Guess physics Nobel (to be awarded 7 Oct 2008)

[marcus]

What work do you think has been especially significant and likely to be awarded the 2008 physics Nobel?

I'll hazard a guess: the discovery of accelerated expansion by those two supernovae survey teams. It led cosmologists to include a positive cosmological constant in their standard model---often attributed to 70 percent of the universe being "dark energy". If I remember correctly the leaders of the two teams were Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt, or maybe Adam Riess. I'm not sure how the prize would be divided if it turns out to be awarded to the discovery of accel. expn.

Often times the physics award is surprising and points out some important development that I at least wasn't fully aware of, maybe some fundamental development that didn't get a lot of publicity but led to beneficial technology advances.

So maybe you know of some obscure physics deserving recognition, or some such. What do you think will get the Nobel this year? Something in condensed matter? Something Higgsy? Neutrino-related? B-E Condensates got the 2001 prize so maybe it is too early for another prize in that area.

Brian Schmidt led the Hi-Z supernova search project, Perlmutter led the Supernova cosmology project, those were the two main teams that reported acceleration in 1998, and then Adam Riess has worked on a Higher-Z supernova project which has given important extension and confirmation to the 1998 findings. I'd like to see all three (and their respective teams of co-workers) honored.

 

[Redbelly98]

Tomorrow is the big day. But I have no idea who.

 

[atyy]

Vera Rubin.

The other thing that always amazes me is flash memory, but apparently that needed more than 3 people to work out.

 

[cristo]

If it's going to be something cosmological, then I think I agree with you that it'll go to Perimutter and Schmidt. But I think it'll go to something I've never even heard of in a different area!

 

[robphy]

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2008/ - http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2008/phyadv08.pdf

Yoichiro Nambu (Chicago) [http://experts.uchicago.edu/experts.php?id=468 ]
"for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics"

Makoto Kobayashi (KEK)
Toshihide Maskawa (Yukawa ITP)
"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature"

 

[theallknower]

I rushley came from school to catch a glimpse of the live transmition,and I've got to see 1 minute of it it said something about the LHC,but I don't know if it's the winner,I arrived to late:(

 

[cristo]

I rushley came from school to catch a glimpse of the live transmition,and I've got to see 1 minute of it it said something about the LHC,but I don't know if it's the winner,I arrived to late:(

Robphy has listed the winners in the post above yours.

 

[Gokul43201]

It's been a long time coming for Nambu. Nice!

 

[marcus]

Nobel physics prize 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/science/08nobel.html?hp

Nambu, Kobayashi and Maskawa

" ...Yoichiro Nambu, of the University of Chicago’s Enrico Fermi Insitute, will receive half of the 10 million kroner prize (about $1.3 million) awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Makoto Kobayashi, of the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) Tsukuba, Japan, and Toshihide Maskawa, of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics (YITP), Kyoto University, will each receive a quarter of the prize..."

"...for their work exploring the hidden symmetries between elementary particles that are the deepest constituents of nature..."

"...in the 1960s, Dr. Nambu,... suggested that some symmetries in the laws of nature might be hidden or "broken" in actual practice...
...In 1972, Dr. Kobayashi and Dr. Maskawa... showed that if there were three generations of the elementary particles called quarks, the constituents of protons and neutrons, this principle of symmetry breaking would explain a puzzling asymmetry known as CP violation. This was discovered in 1964 ..."

"...C and P stand respectively for charge and parity, or "handedness." Until then, physicists had naively assumed that if you exchanged positive for negative and left-handed and right-handed in the equations of elementary particles, you would get the same answer.

The fact that nature operates otherwise, physicists hope, is a step on the way to explaining why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter..."

 

[Kurdt]

Aww, so it wasn't me then?

 

[theallknower]

that is incredible..besides the fact that I didn't saw the answer from above:)

 

[George Jones]

It's been a long time coming for Nambu. Nice!

Nambu is very deserving of a Nobel prize.

The other half of this year's physics Nobel has generated some controversy, though. Cabibo has been left out in the cold. If KM win for CKM, why not C? In my mind, this decision is unfathomable and unconscionable, in spite of the fact that CP violation needs the three generations of KM. See,

http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/nobel-prize-in-physics-to-particle-theorists/,

http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/10/07/broken-symmetries-mixing-flavors/.

 

[Niles]

I would have thought it was Tim Berners-Lee's turn this year.. maybe next year then.