This year’s Noble Prize in Physics goes to the American Trio

David Gross, David Politzer and Frank Wilczek won the 2004 Nobel physics prize Tuesday for explaining how the basic building blocks of nature, quarks, interact to make a coin spin or build the entire universe.

The American scientists have brought physics one step closer to fulfilling a grand dream, to formulate a unified theory comprising gravity as well - a theory for everything, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' citation said.

Their work on the strong force acting between quarks inside the proton and the neutron within an atomic nucleus helps explain an everyday phenomenon like a coin spinning on a table, read the Academy citation. Gross from the University of California, Politzer from the California Institute of Technology and Wilczek at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will share the $1.36 million) prize, reports Reuters.