The Nobel Prize Week is here!

As you already know, I am sure, it is Nobel Prize week. (See posts below for earlier such discussions.) Physiology/medicine has already been announced (see here: Yes, I definitely approve any effort to encourage research work on how aging and related mechanisms work)…. what was I saying again?… Oh, right …and Physics, Chemistry, literature, Peace and Economics will trot along into the spotlight day by day, into next week. All very exciting.

[Update on the Physics prize at bottom of post!]

Now I have to say I don’t have any good ideas or strong feelings for what the Physics prize might be this year. Do you? I’ve a vague feeling that it might be some sort of important experimental effect (you know, like GMR a few years back – perhaps whatever it is that makes my ipod know which way is up all the time) instead of something flashier (but no less important) like inflation (the cosmic kind), which I am sure will have its day one day soon.

Ideas?

By the way, my “Nobel Prize: Who/What/Why” colloquium idea of a few years back has now been converted into a pair of lunches for the College Commons series. [Weds.] Thursdays 15th and 22nd. I hope that a variety of people come out to chat and gossip about the prizes, the work they were for, etc – Physics right alongside Literature, and so on and so forth. Let’s be catholic in our tastes. (Small c). If at USC please RSVP here if you are coming to secure your tasty lunch, and come and join in.

Also, feel free to share in the comments your ideas about who will win what for what… pick a field…How about, for Friday, the Jolly Green Giant for World Peas?

[Update: Seems I was sort of right about the nature of Physics Prize! Charles Kao for Fibre Optics (backbone of so much of our communication) and Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith for Charged Coupled Devices (the things that make most of the digital imaging technology)]

-cvj