Falling temperatures, blowing snow and dangerous travel conditions

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2016 has been awarded to three theoretical researchers for their insights into the odd behavior of matter in unusual phases, like superconductors, superfluid films and some kinds of magnets.

David J. Thouless receives half the prize, and Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz share the other half. All three used mathematics to explain the the properties of matter in certain states.

Their work relied on the field of topology, which describes properties that only change in integer steps. Thors Hans Hansson, a professor of theoretical physics who was on the Nobel Committe for Physics this year, pulled out a cinnamon bun, a bagel and a pretzel to explain the concept. "I brought my lunch," he joked, before explaining that the number of holes in each baked good represented a "topological invariant" — you can have no holes, one hole or two holes, but there's no such thing as half a hole.

Topologically, a plate, a cup and a cinnamon bun are categorically the same, with no holes, while a coffee cup and a bagel are in another category, with one hole.

The researchers' prize-winning insight was that concepts from topology could explain what was happening when matter changed phases in unusual situations. They weren't looking at familiar phase changes, like ice melting into water, but strange changes that occur with very thin layers of matter, very cold substances or extreme magnetic fields.

Hansson set aside his bagel for a new metaphor — a tornado — to explain how a topological phase transition works. A swirling vortex in a thin layer of liquid is like a hole, he said, in that you either have one or you don't; you count it in integers. And a switch from paired vortices to solitary vortices could explain a puzzling phase transition in helium fields.

The discoveries that won the Nobel are theoretical — and beautiful, a Nobel spokesman said. They could have concrete, practical applications in electronics and computing, but the Nobel isn't being awarded for those benefits, Hansson noted, but for the "profound insights into physics" on a theoretical level.


Here's more on the award-winning research, from 


A longer description of the research, written for a general audience, is available 

; if you'd like to see the math for yourself, the scientific background is 

.
All three of the Nobel Laureates in Physics this year are of British origin and are associated with American universities. Thouless is a professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Haldane is a professor at Princeton and Kosterlitz is a professor at Brown.  Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Science

One half of the prize went to David J. Thouless; the other half was shared by F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz. They used math to explain the odd behavior of unusual states of matter.

3 physicists win Nobel for theoretical research into phases of matter

Go Deeper.

Like this?