Ideas from previous Nobel prize winners

[kelly0303]

Hello! I just read this paper and it seems like that idea has been proposed about 30 years ago by a Nobel prize winner. I was wondering if there are other experimental concepts proposed in the past that scientists couldn't implement back then but nowadays we could (or in the near future). How can I make a literature search about that (other than finding it by chance)? Thank you!

 

[TeethWhitener]

This is a somewhat common occurrence. The Nobel committee doesn't generally like to award the prize to theoretical results without some connection to experimental proof. That's why, e.g., awards for the Higgs boson, gravitational waves, etc., weren't given until the last decade, even though these phenomena were theoretically predicted back in the 1960's and 1970's.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Why is this Career Guidance?

 

[berkeman]

Why is this Career Guidance?

Where should we move it? Other Physics, GD?

 

[DrClaude]

Where should we move it? Other Physics, GD?

Moved to Other Physics Topics.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Where should we move it?

I'm not sure. I think there needs to be some OP input.

 

[kelly0303]

This is a somewhat common occurrence. The Nobel committee doesn't generally like to award the prize to theoretical results without some connection to experimental proof. That's why, e.g., awards for the Higgs boson, gravitational waves, etc., weren't given until the last decade, even though these phenomena were theoretically predicted back in the 1960's and 1970's.

Thank you for your reply. This is actually different from what I am asking for. These are theoretical concepts that can be tested experimentally, but there is no guarantee a priori that the theory is correct. For example Higgs boson was an appealing theory, but there were others (e.g. technicolor) aiming to explain the same thing. So there was a chance that the Higgs wasn't found, because it didn't exists. My question was about experimental ideas that were hard to be implemented in the past, but now we might have a chance. As in the paper I linked, that idea was proposed 30 years ago. The reason why it wasn't implemented was the technological barrier. But unlike the Higgs case, where we had no control on whether the Higgs boson is real at all or not, it was pretty clear that once we have the right tools we can implement that idea in that paper. My questions is about experimental, not theoretical ideas.