This week Nobel Prizes will be announced. I have not done predictions since 2020. This is a fun exercise. It is also good to reflect on what has been achieved, including outside our own areas, and big advances from the past we may now take for granted.
Before writing this I looked at suggestions from readers of Doug Natelson's blog, nanoscale views, an article in Physics World, predictions from Clarivate based on citations, and recent recipients of the Wolf Prize.
Please enter you own predictions below.
Although we know little about how the process actually works or the explicit criteria used, I have a few speculative suggestions and observations.
1. The Wolf Prize is often a precursor.
2. Every now and then, they seem to surprise us.
3. Every few years, the physics committee seems to go for something technological, sometimes arguably outside physics, perhaps to remind people how important physics is to modern technology and other areas of science.
4. They seem to spread the awards around between different areas of physics.
5. Theory only gets awards when it has led to well-established experimental observations. Brilliant theoretical discoveries that motivate large research enterprises (more theory and experimental searches) are good enough. This is why predictions based on citation numbers may be misleading.
6. Once an award has been made on one topic, it is unlikely that there will be another award for a long time, if ever, on that same topic. In other words, there is a high bar for a second award.
7. I don't think the logic is to pick an important topic and then choose who should get the prize for the topic. This approach works against topics where many researchers independently made contributions that were all important. The awardee needs to be a standout who won't be a debatable choice.
What do you think of these principles?
For some of the above reasons, I discuss below why I am sceptical about some specific predictions.
My top prediction for physics is Metamaterials with negative refractive index, going to John Pendry (theory) and David Smith (experiment). This is a topic I know little about.
Is it just a matter of time before twisted bilayer graphene wins a prize? This might go to Allan MacDonald (theory) and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero (experiment). They recently received a Wolf Prize. One thing that convinced me of the importance of this discovery was a preprint on moiré WSe2 with beautiful phase diagrams such as this one.
This is big enough to overcome 6. and the earlier prize for graphene.
Unfortunately, my past prediction/wish of Kondo and heavy fermions won't happen as Jun Kondo died in 2022. This suggestion also always went against Principle 6, with the award to Ken Wilson citing his solution of the Kondo problem.
The prediction of Berry and Aharonov for topological phases in quantum mechanics is reasonable, except for questions about historical precursors.
The prediction of topological insulators is going against 6. and the award to Haldane in 2016.
Clarivate's predictions of DiVincenzo and Loss (for qubits based on electron spin in quantum dots) goes against 5. and 7. It is just one of many competing proposals for a scaleable quantum computer and a large-scale device is still elusive.
Predictions of a prize for quantum algorithms (Shor, Deutsch, Brassard, Bennett) go against 5.
Chemistry
I don't know enough chemistry to make meaningful predictions. On the other hand, in 2019 I did correctly predicted John Goodenough for lithium batteries. I do like the prediction from Clarivate for Biomolecular condensates (Brangwynne, Hyman, and Rosen). I discussed them briefly in my review article on emergence.
What do you think about my 7 "principles"?
What are your predictions?
