The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics

It's that time of year again!

News of who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics has just recently been released, and this year, it's 3 British scientists, David Thouless, Duncane Haldane, Micheal Kosterlitz.

And that's practically all the information you can find anywhere.

There have been some sparse mentions of topology, but almost nothing on the specifics of what these scientists have been working on.

So, I have taken it upon myself to explain what this years Nobel laureates have been awarded for, in the simplest way possible.

First, some context.

You've likely heard of 'quantum physics' before, and if you're anything like the average person, you have no idea what it means.

Quantum physics deals with very, very, very small bits of matter. Unfathomably small bits of matter, like electrons and quarks and neutrinos. Quantum physics looks at the laws of the universe, down to the atomic level. And generally, the laws that they follow are super strange.

Second bit of context, phase transitions. All of us are familiar with phase transitions, specifically, those facilitated by changes in temperature (melting, boiling, freezing, you get the idea). There are other kinds of phase transitions too, ones that we are less familiar with. These are a bit more complicated, like how magnets under the 'Curie temperature' no longer magnetic, Bose-Einstein condensates demonstrating increased order, and more. Basically, a phase transition is an umbrella term for a whole bunch of phenomena.

Now, onto the actual discovery.

The scientists took a piece of material that was super thin, only atoms thin. Because it was so thin, quantum effects are now significant. In these piece of material, quantum vortices form (think of a quantum vortex like a whirlpool. A really, really tiny whirlpool). If the temperature is close to absolute zero, the quantum vortices form pairs, but as the temperature increases, they begin to spread out along the surface of the material.

You might be wondering, how on earth is that useful?

Using this new phase transition, we can create topological insulators, materials which have properties of insulators and conductors.

Conductors allow the flow of electrons throughout the material, and insulators don't allow any electrons to flow at all.

A topological insulator acts as both, as only the surface has those moving quantum vortices, and the rest of the material doesn't.

If you would like to have a look at the chemistry and medicine winners of the Nobel prize, have a look at these two videos. They were a major influence in the making of this article, since there wasn't much information out yet about any of the Nobel laureates, work, especially for physics. Take a look!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIzDaxaiAn4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_takaZB1-vg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIzDaxaiAn4

http://www.mit.edu/~8.334/grades/projects/projects10/AlexanderPapageorge/Page4.html

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2016/

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/nobel-prize-physics-2016-announced

http://www.rmcybernetics.com/projects/experiments/experiments_curie_effect.htm