Tuesday, October 4, 2011

2011 Nobel Prize predictions

It is that season again. In 2009 I posted about this but forgot last year. There is an article in Science (which was wrong about the Medicine prize)
Here are a few sites with predictions.

David Pendlebury at Thomson Reuters
Although I disagree with the methodology, based on citations, I think their choice of Aspect-Clauser-Zeilinger for quantum entanglement is an likely and good one.

Paul Braker at Chembark lists odds for different people/topics for the chemistry prize. For physicists this is worth reading because it is a brief education in significant discoveries in chemistry.

Everyday scientist predicts Moerner for single molecule spectroscopy, whose name comes up for chemistry in some other lists.

The curious wave function has predictions for all fields.

Some of these lists suggest a prize for biomolecular dynamics simulations. But, what is the really significant new discovery that goes with this technique?

Aharonov and Berry's name comes up for quantum phase effects. This could be combined naturally with Duncan Haldane or David Thouless for the role of topological phases in many-body systems.

I welcome your suggestions and comments.

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