How is a doughnut like a coffee cup? The answer helped three British-born scientists win the Nobel prize in physics Tuesday.
Their work could help lead to more powerful computers and improved materials for electronics.
David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz, who are now affiliated with universities in the United States, were honored for work in the 1970s and ’80s that shed light on strange states of matter.
“Their discoveries have brought about breakthroughs in the theoretical understanding of matter’s mysteries and created new perspectives on the development of innovative materials,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Thouless, 82, is a professor emeritus at the University of Washington. Haldane, 65, is a physics professor at Princeton University in New Jersey. Kosterlitz, 73, is a physics professor at Brown University in Providence, R.I., and currently a visiting lecturer at Aalto University in Helsinki.
The 8 million kronor ($930,000) award was divided with one half going to Thouless and the other to Haldane and Kosterlitz.
They investigated strange states of matter like superconductivity, the ability of a material to conduct electricity without resistance.
Their work called on an abstract mathematical field called topology, which presents a particular way to describe some properties of matter. In this realm, a doughnut and a coffee cup are basically the same thing because each contains precisely one hole. Topology describes properties that can only change in full steps; you can’t have half a hole.
“Using topology as a tool, they were able to astound the experts,” the academy said.
For example, in the 1970s, Kosterlitz and Thouless showed that very thin layers of material — essentially containing only two dimensions rather than three — could undergo fundamental changes known as phase transitions. One example is when a material is chilled enough that it can start showing superconductivity.
Scientists had thought phase changes were impossible in just two dimensions, but the two men showed changes do occur and they were rooted in topology.
“This was a radically new way of looking at phases of matter,” said Sankar Das Sarma, a physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park.
“Now everywhere we look we find that topology affects the physical world,” he said.
The chemistry prize will be announced on Wednesday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.