The other Nobel prize winners

Britain's Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George Smith of the US, winners of the 2009 Nobel prize for physics. Photograph: Reuters and NAE

Barack Obama was the centre of attention when he picked up the Nobel peace prize in Oslo, Norway, today. But there were also prizes for physics, literature, medicine and chemistry, in a parallel event in Stockholm, Sweden.

In Charles Kuen Kao, Woolwich Polytechnic in east London – now part of Greenwich University – has its first Nobel laureate. A Chinese-born Briton, Kao studied at Woolwich before joining a phone company in Essex. He shares half of the prize for physics with two Americans, Willard Boyle and George Smith