The Nobel prize in physics was awarded to Americans for topological phase transitions – Moskovsky Komsomolets

the Award was given for the door to an unexplored world

Today at 13:05, hits: 1908

on Tuesday, October 4 in Stockholm at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences named Nobel prize laureates in physics – they were three scientists from the United States. Half the prize will go to the David j. Thouless (David J. Thouless of the University of Washington (Seattle) and the other half will be shared by Duncan Haldane, F. Duncan M. Haldane of Princeton University and Michael Kosterlitz (J. Michael Kosterlitz) from brown University.

photo: pixabay.com

the decision to award said that the Nobel prize is awarded this academic Trinity “for the theoretical discovery of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”.

Winners-2016 opened the door to an unknown world where the substance can take a strange state. They used advanced mathematical methods to explore unusual phases or States of matter such as superconductors, sverigekarta or thin magnetic layers). These findings will help further development of both science and electronics.

Traditionally, on the eve of the announcement of the winners of the various mass media trying to guess who will get the award.

In particular, resource Phys.org suggested that the potential favorites may be scholars who made groundbreaking discoveries in the field of gravitational waves and dark matter. As explained, gravitational waves are “disturbances” in the fabric of space-time caused by such processes in the Universe, like collisions of black holes or the collapse of the core of the star. Physics Ronald Drever (UK), Kip Thorne, and Rainer Weiss (USA), created at the California Institute of technology Observatory laser interferometer gravitational wave, first observed in September 2015 and has announced its opening in February of this year. It is argued that their discovery opens a new door to solving the mysteries of the Universe and confirms one of the predictions made by albert Einstein in his theory of relativity.

And Thomson Reuters published the list of potential winners of the 2016, among those who could be awarded, in addition to the above scientific “trio” refers, for example, Professor Marvin Cohen of Berkeley (California, USA) for theoretical studies of solid substances, calculation of properties, and especially for “empirical pseudopotential method”. It is suggested and what about the other three scientists Grebogi, Celso, Edward Ott and James York: for the description of control theory for chaotic systems, the method OGY (Ott, Grebogi and Yorke).

Recall that in last year’s “Nobel” in physics was awarded to Japanese Takaaki kajita and Arthur B. McDonald from Canada for their discoveries in the field of vibrational motion of neutrinos, which show that neutrinos have mass. As stated in the explanation of the decision to award, this discovery is crucial for our view of the Universe.

from 1901 to 2015 Nobel prize in physics was awarded 109 times. Only 47 cases the award was given to the only one winner, in other cases, it was divided into several scientists (two or three). Thus during this time the prize was 200 people, among whom were two women who became laureates of the Nobel awards in physics (Marie Curie received in addition to the physical prize in 1903 and even the Nobel award in chemistry in 1911). The only scientist who received Nobel peace prize in physics twice was the American John Bardeen. First, he received the award together with William Bradford Shockley and Walter Pattanam in 1956. a in 1972, Bardeen was awarded a second time for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity together with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Shipfrom.

the Average age was awarded the prize in physics is 55 years old. The youngest winner in this category was 25 years old Lawrence Bragg from Australia who received the prize in 1915 with his father William Henry Bragg for achievements in the study of crystals using x-rays. The older was 88-year-old Raymond Davis, Jr., noted in 2002 the prize “for the creation of neutrino astronomy.” It is curious that in the history of the awards physicists-winners are not uncommon manifestations of “nepotism”. So, the award was shared not only the father and the son, Braggi, but the husband and wife (Marie and Paul Curie). At various times, the winners became fathers and children – Niels Bohr (1922) and his son Aage Bohr (1975), Manne Sigman (1924) and Kai M. Sigman (1981), J. J. Thomson (1906) and George Paget Thomson (1937).

In 1958 the Nobel prize in physics was awarded to three scientists of the Soviet – Pavel Cherenkov, Ilya Frank, Igor Tamm. In 1962, “nobelium” was Lev Landau, a 1964 Nobel prize was awarded to Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov. In 1978, one of the winners of the Nobel peace prize in physics was Peter Kapitsa. In 2000 the prize was awarded to Russian scientist Zhores Alferov, a 2003 – Alexei Abrikosov and Vitaly Ginzburg. In 2010 the award went to working in the West, Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov.