On Tuesday morning Physics World editors will be glued to their computer screens in eager anticipation of the Nobel Prize for Physics – which will be announced at or after 10:45 UK time.
I have to admit that my past predictions have been pretty wide off the mark. I think I was right twice in 12 years, and that was with the rather obvious prizes associated with the Higgs boson and LIGO’s measurement of gravitational waves.
But I will never learn, so here are a few more predictions.
Yakir Aharonov and Michael Berry for their seminal work on geometric phases in quantum mechanics. This award is long due – Aharonov and Berry did their work in the 1950s and 1980s respectively – and the Swedish Academy must surely have the pair on their shortlist.
My second tip is Lene Hau for her work on slow light. Hau’s work involves slowing light down to a snail’s pace by passing it through an atomic gas – even getting the light to stop. This is amazing enough, but the principles involved could play important roles in quantum computers of the future. And let’s face it, it’s time that a woman won the physics prize. There are only two female physics laureates and the last time a woman won was 55 years ago when Maria Goeppert Mayer shared the prize for her work on nuclear shell structure.
Finally, here is a pick from my colleague Matin Durrani, editor of Physics World magazine. He goes for three physicists who developed the basic physics of “metamaterials” – engineered structures that can bend light in unusual ways and that can be used as invisibility cloaks. His choices would be Victor Veselago, David Smith and John Pendry who defied the sceptics to show that invisibility cloaks could indeed be built.
- UPDATE: Physics World has learned that Victor Veselago, whom we tipped as a possible winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics, died on 15 September 2018.
