If your an avid photographer who’s wondered who invented digital photography because you wanted to thank him for giving you the opportunity to experience it then worry not, he just recently received one of the highest awards any person of worth could receive.

Willard Boyle is the Canadian scientist to whom digital photography has been accredited to and just last Thursday he received one of the most prestigious awards known to man, the Nobel Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics along with other people who received Nobel Prizes for this year. Willard Boyle shared the prize with two other people responsible for giving us digital photography, George Smith of New Jersey, his research partner at Bell Labs and to Charles Kao, a British scientist who developed high-efficiency fiber optic cables. The Nobel Prize came with $1.4 million in cash which Boyle shared with his colleagues who have been named “Masters of Light” by the people from the Nobel committee.

Willard Boyle, 85 at the time, received the award from the King Carl Gustav of Sweden at the Stockholm Concert Hall. It was through the efforts of Boyle and Smith way back in 1969 that light was made into an electric charge that resulted in the birth of digital cameras.