Nobel award (in Physics)

When I was grappling with undergraduate level Physics for my Civil Services examination, one thing which I noticed was that it is very difficult to explain to a layman(and by that I mean anyone who didn't have PCM in their class 11th-12th) why exactly the esteemed scientists have been given the Nobel award.

I mean how do you explain "broken symmetry , fourth force" to him and will not this sentence that "The two men “developed a framework for describing the intrinsic mass of quarks which has been verified in spectacular experimental detail," evoke a "Duh" or a "So What?" sotto voce response from him. (Words in quotes taken from this article on 2008 Nobel Physics winners)

article on 2008 Physics Nobel winners

link explaining asymmetry in universe on nobelprize.org

Interestingly, asymmetry is good in Particle Physics but another type of it "Information Asymmetry" gives rise to "The Market for Lemons"(work of another Nobel laureate George Akerlof, 2001 Economics Nobel award winner) and is mostly a pejorative term in micro-economics

"The market for lemons" on wiki

George Arthur Akerlof on wiki


Information asymmetry on wiki

Information economics on wiki

But I have digressed. Why I intended to write this post was that it is relatively easy to understand and explain this year's Nobel Physics winner's works and , more importantly, the impacts of their works..I mean no fiber optics no Skype,no Youtube;no CCD(no, not Coffee Caffee Day silly, Charge-Coupled Devices :-)), no digicam...Just tell this to a skeptical school going fed-on-a-diet-of-MTV-Pepsi-Sony-Nokia teenager and probably he will say that give the Nobel awards of all the subsequent years to these three gentlemen :-)


Reuters report on Nobel 2009 Physics winners

p.s.:-- The frivolous tone of this post shouldn't let you assume that I am disparaging the works of Particle physicists(many of recent winners are from this area). This field is arguably the most glamorous to pursue your career in Physics now a days (almost like Finance(?) courses and electives in MBA colleges).

I am reminded of that problem which was there in CBSE Physics textbook of class XIth. In the first chapter , it explained what is "Science" what is a good "Theory" and what is an "Experiment". At the end there was a question something like this "Suppose someone argues with you that we can't see atoms.But we still have Bohr's model, Schrodinger wave equation to explain the orbital theory. We also can't see ghosts. Why don't physicists develop a theory of ghosts?"

It is easy to dismiss this question on first hearing to be childish, but I think this difficulty to properly connect theory with common day phenomena ,common sense and intuitive thinking(which completely fail when reading Relativity. I mean what is intuitive about gravitation being the curvature of space-time curve or mass being equal to energy, the famous equation "eee is equal to em see squared" :-)) may explain the esoteric nature of Higher Physics (Nuclear Physics, Particle Physics, Theory of Relativity).

Special theory of relativity on wiki

Special theory of relativity explained in very short

BTW, did you know that Einstein DID NOT win the Nobel for relativity (but for explaining Photoelectic effect(that light is composed of quanta called photons (precursor to quantum mechanics) and Brownian motion). Actually his idea of relativity was so much counter-intuitive and ahead of time that the greats of that era had difficulty in understanding the theory or seeing its applicability.

Do read these interesting links on how people were skeptical about relativity

Nobel presentation speech of Einstein

Nobel to Einstein