SCOTLAND has two new Nobel Prize winners after Professors David Thouless and Michael Kosterlitz were awarded this year’s Prize for Physics jointly with Professor Duncan Haldane for their work on strange matter.
Although they have made their lives and careers in the United States, Thouless was born in Bearsden in East Dunbartonshire in 1934 and Kosterlitz was born in Aberdeen in 1942.
Haldane was born in London in 1951 and he, too, made his home in the US at the time of the “brain drain” of British scientists to America.
Thouless, 82, from the University of Washington, Seattle, will receive half of the eight million krona (£729,000) prize money.
The rest will be shared between Haldane, from Princeton University in New Jersey, and Kosterlitz, from Brown University on Rhode Island.
“I’m a little bit dazzled. I’m still trying to take it in,” Kosterlitz said last night.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the men’s shared Nobel Prize was given in recog- nition of work that opened the door to a mysterious world in which matter can assume unusual states unknown in nature.
The trio used advanced mathematical modelling to study strange “phases” of matter such as super- conductors, superfluids and thin magnetic films.
Their pioneering research began the hunt for new “exotic” materials that may have applications in electronics, magnetic devices and quantum computing.
The citation at the awards ceremony in Stockholm said the award was for “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”.
The scientists studied phenomena that arise in “flat” layers of material so thin they can be considered two dimensional, or ultra-fine threads.
Events that occur in the “flatlands” are very different from those we are familiar with in the 3D world.
Extremely cold thinly distributed atoms can have unusual collective properties, including material phases that are still not fully understood.
Gases, liquids and solids are all phases of matter that form part of our everyday experience. But other kinds of phase are also possible, such as those that allow electrons and other particles to move without any resistance, giving rise to superconductors and superfluids.
The three Nobel laureates used a branch of mathematics called topology to study how transitions between one phase and another occur in a stepwise fashion.
In the early 1970s, Kosterlitz and Thouless overturned the widely-held theory that superconductivity or fluidity could not occur in thin layers.
Thouless showed in the 1980s that electrical conductance in very thin material can be measured in precise integer steps that had a “shape”. They were topological in nature.
At around the same time, Haldane discovered how topological concepts could be used to understand the properties of chains of small magnets found in some materials.
Nobel physics committee member Professor Thors Hansson used a bagel and a bun, held in either hand, in an attempt to explain the difficult concepts
He said: “The difference is that the bagel has a hole and the bun doesn’t. The importance with the hole is that things like taste, shape, and deformation can change continuously. The number of holes, something that we call the topological invariant, can only change like integers – one, two, three, zero.
“This [the bun] has zero holes. This [the bagel] has one hole.
“I challenge you to imagine what is half a hole. You cannot have half a hole. This fact, that you have integers that are of topological nature – that’s intimately connected to the effects and the description of these faces that is at the basis of the prize.”
Professor Sir Alan Fersht, Master of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, who was a contemporary of Kosterlitz, said: “Mike was obv- iously an exceptionally clever guy. We went to physics lectures together in our first year, and he continued to specialise in physics in the second year while I specialised in chemistry. He was a very good physicist, and moved from the UK to America fairly rapidly.”
He recalled how Kosterlitz was a “mad climber” who practised his mountaineering skills in his room on Tree Court, one of the oldest parts of the college.
Fersht said: “He built a traverse around the room where he would climb using his fingers and hanging on to the picture rail.”
Scotland’s Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, Shirley-Anne Somerville, congratulated Thouless, Kosterlitz and Haldane on their achievement. She said: “Congratulations to all three winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics for their work on states of matter, and I’m particularly pleased that two of the winners were born here in Scotland. I hope their achievements help to inspire our next generation of scientists.”
Jo Johnson, UK Government Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, said: “David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz winning the Nobel Prize is a phenomenal achievement and recognition of their tireless work in the field of condensed matter physics.
“Their groundbreaking work furthered our understanding of rare states of matter that can help the design of new materials.”
Scotland punching above its weight with grand total of 13 Nobel laureates
WITH the number of Scottish Nobel laureates having been increased to 13 yesterday, Scotland has confirmed its place as one of the small nations who are heavy hitters in the greatest prize list of them all, writes Hamish MacPherson.
The number is only 12 if Indian-born Sir Ronald Ross is discounted, but the 1902 winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on malaria transmission was the son of Sir Campbell Claye Grant Ross, a definitely Scottish general in the British Indian Army who raised his family to consider themselves as Scots.
By what I call the “tea towel rules” – if you’re famous enough to be on a Scottish tea towel then you are a Scot – Ross counts towards the Scottish Nobel score.
The list, it should be said, does not include Peter Higgs, even though he made his home in Scotland and devised the Higgs boson theory here.
Discounting nations with populations of less than a million, Scotland is in the top three of countries for Nobel laureates per head of population, with only Sweden (30 winners from a population of 9.8m) and Switzerland (25 winners from a population of 8.3m) ahead of Scotland and Norway who both have 13 winners from a population of 5.2m.
The USA has the most laureates with 353, or a little over one for every million of its population.
Ross was the first Scottish winner and the second was Sir William Ramsay, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 for the discovery of inert gases.
The most famous Scottish laureate was undoubtedly Sir Alexander Fleming who shared the 1945 prize for medicine with Howard Florey and Ernest Chain for their work in discovering and developing penicillin.
John Boyd-Orr (1949) and Arthur Henderson (1934) both won the Nobel Prize for Peace, while Angus Deaton (2015) and James Mirrlees (1996) both won the Economics Prize.
Lord Alexander Robertus Todd (1957) also won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry while Charles Thomson Rees Wilson won the prize for Physics in 1927.
Professor Sir James Black (Medicine, 1968) has probably affected more Scottish lives than anyone other than Fleming as his discoveries led to beta blockers, while John James Macleod’s win for medicine in 1923 was due to his role in developing insulin.
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