Nobel physics laureate:

Alzheimer’s may stop lecture

HONG KONG: Nobel Prize winner Charles Kao may be unable to give the traditional laureate’s lecture because he has Alzheimer’s disease, as academics query why it took so long to award him, a report said Thursday.

Kao, a former vice chancellor of Hong Kong’s Chinese University, won the Nobel Prize for physics this week for work on fibre optic technology that helped revolutionise the world of communications.

Another former vice chancellor of the Chinese university, Professor Ambrose King told the South China Morning Post that 75-year-old Kao had difficulty speaking.“His wife said Kao cannot speak very well and might not be able to speak in a complete sentence,” King said.

“It would be good if the award came a year earlier. However, it is still not too late for him.”

Kao shared the award with fellow physicists Willard Boyle and George Smith, who invented a sensor that is the digital camera’s “electronic eye”.

The Shanghai-born scientist will attend the awards ceremony in Stockholm in December, the Post reported.

The newspaper questioned whether Kao will be up to giving the lecture that Nobel Laureates typically present on a subject connected to their award-winning work. Thursday, AFP