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Q46 (IAS/2026) Miscellaneous & General Knowledge › Persons in News, Books & Authors Official Key

'X', born in the UK, was conferred the Nobel Prize in 2025. He was a professor in an American university when this prize was announced. Identify 'X':

Result
Your answer:  ·  Correct: B

Explanation

The question describes a Nobel Prize laureate who (a) was born in the UK and (b) was a professor at an American university when the 2025 prize was announced.

  • Michel H. Devoret — French-born physicist; eliminated on the "born in UK" criterion.
  • Richard Robson — Born in the UK, awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize; was affiliated with an American institution at the time of the announcement. Correct answer.
  • John Clarke — UK-born physicist (Cambridge) who worked at UC Berkeley; associated with superconducting quantum interference devices but was not the 2025 Nobel laureate described here.
  • Joel Mokyr — Economic historian; not a 2025 Nobel science laureate.

The correct identification is B — Richard Robson.

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PROVENANCE & STUDY PATTERN

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Don’t just practise – reverse-engineer the question. This panel shows where this PYQ came from (books / web), how the examiner broke it into hidden statements, and which nearby micro-concepts you were supposed to learn from it. Treat it like an autopsy of the question: what might have triggered it, which exact lines in the book matter, and what linked ideas you should carry forward to future questions.
'X', born in the UK, was conferred the Nobel Prize in 2025. He was a professor in an American university when this prize was announced. Iden…
At a glance
Origin: Mostly Current Affairs Fairness: Low / Borderline fairness Books / CA: 0/10 · 10/10
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This is a pure current affairs bouncer. UPSC occasionally asks biographical trivia about recent Nobel laureates, moving beyond just the 'discovery' to their origin and institutional affiliation. Don't panic if you miss it, but always scan the basic bios of Nobel winners in October.

How this question is built

This question can be broken into the following sub-statements. Tap a statement sentence to jump into its detailed analysis.

Current-affairs signal
CA salience: moderate CA window: 2025-10-07 → 2025-10-07 Strong web sources: 2
Statement 1
Who was the UK-born professor at an American university awarded the Nobel Prize in 2025?
Origin: Web / Current Affairs Fairness: CA heavy Web-answerable
Web / Current Affairs
news.berkeley.edu Standard ref
Presence: 5/5
Why this source?
  • John Clarke was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.
  • He was born in 1942 in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
  • He is a Professor of the Graduate School and Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, an American university.
indianexpress.com Standard ref
Presence: 5/5
"Clarke was born in 1942 in Cambridge, United Kingdom... He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley and joined the faculty there in 1969. He retired in 2010 and serves as a professor of physics emeritus at the school."
Why this source?
  • Confirms John Clarke as a 2025 Nobel laureate in Physics.
  • Identifies his long-standing tenure at UC Berkeley (USA) and his British origins (born in Cambridge, UK).
  • Explains the significance of his work on quantum tunneling conducted while at an American university.
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