Nobel Prize in Physics 2021: Predictions
The Nobel Prize in Physics, 2021 is going to be announced on Tuesday 5 October, 11:45 CEST. Here are our predictions for this year’s Nobel Prize.
Quantum Information
Contributing scientists: Alain Aspect, John Clauser, J F Clauser and Anton Zeilinger
What is being called the Quantum Revolution is a not-so-far next technological revolution. We see every intelligent being like you and me talking about what miracles the quantum technologies would do? How everything including cryptography, computing, medicine, medical diagnostics, etc. would transform. Quantum technologies are believed to make things possible which are nearly impossible with current technologies. Just imagine how embedded is the internet is in our life. And, imaging how it would have been during the period where it was just starting. We are now at the begging of the Quantum Revolution.
Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger contribute to the experiments showing quantum entanglement and a lot more. Peter Shor for his Quantum Shor’s Algorithm is no-doubt deserves the Nobel Prize for its application in Quantum Computing. Gilles Brassard and Charles Bennett who showed the idea of quantum cryptography at a conference in IISc Banglore, India have transformed how we think of cryptography, specifically Key Distribution.
Metamaterials
Contributing Scientists: John Pendry, David Smith
These people can make the shiny golden material, gold, look like anything. They showed that by arranging the atoms of gold in a specific pattern, they can make it look green or red for example. Metamaterials would help miniaturise electrical and optical devices to the scale which would be impossible otherwise.
John Pendry explored how light interacts with these kinds of materials and proposed the possibility of invisibility cloaks. David Smith is known for his theoretical and experimental work on electromagnetic metamaterials. No naturally occurring material or compound with a negative index-of-refraction had ever been reported until his experiment in 2000. He demonstrated the first negative index metamaterial.
Slow Light
Contributing Scientists: Lene Hau
Slowing light sounds fascinating. It also makes us wonder what does that actually mean! Lene Hau and her team have slowed light to about 40 mph and even stopped it completely. The research would also be useful in the field of quantum information technology. Quantum technologies would need some technologies to store the quantum states of photons, acting like quantum memory, which would be made possible through her research.
Let us know in the comments which scientist or field of research might receive the next Nobel Prize.
