NOBEL PRIZE: PHYSICS (2012) IN DUE HANDS

Considering the hype with which the discovery (?) of Higgs Boson was celebrated in the Newspapers some people must have thought that it would fetch this year’s Nobel Prize for physics. But much to the credit of Nobel selection committee they ignored the hype and awarded the Prize for two scientists working in the realm of quantum Mechanics. The Nobel committee probably considered that Higgs Boson needed more probe and concrete evidence before it is considered for awarding Prize.


The Nobel prizes for Medicine, Chemistry and physics are relatively free of controversies and one will meet with a path breaking discovery at the core of them. This year the scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics, Serge Haroche and David J Wineland in their independent research invented   methods to harness the sub atomic particles in their quantum state which has every possibility to make revolutionary changes in as yet unpredictable ways to mankind.


The quantum physics deals with the sub-atomic particles. Though those particles are part and parcel of an atom, the building block of our physical world, they act weirdly in the quantum world. For example in our physical world one object can not appear in two places simultaneously. The sub-atomic particles do so. They show many surreal performances though they are part of the system. As a result of it,  the laws of our world are not applicable to the quantum world and vice versa. The scientists have no answer as to why the sub atomic particles behave like that.


There is another problem too. The moment those particles get the smell of our physical world they shed their weird behavior and obey our physical laws and it prevented scientists from studying their properties. They were in search of a method to harness them in their quantum state itself and manipulate them to tap their strange, immense resources not bound by the laws of our world.  This year’s Nobel Prize goes to the two scientists who worked independently to develop some ingenious methods to study and manipulate them in their quantum state preventing them changing in to our physical world properties.

It opens enormous possibilities for the mankind. One frequently talked application is a quantum computer which would be billion times speedier than our present day computers.  There are many other possibilities including changing a man in to a beam (like in science fiction) and sending him to places within split-second time. It would open a wonder land.

However  many more trials and errors have to go in to the present models to make them practically applicable. It may also take years’ of experiments. However the discovery is a path-breaking one and the Nobel committee did a commendable service in choosing those pioneers for the award.



Images : Google