Archive for Nobel Prize for Physics 2023

Nobel Prize for Physics Speculation

Posted in Biographical, Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , on October 6, 2024 by telescoper

Just  to mention that that Tuesday (October 8th 2024) will see the announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics. I must remember to make sure my mobile phone is fully charged so I can be easily reached.

The announcement of the Nobel Prize for Physics is preceded tomorrow (Monday) by the announcement of the Prize for Applications of Physics to Physiology or Medicine, and on Wednesday by the Prize for Applications of Physics to Chemistry. You can find links to all the announcements here.

I do, of course, already have a Nobel Prize Medal of my own already, dating from 2006, when I was lucky enough to attend the prize-giving ceremony and banquet.

I was, however, a guest of the Nobel Foundation rather than a prizewinner, so my medal is made of chocolate rather than gold. I think after 17 years the chocolate is now inedible, but it serves as a souvenir of a very nice weekend in Stockholm!

Regular readers of this blog may recall that I called it correctly in 2022 when Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger won the Nobel Prize for Physics that year. I had, however, predicted them every year for many years until they won, and they won’t win it again. I really have no idea who will win it this year, but I’ll suggest that there’s still an outside chance for Michael Berry and Yakir Aharonov for their work on the geometric phase, although if they were going to win they probably would have done so by now.

Feel free to make your predictions through the comments box below!

To find out you’ll have to wait for the announcement, around about 10.45 (UK/Irish time) on Tuesday morning. I’ll update this post when the wavefunction has collapsed.

P.S. My own claim for the 2023 Physics Nobel Prize is based on the discovery of the Coles Law.

P.P.S. I’ve just realized this was my 7000th blog post.

UPDATE: The 2024 Nobel Prize for Physics goes to was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”. Odd. Not really physics, IMHO.

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Nobel Prize for Physics Speculation

Posted in Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , on October 2, 2023 by telescoper

Just  to mention that tomorrow morning (Tuesday, October 3rd 2023) will see the announcement of this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics. I must remember to make sure my mobile phone is fully charged so I can be easily reached.

Of course this is just one of the announcements. This morning, for example, there is the announcement of the Prize for Physiology or Medicine, and on Wednesday is the Prize for Chemistry: both of these sometimes go to physicists too. You can find links to all the announcements here.

I do, of course, already have a Nobel Prize Medal of my own already, dating from 2006, when I was lucky enough to attend the prize-giving ceremony and banquet.

I was, however, a guest of the Nobel Foundation rather than a prizewinner, so my medal is made of chocolate rather than gold. I think after 17 years the chocolate is now inedible, but it serves as a souvenir of a very nice weekend in Stockholm!

Regular readers of this blog, Sid and Doris Bonkers, may recall that I called it correctly last year when Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger won. I had however predicted them every year for many years until they won, and they won’t win it again, so I can’t follow my usual strategy. I’ll suggest that there’s an outside chance for Michael Berry and Yakir Aharonov for their work on the geometric phase, although if they were going to win they probably would have done so by now. Feel free to make your predictions through the comments box below.

To find out you’ll have to wait for the announcement, around about 10.45 (UK/Irish time) tomorrow morning. I’ll update this post when the wavefunction has collapsed.

UPDATE: The 2023 Nobel Prize for Physics goes to:

Pierre Agostini
The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA

Ferenc Krausz
Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics, Garching and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany

Anne L’Huillier
Lund University, Sweden

“for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”

Congratulations to them! The full press release containing the citation can be found here.

Anyway, for the record, I’ll reiterate my opinion that while the Nobel Prize is flawed in many ways, particularly because it no longer really reflects how physics research is done, it does at least have the effect of getting people talking about physics. Surely that at least is a good thing?

P.S. My own claim for the 2023 Physics Nobel Prize is based on the discovery of the Coles Law.

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