STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Two Dutch physicists won the 1999 Nobel Physics Prize on Tuesday for pioneering work which helped predict the behavior of invisible particles which make up the universe.
Martinus Veltman and his disciple Gerardus 't Hooft put new theories for the complex field of quantum physics -- the study of minute units making up atoms -- on a firm mathematical foundation, the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences said.
Scientists say their work could help pave the way for a new generation of "quantum computers'' which can do within days things which would take modern computers thousands of years.
Veltman told Dutch radio his pioneering work turned particle physics on its head but had little day-to-day value.
``The social benefit of my theory is absolutely nil -- you won't eat any more or less as a result,'' said Veltman, who was physics professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and later at Michigan University in the United States.
``The prize money does not matter much to me either,'' added the retired professor, born in 1931. The award is worth almost a million dollars.
Veltman said his prize-winning research, dating back to 1970, amounted to a theoretical machinery for predicting the way particles interacted.
``It meant a breakthrough in the fundamental laws of nature,'' he added.
Swedish physicist Cecilia Jarlskog, who heads the Nobel Committee for Physics, said of the winners: "They have taken forward our understanding of the basic constituents of matter and how they interact with each other,''
Veltman and 't Hooft worked together for some three decades before coming up with the calculations which explain a theory linking electromagnetic and `"weak'' interactions -- the basic process which produces 99 percent of the sun's energy.
"Probably in some 10 to 20 years' time there will be quantum computers using the basic knowledge of quantum mechanics,'' said Per Carlson, a member of the Nobel Committee for Physics.
U.S. military scientists are worried about the likely advent of these computers because they could probably crack complex secret codes within two weeks, giving outsiders the chance to meddle with nuclear weapons.
Work in quantum physics has already led to several Nobel Prizes and been responsible for such popular inventions as the transistor radio, television and compact discs -- along with laser beams, which are used in surgery.
'T Hooft, 53, is a colorful scientist whose interests range from photographing solar eclipses to creating animated web pages showing what happens when an object disappears into a ``black hole'' in outer space.
A black hole is a collapsed star with density so great that the gravity does not allow even radiation to escape.
He approached Veltman at the age of 22 saying he wanted to study high-energy physics. He published two breakthrough articles in 1971.
The two men have been working together ever since, with their research based on theories for electro-weak interaction which were developed in the 1960s by U.S. and British scientists, who later received the 1979 Nobel Prize.
``They have given us the methods and techniques to fully exploit this theory and to make it into one with which you can make accurate predictions,'' Jarlskog said.
Experiments at atomic accelerator laboratories in Europe, such as CERN in Geneva, and the United States, have recently confirmed many of their calculations, the Swedish academy said.
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