BOSTON (AP) – What’s a Nobel Prize worth?

That question was central to a divorce case between an MIT physicist who won the 2001 Nobel Prize and his former wife, who claimed that as an academic and scientific “superstar,” her former husband should pay more because the prize would probably make him richer in the future.

The state appeals court ruled Friday that physicist Wolfgang Ketterle will probably become wealthier for having won the Nobel prize, and that his wife should get a larger percentage of their assets as a result.

The court was ruling in the divorce case of Gabriele Ketterle and Wolfgang Ketterle, who were married in 1985 in Germany and divorced 17 years later.

Wolfgang Ketterle shared the 2001 prize with two other physicists for creating a new state of matter: an ultra-cold gas called “Bose-Einstein condensate” that could aid in developing smaller and faster electronics.

The divorce court judge said Wolfgang Ketterle was a “superstar in the scientific and academic universe” and had “substantial ability to acquire future income and assets,” according to Friday’s ruling. The judge gave Gabriele Ketterle a greater percentage of the couple’s assets and ordered Wolfgang Ketterle to pay the tuition costs of the couple’s three children.

He appealed. The appeals court found that the lower court judge was mostly correct, though it reversed the decision that Ketterle should pay the college costs for the two youngest children.

Attorneys for the Ketterles did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

AP-ES-09-03-04 1550EDT