gravity experiment is operational.

In spite of the hype about string theory, almost nothing fundamentally interesting has happened in physics in the last 30 years. The work on neutrinos is an exception.