Supergravity pioneers win $3m Special Breakthrough prize

Daniel Freedman, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen and Sergio Ferrara developed landmark theory in 1970s

The most lucrative prize in science has been awarded to three researchers for a landmark theory that married particle physics with Einstein's description of gravity, and proposed a candidate for the mysterious cosmic goo known as dark matter to boot.

Daniel Freedman, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen and Sergio Ferrara, from the US, the Netherlands and Italy respectively, developed "supergravity" in the 1970s, a mathematical feat that wrapped Einstein's general relativity into a speculative theory of all the known particles in the universe.