tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/nobel-prize-1570/articles
Nobel Prize – The Conversation
2023-11-30T05:02:58Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218917
2023-11-30T05:02:58Z
2023-11-30T05:02:58Z
Henry Kissinger has died. The titan of US foreign policy changed the world, for better or worse
<p>Henry Kissinger was the ultimate champion of the United States’ foreign policy battles. </p>
<p>The former US secretary of state <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-30/henry-kissinger-dies-aged-100/103171512">died</a> on November 29 2023 after living for a century.</p>
<p>The magnitude of his influence on the geopolitics of the free world cannot be overstated. </p>
<p>From world war two, when he was an enlisted soldier in the US Army, to the end of the cold war, and even into the 21st century, he had a significant, sustained impact on global affairs.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kissinger-at-100-his-legacy-might-be-mixed-but-his-importance-has-been-enormous-206470">Kissinger at 100: his legacy might be mixed but his importance has been enormous</a>
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<h2>From Germany to the US and back again</h2>
<p>Born in Germany in 1923, he came to the United States at age 15 as a refugee. He learned English as a teenager and his heavy German accent stayed with him until his death.</p>
<p>He attended George Washington High School in New York City before being drafted into the army and serving in his native Germany. Working in the intelligence corps, he identified Gestapo officers and worked to rid the country of Nazis. He won a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/30/henry-kissinger-nobel-prize-winning-warmonger">Bronze Star</a>. </p>
<p>Kissinger returned to the US and studied at Harvard before joining the university’s faculty. He advised moderate Republican New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller – a presidential aspirant – and became a world authority on nuclear weapons strategy. </p>
<p>When Rockefeller’s chief rival Richard Nixon prevailed in the 1968 primaries, Kissinger quickly switched to Nixon’s team. </p>
<h2>A powerful role in the White House</h2>
<p>In the Nixon White House, he became national security advisor and later simultaneously held the office of secretary of state. No one has held both roles at the same time since.</p>
<p>For Nixon, Kissinger’s diplomacy arranged the <a href="https://www.history.com/news/henry-kissinger-vietnam-war-legacy">end of the Vietnam war</a> and the pivot to China: two related and crucial events in the resolution of the cold war. </p>
<p>He won the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1973/summary/">1973 Nobel Peace Prize</a> for his Vietnam diplomacy, but was also condemned by the left as a war criminal for perceived US excesses during the conflict, including the <a href="https://theconversation.com/henry-kissingers-bombing-campaign-likely-killed-hundreds-of-thousands-of-cambodians-and-set-path-for-the-ravages-of-the-khmer-rouge-209353">bombing campaign in Cambodia</a>, which likely killed hundreds of thousands of people.</p>
<p>That criticism <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/henry-kissinger-dies_n_6376933ae4b0afce046cb44f">survives him</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/nixon-mao-meeting-four-lessons-from-50-years-of-us-china-relations-176485">pivot to China</a> not only rearranged the global chessboard, but it also almost immediately changed the global conversation from the US defeat in Vietnam to a reinvigorated anti-Soviet alliance.</p>
<p>After Nixon was compelled to resign by the Watergate scandal, Kissinger served as secretary of state under Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford.</p>
<p>During that brief, two-year administration, Kissinger’s stature and experience overshadowed the beleaguered Ford. Ford gladly handed over US foreign policy to Kissinger so he could focus on politics and running for election to the office for which the people had never selected him.</p>
<p>During the turbulent 1970s, Kissinger also achieved a kind of cult status. </p>
<p>Not classically attractive, his comfort with global power gave him a charisma that was noticed by Hollywood actresses and other celebrities. His romantic life was the topic of many <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/27/henry-kissinger-100-war-us-international-reputation">gossip columns</a>. He’s even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1998/02/05/uncovering-the-sex-lives-of-politicians/3bb26a91-03ec-4a14-8958-f6ac0d95b260/">quoted</a> as saying “power is the ultimate aphrodisiac”.</p>
<p>His legacy in US foreign policy continued to grow after the Ford administration. He advised corporations, politicians and many other global leaders, often behind closed doors but also in public, testifying before congress well into his 90s. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nobel-peace-prize-offers-no-guarantee-its-winners-actually-create-peace-or-make-it-last-213340">The Nobel Peace Prize offers no guarantee its winners actually create peace, or make it last</a>
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<h2>Criticism and condemnation</h2>
<p>Criticism of Kissinger was and is harsh. Rolling Stone magazine’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/henry-kissinger-war-criminal-dead-1234804748/">obituary of Kissinger</a> is headlined “War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies”. </p>
<p>His association with US foreign policy during the divisive Vietnam years is a near-obsession for some critics, who cannot forgive his role in what they see as a corrupt Nixon administration carrying out terrible acts of war against the innocent people of Vietnam. </p>
<p>Kissinger’s critics see him as the ultimate personification of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tortured-and-deadly-legacy-kissinger-and-realpolitik-in-us-foreign-policy-192977">US realpolitik</a> – willing to do anything for personal power or to advance his country’s goals on the world stage. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562590/original/file-20231130-19-h7o8mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man sitting at a desk gives directions to three other men at the desk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562590/original/file-20231130-19-h7o8mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562590/original/file-20231130-19-h7o8mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562590/original/file-20231130-19-h7o8mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562590/original/file-20231130-19-h7o8mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=386&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562590/original/file-20231130-19-h7o8mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562590/original/file-20231130-19-h7o8mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562590/original/file-20231130-19-h7o8mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=485&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, leaves behind a controversial legacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/washington-dc-usa-january-6-1983-1858047433">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>But in my opinion, this interpretation is wrong.</p>
<p>Niall Ferguson’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Kissinger.html?id=H_ujBwAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">2011 biography</a>, Kissinger, tells a very different story. In more than 1,000 pages, Ferguson details the impact that world war two had on the young Kissinger. </p>
<p>First fleeing from, then returning to fight against, an immoral regime showed the future US secretary of state that global power must be well-managed and ultimately used to advance the causes of democracy and individual freedom.</p>
<p>Whether he was advising Nixon on Vietnam war policy to set up plausible peace negotiations, or arranging the details of the opening to China to put the Soviet Union in checkmate, Kissinger’s eye was always on preserving and advancing the liberal humanitarian values of the West – and against the forces of totalitarianism and hatred. </p>
<p>The way he saw it, the only way to do this was to work for the primacy of the United States and its allies. </p>
<p>No one did more to advance this goal than Henry Kissinger. For that he will be both lionised and condemned.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tortured-and-deadly-legacy-kissinger-and-realpolitik-in-us-foreign-policy-192977">A tortured and deadly legacy: Kissinger and realpolitik in US foreign policy</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lester Munson works for BGR Group, a Washington DC consultancy, Johns Hopkins University and the U.S. Studies Centre. He is affiliated with George Mason University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.</span></em></p>
Former US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger has died, aged 100. His legacy, including his involvement in the Vietnam war, is long, complicated and divisive.
Lester Munson, Non-resident fellow, United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218347
2023-11-27T19:17:32Z
2023-11-27T19:17:32Z
How your money is helping subsidise sexism in academia – and what you can do about it
<p>It’s frightening to imagine where the world would be right now without mRNA vaccines. The COVID-busting technology <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/mrna-vaccine-revolution-katalin-kariko/">revolutionised vaccine development</a> at an internationally critical moment – with massive implications for people’s health, wellbeing and the global economy.</p>
<p>Yet imagine we must – because some of the research most crucial to the development of mRNA vaccines almost didn’t happen.</p>
<p>Biochemist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Katalin-Kariko">Katalin Karikó’s</a> fascination with the therapeutic potential of mRNA began in the early 1990s, but she received little encouragement. She was undervalued and underfunded throughout her university career and eventually left academia.</p>
<p>When she went on to jointly win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for her pioneering role in developing the mRNA technology that allowed the world to take on COVID, Karikó’s former employer, the University of Pennsylvania, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/10/03/researcher-demoted-by-university-of-pennsylvania-wins-nobel-prize-for-mrna-discoveries-and-some-academics-urge-penn-to-apologize/?sh=227a13cb68b1">tried to take credit</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1709214249266847957"}"></div></p>
<p>Yet during her time there, the university <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2023/10/03/researcher-demoted-by-university-of-pennsylvania-wins-nobel-prize-for-mrna-discoveries-and-some-academics-urge-penn-to-apologize/?sh=227a13cb68b1">sidelined and demoted Karikó</a>, eventually <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=514nzDeT7WM&ab_channel=NobelPrize">pushing her out</a> altogether. While it would be nice to think of Karikó’s experience as an aberration, her experience - as we highlight in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-023-00624-3.epdf?sharing_token=gTOgpetseLdnjca2_9Hgk9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Os9buY1YZg369tprUI8R4tE1kHIVUshCsCo-QKEUAJYagHcGPxf5SREieGp6HtI5EFMB9XTL_gCHcjMmfBri6InvilMNKfPvtOiZntXCRh87wFh1PO_QOoKOPxvx_Jtcw%3D">our new paper</a> - is all too common for women in academia. </p>
<h2>Barriers to women’s success</h2>
<p>Academia is widely viewed as a meritocracy, a bastion of liberalism, and a place where people go to pursue a higher calling. The data, however, point to a dark side to the ivory tower.</p>
<p>For instance, a <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/sexual-harassment-in-academia">major report</a> published in 2019 by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine showed rates of sexual harassment in academia are second only to those in the military.</p>
<p>More common than overtly sexualised harassment, however, is gender bias. <a href="https://www.cell.com/article/S0896-6273(21)00417-7/fulltext">Studies reveal</a> women’s research receives tougher assessment, less funding, fewer prizes, and less citation than men’s. Women professors <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10755-014-9313-4">receive lower evaluations</a> and more criticism from students – both male and female – and face higher expectations as mentors.</p>
<p>Women often face chilly academic climates, isolation, job insecurity, stalled promotions and unequal or limited access to resources. These tendencies can easily verge on incivility, ostracism, online abuse, academic sabotage and malicious allegations. And these problems are worse for women of colour, and those who belong to <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-06-women-underrepresented-groups-sexual-academic.html">sexual and gender minority</a> groups.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/death-by-a-thousand-cuts-women-of-colour-in-science-face-a-subtly-hostile-work-environment-130204">'Death by a thousand cuts': women of colour in science face a subtly hostile work environment</a>
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<p>When women are brave enough to speak out, it usually backfires. At best, they may face minimisation or silencing. More damaging is retaliation, including from institutions themselves. Women can find themselves <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00473-8">placed on probation</a>, under investigation, targeted for character assassination, facing retaliatory accusations, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01600-7#:%7E:text=08%20June%202022-,Max%20Planck%27s%20cherished%20autonomy%20questioned%20following%20criticism%20of%20misconduct%20investigations,investigations%20into%20them%20lacked%20transparency">demoted</a> or even <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01286-5">fired</a>.</p>
<h2>Bad for science and a waste of funding</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03251-8">massive study</a> of almost a quarter of a million US academics showed women are leaving academia at significantly higher rates than men.</p>
<p>They are also leaving for different reasons. While men are more likely to leave because they have been attracted by better opportunities, the number-one reason women cite for leaving is toxic workplaces.</p>
<p>The outcome of this gradual attrition is that women continue to be vastly underrepresented in senior academic positions: as full professors, research directors, and heads of research institutions and universities.</p>
<p><iframe id="fSdfk" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/fSdfk/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The loss of so many women from research and higher education isn’t just a social or ethical issue. It’s also an economic one. Women in academia reflect investment. Their many years of post-secondary education, their training, their research – it all costs money. This money is wasted when they are pushed out of academia.</p>
<p>The worst bias and explicit harassment often comes as <a href="https://www.womenofinfluence.ca/2018/09/24/the-tallest-poppy-high-performing-women-pay-a-steep-price-for-success">women achieve greater success</a>. Rates of departure between men and women really start to widen <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03251-8">about 15 years</a> after academics finish their PhDs. </p>
<p>This means higher education and research are often losing women with the most experience and promise, and in whom the greatest funding investments have been made.</p>
<h2>Follow the money</h2>
<p>As current and former institutional heads and research leaders, we suggest it’s time to follow the money. Where does all this wasted money come from?</p>
<p>You, the taxpayer.</p>
<p>Higher education, research and science all are, in many parts of the world, funded mostly through public sources. This means when higher education and research organisations fail to tackle the persistent sexism, discrimination and harassment that are driving women out, they are throwing your money out the window.</p>
<p>Or you can think of it another way: your taxes are subsidising sexism.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-studied-309-544-patent-applications-and-found-inventing-is-still-a-mans-world-188600">We studied 309,544 patent applications – and found inventing is still a man’s world</a>
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<h2>The buck stops here</h2>
<p>The fact that tax money supports higher education and research also presents an opportunity: taxpayers can demand change in how their taxes are used.</p>
<p>They can demand efficiency in public funding – efficiency that will lead to less sexism in the institutions educating our children, and to more of the science we desperately need to address the collective challenges we face.</p>
<p>We call on governments to address sexism in higher education and research as a matter of urgency, such as by:</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>acknowledging that self-regulation isn’t working</strong>. <br><br>Universities and research institutions have implemented gender equity initiatives and policies for decades. Yet gender biases remain entrenched.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>developing effective and transparent systems for measuring gender equity, and applying them to all publicly funded higher education and research institutions</strong>. <br><br> This means collecting and publishing data on recruitment, appointment, salaries, workload allocation, promotions, discrimination, harassment, misconduct, demotion, dismissal and departure.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>making funding in higher education and research dependent on the achievement of gender equity targets</strong>. <br><br> Institutions currently receive public funding regardless of whether they uphold a fair academic culture that provides equal opportunity for men and woman. <br><br>Disregard for rules, procedures and laws designed to achieve gender equity does not hold institutions back from receiving continued public funding. This lack of accountability helps perpetuate gender bias. It needs to change.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>You can join us in pressing for these changes by contacting your local representative, organising and submitting petitions, or reporting concerns to organisations designed to investigate possible abuses of public funding (such as federal auditing offices).</p>
<p>The story of Karikó and the transformative research that almost never was should be the wake-up call we need to demand better.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-5-years-this-australian-astrophysics-lab-reached-50-women-heres-how-they-did-it-216632">In 5 years, this Australian astrophysics lab reached 50% women. Here’s how they did it</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susanne Täuber is affiliated with the Academic Parity Movement and the Network Against Power Abuse in Science. Both are non-profit organizations fighting harassment and power abuse in academia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet G. Hering, Nicole Boivin, and Ursula Keller do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Studies reveal women’s research receives tougher assessment, less funding, fewer prizes and less citation than men’s.
Nicole Boivin, Professor, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
Janet G. Hering, Director emerita, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
Susanne Täuber, Affiliated researcher, University of Amsterdam
Ursula Keller, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215747
2023-10-20T12:25:50Z
2023-10-20T12:25:50Z
Quantum dots − a new Nobel laureate describes the development of these nanoparticles from basic research to industry application
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554426/original/file-20231017-23-nsxqeq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=617%2C37%2C7403%2C5450&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Louis Brus, center, shares Nobel recognition with two other quantum dots pioneers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/screen-shows-this-years-laureates-us-chemist-moungi-bawendi-news-photo/1705016177?adppopup=true">Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Nobel Prize in chemistry for 2023 goes to three scientists “for the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/press-release/">discovery and synthesis of quantum dots</a>.” <a href="https://theconversation.com/becoming-a-nobel-laureate-louis-brus-on-his-discovery-of-quantum-dots-podcast-215915">The Conversation Weekly podcast</a> caught up with one of this trio, physical chemist <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GT0oh5QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Louis Brus</a>, who did foundational work figuring out that the properties of these nanoparticles depend on their size. Brus’ phone was off when the Nobel reps called to inform him of the good news, but now plenty of people have gotten through with congratulations and advice. Below are edited excerpts from the podcast.</em></p>
<p><strong>When you were working at Bell Labs in the 1980s and discovered quantum dots, it was something of an accident. You were studying solutions of semiconductor particles. And when you aimed lasers at these solutions, called colloids, you noticed that the colors they emitted were not constant.</strong></p>
<p>On the first day we made the colloid, sometimes the spectrum was different. Second and third day, it was normal. There certainly was a surprise when I first saw this change in the spectrum. And so, I began to try to figure out what the heck was going on with that.</p>
<p>I noticed that the property of the particle itself began to change at a very small size.</p>
<p><strong>What you’d found was a quantum dot: a type of nanoparticle that absorbs light and emits it at another wavelength. Crucially, the color of these particles changes depending on the actual size of the particle. How do you even see a quantum dot crystal, since one is just a few hundred thousandths the width of a human hair?</strong></p>
<p>Well, you can’t see them with an optical microscope because they’re smaller than the wavelength of light. There are ways to see them too, using other types of specialist microscopes, such as an electron microscope. And a common way of demonstrating them is to line up a row of brightly colored glass flasks each with a solution of different sized quantum dots inside it.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="diagram of a molecule next to a soccer ball next to a planet" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554425/original/file-20231017-21-wzhcci.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A quantum dot is a crystal that often consists of just a few thousand atoms. In terms of size, it has the same relationship to a soccer ball as a soccer ball has to the size of the Earth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/press-release/">Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p><strong>One of your fellow laureates, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/ekimov/facts/">Alexei Ekimov</a>, was a Russian scientist, and he’d actually observed quantum dots in colored glass, but you weren’t aware of his findings at the time?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, that’s right. The Cold War was going on at that time, and he published in the Russian literature, in Russian. And he wasn’t allowed to travel to the West to talk about his work.</p>
<p>I asked around among all the physicists, was there any work on small particles? I was trying to make a model of the quantum size effects. And they told me no, nobody’s really working on this. Nobody had seen his articles, basically.</p>
<p>I was part of the U.S. chemistry community, doing synthetic chemistry in the laboratory. He was in the glass industry in the Soviet Union, working on industrial technology.</p>
<p>When I eventually found his articles in the technological literature, I wrote a letter to the Soviet Union, with my papers, just to say hello to Ekimov and his colleagues. When the letter came, the KGB came to talk to the Russian scientists, trying to figure out why they had any contact with anybody in the West. But in fact they had never talked to me or anyone in the West when my letter arrived in the mail.</p>
<p><strong>Have you met him since?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, they were able to come out of the Soviet Union during Glasnost, this would be the late 1980s. There’s Ekimov, and then there is his theoretical collaborator <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=upaytw8AAAAJ&hl=en">Sasha Efros</a>, who now works at the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03179-z">U.S. Naval Research Lab</a>. I met them as soon as they came to the U.S.</p>
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<p><em>Listen to the interview with Louis Brus on The Conversation Weekly podcast. Each week, academic experts tell us about the fascinating discoveries they’re making to understand the world and the big questions they’re still trying to answer.</em></p>
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<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<p><strong>One of the issues with quantum dots, when you first observed them, was how to actually produce them and keep them stable. Then, in the 1990s, your fellow laureate, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8086TkwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Moungi Bawendi</a>, figured this out. What do you think is the most striking thing that you’ve seen quantum dots used in so far?</strong></p>
<p>Usually when a new material is invented, it takes a long time to figure out what it’s really good for. Research scientists, they have ideas, you might use it for this, you might use it for that. But then, if you talk to people in the actual industry, who deal every day with manufacturing problems, these ideas are often not very good.</p>
<p>But the knowledge that we gained, the scientific principles, could be used to help to design new devices.</p>
<p>As far as first applications, people began to try to use them in biological imaging. Biochemists attach quantum dots to other molecules to help map cells and organs. They’ve even been used to detect tumors, and to help guide surgeons during operations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="7 glowing vials" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554428/original/file-20231017-19-jmznq7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Quantum dot particles were continually improved so they would reliably emit very particular colors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/quantum-dot-royalty-free-image/1311600163?adppopup=true">Tayfun Ruzgar/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
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<p>And as scientists kept working to synthesize quantum dots, the quality of the particles kept improving. They were emitting pure colors, rather than distributions of light – like maybe red with a little bit of green, or maybe red with some pink. When you got a better particle, it would be just pure red, for instance.</p>
<p>So then people made the connection to the display industry – computer displays and television displays. In this application, you want to convert electricity into three colors: red, green and blue. You can make up any kind of image, starting with just those three colors in different proportions.</p>
<p>It takes a lot of courage. You have to invest a lot of money to develop the technology, and maybe at the end of it, it’s not good enough, and it will not replace what you already have. And there’s a lot of credit due to the Samsung Corporation in Japan. Hundreds of billions of dollars were invested in the technology of these particles to get them to the point where they could begin to manufacture displays and flat-panel TVs using quantum dots.</p>
<p><strong>Your work is an example of the importance of basic research, of being curious, trying to solve mysteries without a particular endpoint or industrial application in sight. What message would you have for a young chemist starting out today working on such basic research?</strong></p>
<p>The world is a huge place, and you could do basic research in a huge number of different areas. You want to pick a problem where, if you are spectacularly successful and you actually discover something really interesting, it might have some application in the world.</p>
<p>For better or for worse, you have to make a choice in the beginning, and it takes some intuition.</p>
<p>A good way to do it is you pick a subject that you know is important to technology, but there’s no understanding of the science at the present time. It’s a complete black box. Nobody understands the basic principles. That kind of problem, you can begin to take it apart and look to see what the basic steps are.</p>
<p><strong>What changes for you now that you’ve won the Nobel Prize?</strong></p>
<p>Well, this Nobel Prize, for better or for worse, has a special meaning in people’s minds all over the world. Yesterday when the mailman came I happened to be at the front door and he recognized me because my face was in the local newspaper. And he said, “I’ve never shaken the hand of a Nobel laureate before.”</p>
<p>For better or for worse, this is where I am right now, in a special category whether I like it or not. I still have my office in the university, but I don’t have a research group. I’m trying to leave that to the younger people. So this recognition probably means less for my research than it would if I was 40 years old.</p>
<p>I have received congratulations by email from a number of people who won the prize in past years. Their main recommendation is you must learn to say no. People will ask you to do all kinds of crazy things, and your time will be entirely taken up with these honorific university visits and giving little speeches. In order to have a real life and to be productive, you have to say no to all of these extraneous invitations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="elaborate stage ceremony" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554429/original/file-20231017-21-zysnay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Nobel Prize awards ceremony in Stockholm is a black-tie affair.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/general-view-of-the-nobel-prize-awards-ceremony-at-news-photo/1448161113?adppopup=true">Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>And they also told me to have fun in Sweden! It’s an extremely elaborate schedule of events for that week in December when this award ceremony is. Extremely fancy. American culture, physics culture is different – if you win a prize from the American Physical Society, it’s a very low-key event. You just show up in an auditorium. It’s not even necessary to wear a suit.</p>
<p>So I will take my family, my grandchildren to Sweden and we’ll try to enjoy this as a great vacation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215747/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louis Brus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Louis Brus explains some of the foundational research – and how even the letter carrier wants to shake your hand when you’ve just won a Nobel Prize.
Louis Brus, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Columbia University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215915
2023-10-19T10:21:23Z
2023-10-19T10:21:23Z
Becoming a Nobel laureate: Louis Brus on his discovery of quantum dots – podcast
<p>Imagine a particle so small that it’s the same relative size to a football as that ball is to the planet Earth. That’s the size of a quantum dot – a type of nanocrystal that changes colour depending on its size, and was once thought impossible to actually produce. </p>
<p>Today, they’re found in some <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-in-chemistry-awarded-for-quantum-dot-technology-that-gave-us-todays-high-definition-tvs-214976">high-definition television and computer screens</a>, and are used in medicine to map what’s happening in cells and even tumours. And three scientists who helped discover and produce these quantum dots have now been awarded the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/">2023 Nobel prize in chemistry</a>. </p>
<p>In this week’s episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901"><em>The Conversation Weekly</em></a> podcast, we speak to Louis Brus, one of these new Nobel laureates and an emeritus professor of chemistry at Columbia University in New York, about his work on quantum dots and what winning the accolade means to him. </p>
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<p>Brus wasn’t actually looking for quantum dots, the particles that would go on to win him a Nobel prize, when he first discovered them. “We knew that they existed, at least in principle … but I wasn’t trying to do this,” he tells us. It was the early 1980s and Brus was working at <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-022-00426-6">Bell Labs</a>, an American industrial research company famous for its long list of alumni who have gone on to win a Nobel prize. </p>
<p>Brus was mixing up solutions containing different types of semiconductor particle, aiming lasers at them to see what kind of photochemistry would happen on their surfaces. “I noticed that the property of the particle itself began to change at a very small size,” he remembers. What he’d observed were quantum dots: nanocrystals that absorb light and emit it at another wavelength, with the colour changing depending on the size of the particle. </p>
<p>Brus wasn’t the first scientist to have observed this phenomenon. A Russian scientist called Alexei Ekimov had also observed quantum dots in coloured glass a few years earlier, but because of the cold war, Brus was unaware that Ekimov had published journal articles about it in Russian. </p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/quantum-dots-a-new-nobel-laureate-describes-the-development-of-these-nanoparticles-from-basic-research-to-industry-application-215747">Quantum dots − a new Nobel laureate describes the development of these nanoparticles from basic research to industry application</a>
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<p>“We did not read the journals in the west and he was not allowed to travel to the west to talk about his work,” Brus explains. Ekimov, along with a third chemist Moungi Bawendi, who perfected the synthesis of quantum dots in the 1990s, now share the 2023 Nobel prize in chemistry with Brus. </p>
<p>Listen to our full interview with Louis Brus on <a href="https://podfollow.com/the-conversation-weekly/view">The Conversation Weekly</a> podcast to hear more about his discovery, its applications, and his advice for young chemists starting out today.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2881/The_Conversation_Weekly_Quantum_Dots_episode_transcript.pdf?1698330817">transcript of this episode</a> is now available.</p>
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<p><em>This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Eloise Stevens does our sound design, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. Gemma Ware is the executive producer of the show.</em></p>
<p><em>Newsclips in this episode are from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-V6odR7HzLCuqjYeowPjLA">Nobel Prize</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also subscribe to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter">free daily email here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Listen to <em>The Conversation Weekly</em> via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a> or find out <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">how else to listen here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louis Brus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Louis Brus, one of the newest Nobel laureates in chemistry, speaks to The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215142
2023-10-18T00:33:14Z
2023-10-18T00:33:14Z
Beyond COVID vaccines: what else could mRNA technology do for our health?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553619/original/file-20231013-15-yjlqas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C5000%2C2799&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/single-strand-ribonucleic-acid-rna-molecules-2256712783">nobeastsofierce/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many people first became familiar with the term “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/messenger-RNA">mRNA</a>” when Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID vaccines were rolled out. In the simplest terms, mRNA, which stands for messenger ribonucleic acid, is a type of genetic material that gives cells in our bodies instructions to make specific proteins.</p>
<p>More recently the 2023 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-in-medicine-awarded-to-mrna-pioneers-heres-how-their-discovery-was-integral-to-covid-vaccine-development-214763">Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman</a> from the University of Pennsylvania for their discoveries in mRNA biology.</p>
<p>These scientists’ work has underpinned multiple successful COVID vaccines, which undoubtedly shifted the course of the pandemic. But their discoveries have likewise opened the door to a range of possible therapeutics which, until recently, remained elusive.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-in-medicine-awarded-to-mrna-pioneers-heres-how-their-discovery-was-integral-to-covid-vaccine-development-214763">Nobel prize in medicine awarded to mRNA pioneers – here's how their discovery was integral to COVID vaccine development</a>
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<h2>The promise of mRNA</h2>
<p>Within each of our cells are <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/ribosome">ribosomes</a>, micro-machines that manufacture proteins, which in turn make up everything from muscle and bone to enzymes and hormones. </p>
<p>mRNA is the intermediate chemical “message” that carries the genetic code locked in the chromosomes of our DNA to the cytoplasm, the fluid that fills our cells and where proteins are made.</p>
<p>The ability to deliver genetic information directly into a cell has been one of medicine’s most obstinate challenges. While mRNA was theoretically the most attractive way to achieve this, it was of little use as a therapy. This is because our immune system mistakes the foreign RNA as being an invading virus, mounting a powerful and toxic immune response. Injecting <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32708595/">naked mRNA</a> therefore can make you very sick.</p>
<p>So it was pivotal when Karakó and Weissman <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16111635/">pioneered a technique</a> to “cloak” mRNA from the immune system, alongside lipid nanoparticles to protect the RNA and allow it to be delivered safely to our cells.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A health-care worker drawing up a vaccine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553632/original/file-20231013-27-511pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553632/original/file-20231013-27-511pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553632/original/file-20231013-27-511pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553632/original/file-20231013-27-511pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553632/original/file-20231013-27-511pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553632/original/file-20231013-27-511pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553632/original/file-20231013-27-511pl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">COVID vaccines have shown us the potential of mRNA technology.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-hand-doctor-nurse-laboratory-holding-1949479042">Siyanight/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>This paved the way for mRNA COVID vaccines which instruct our cells to make spike proteins, proteins on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID). This is turn primes our immune system to make anti-spike antibodies that then block SARS-CoV-2 from infecting our cells.</p>
<p>Their discovery has opened up new possibilities for how we treat common infectious illnesses as well as genetic diseases that have previously defied treatment.</p>
<h2>Flu vaccines</h2>
<p>Influenza kills up to 650,000 people globally each <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/influenza-(seasonal)">year</a>. At the moment, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htm">seasonal vaccines</a> need to be made annually once the main circulating strain has been identified. Manufacture takes about six months, by which time the original flu strain may have evolved. At best the seasonal vaccine is about <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm">60% effective</a>.</p>
<p>We need a better vaccine and mRNA technology offers the potential of a universal influenza vaccine, with <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2123477119">multiple candidates</a> currently undergoing human <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/clinical-trial-mrna-universal-influenza-vaccine-candidate-begins">clinical trials</a>. A vaccine, if successful, could replace the current seasonal shots.</p>
<p>The mRNA vaccines are based on a specific part of the influenza protein, called hemagglutinin, teaching the cells to recall it and therefore inducing broad immunity across many influenza strains. In this vaccine, hemagglutinin is the equivalent target the spike protein is in the COVID vaccines.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-mrna-vaccines-researchers-are-working-on-that-arent-covid-157858">3 mRNA vaccines researchers are working on (that aren't COVID)</a>
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<h2>Cancer treatments</h2>
<p>Targeting cancer is another promising avenue for mRNA technology, with mRNA-based cancer immunotherapies already at the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41591-023-00072-0">trial stage</a>. </p>
<p>One technique uses mRNA to mimic “neoantigens” (short bits of tumour proteins on the surface of the tumour cells) identified from an individual patient’s tumour cells. Once delivered to the patient’s immune system, their body should produce powerful killer cells called cytotoxic T cells, eliciting a strong anti-tumour immune response.</p>
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<img alt="A person with a bald head sitting on a bed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553633/original/file-20231013-26-nytgwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553633/original/file-20231013-26-nytgwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553633/original/file-20231013-26-nytgwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553633/original/file-20231013-26-nytgwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553633/original/file-20231013-26-nytgwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553633/original/file-20231013-26-nytgwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553633/original/file-20231013-26-nytgwn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">mRNA technology has a number of possible applications in cancer treatment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rear-back-view-stressed-young-hairless-2017483544">fizkes/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) therapy is a form of <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/research/car-t-cells">cancer immunotherapy</a> currently in use around the world to treat certain forms of leukaemia. It uses immune cells called T cells that are genetically altered in a lab to help them locate and destroy cancer cells more effectively. </p>
<p>Traditionally CAR-T therapy has required a patient’s T cells to be harvested from white blood cells, modified, and then injected back into the patient. With mRNA technology the time consuming and most expensive steps are <a href="https://www.ornatx.com/our-pipeline/">could be eliminated</a> by delivering the CAR gene directly to T cells in the bloodstream.</p>
<h2>Genetic diseases</h2>
<p>mRNA technology is also transforming our response to some genetic diseases. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1081120622012170">Hereditary angioedema</a> is a rare and potentially fatal genetic disorder where patients suffer severe and repeated attacks of swelling in their organs and tissues. </p>
<p>Scientists had discovered that a specific liver gene called KLKB1 prompts these swelling attacks. Researchers developed mRNA as a system to genetically edit and in turn “silence” the offending gene, with <a href="https://ir.intelliatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/intellia-therapeutics-presents-new-interim-data-first-human">initial results</a> positive for patients.</p>
<p>A similar trial using mRNA to edit the liver gene transthyretin alleviated symptoms in patients suffering a life-threatening hereditary condition called <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107454">ATTR amyloidosis</a> which affects the nerves and heart.</p>
<h2>The path ahead</h2>
<p>Therapeutics based on mRNA technology are still in their infancy and hurdles remain. For example, mRNA is short-lived in cells and protein is only made for a short time. Increasing the life-span of mRNA in cells would reduce the amount of mRNA required (the dosage). Scientists are working on this and a couple of methods have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03058-7">shown promise</a>. </p>
<p>These caveats aside, the ability to deliver genetic information directly into cells could be a new frontier for medical therapeutics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215142/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Fraser receives funding from Health Research Council of New Zealand and the Wellcome Leap R3 Consortium for RNA. </span></em></p>
The goal of mRNA technology is to harness the power of the cell to potentially prevent infections and treat diseases.
John Fraser, Dean, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214918
2023-10-11T15:43:18Z
2023-10-11T15:43:18Z
How to read Haruki Murakami in English the Japanese way – in four steps
<p>With more than 40 years of writing to choose from, it’s difficult to know where to begin when reading <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Haruki-Murakami">Haruki Murakami</a>. Earlier this year in Japan, he published his 15th novel, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ap-tokyo-fukushima-madeleine-albright-hillary-clinton-b2318758.html">The City and Its Uncertain Walls</a>, though the release date for an English translation has not yet been announced. </p>
<p>While Murakami first gained attention in the English-reading world with the translation of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle in 1997, his writing career began almost two decades earlier with the publication of Hear The Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973. These first two novels were not widely available in English until 2015, and consequently, Japanese and English readers have read Murakami in quite different contexts and chronologies. </p>
<p>When he wrote his first works, the bristling Japanese bubble economy had not yet burst and the iron curtain still divided Europe. Whereas when he took English readers by storm in the late 1990s, Japan’s days as the leading economic superpower were long gone, as was the tension of the cold war. Here’s a four-step guide for English readers who wish to read Murakami in “the Japanese way”. </p>
<h2>1. Norwegian Wood (1987)</h2>
<p>The first work you should read is Murakami’s breakthrough novel, <a href="https://www.harukimurakami.com/book/norwegian-wood/">Norwegian Wood</a>. Although its immediate commercial success meant that it was published in English only two years later, the initial translation was intended for English language learners and was only available in Japan. </p>
<p>The English version available across the world today is a re-translation from 2000. While this novel introduces the typical lonesome, first-person male narrator that is recognisable across the author’s works, Norwegian Wood is in many ways not classic Murakami. </p>
<p>The story takes place in a more realistic setting than those he later became known for. Still, I recommend starting with this novel because this is what most Japanese readers would have done at the time. </p>
<p>Read it and think of how the world was back then. Why was a novel that introduces so much death, loss and regret embraced by Japanese readers right at a time when – on the surface at least – things could not have been better in their country?</p>
<h2>2. The Elephant Vanishes (1993) & Blind Willow Sleeping Woman (2006)</h2>
<p>Next, you should read some of Murakami’s short stories. While most famous for his long novels, he has also written an impressive number of short stories – most of which are yet to be translated. </p>
<p>In Japan, short stories are usually first published ad hoc in literary magazines before being published in books. They are therefore rarely planned as full collections. The works included in The Elephant Vanishes and Blind Willow Sleeping Woman were selected from across his many short stories, specifically for English translation. </p>
<p>They showcase stories from Murakami’s early and mid-career, and give an excellent overview of his diverse writing style. Note, for example, the few works with female and third-person narrators, a sharp contrast to the male voice known so well to his fans.</p>
<h2>3. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1994)</h2>
<p>This is the novel that put Murakami on the literary map in the English-reading world. The narrator is classic Murakami – a male protagonist in search of something, in this case first his cat and then his wife. </p>
<p>Along the way, he encounters inexplicable events, journeys to other worlds, and meets strange people. You may notice that some of the short stories from the two aforementioned collections work as forerunners for this novel. This clear connection between short stories and novels is typical of Murakami. </p>
<p>Before, or in tandem with, reading the novel, I recommend you read Creta Kano (1990). It’s a rather bizarre and ultra-short story which was <a href="https://monkeymagazine.org/monkey-vol-3">only translated last year</a>. Ask yourself: who is Creta Kano? And what is the implication for the novel that Japanese readers were able to read this short story first? </p>
<h2>4. Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985)</h2>
<p>While you await the English translation of The City and Its Uncertain Walls, you can prepare by looking at the closely related novel, Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of The World. </p>
<p>The Japanese language has several words for the pronoun “I”, and these two novels are told by two narrators using different versions: <em>watashi</em> and <em>boku</em>. Without alternative options for “I”, English translators of such stories are challenged. As a solution, chapters narrated by the <em>watashi</em> character (a kind of cyberpunk, science fiction world) are written in the past tense, whereas <em>boku</em> character’s chapters (a more surreal, virtual fantasy world) are written in the present tense. </p>
<p>Think of what this means in the novel’s general dreamlike setting, and look forward to discovering how this issue is addressed in The City and Its Uncertain Walls.</p>
<hr>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214918/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gitte Marianne Hansen received funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK. She is affiliated with Newcastle University. </span></em></p>
Japanese and English readers have read Murakami in quite different contexts and chronologies.
Gitte Marianne Hansen, Reader in Japanese Studies, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215330
2023-10-10T12:36:46Z
2023-10-10T12:36:46Z
Claudia Goldin’s Nobel Prize win is a victory for women in economics − and the field as a whole
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552868/original/file-20231009-15-dk22qh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=48%2C0%2C7982%2C5345&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The world's newest Nobel laureate takes a bow.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/claudia-goldin-the-henry-lee-professor-of-economics-at-news-photo/1715805293">Carlin Stiehl/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Economic history has long been chronicled through a male lens, emphasizing the contributions of men and their viewpoints. For proof, just look to the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. It’s been awarded to 90 men since 1969 – and <a href="https://apnews.com/article/nobel-prize-economy-224c204c0cc20843636e5525d6a61673">just three women</a>.</p>
<p>The third woman to win the prize, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/claudia-goldin-wins-2023-nobel-economics-prize-2023-10-09/">distinguished Harvard labor economist Claudia Goldin</a>, was honored on Oct. 9, 2023, for her <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2023/goldin/facts/">decades of work studying the gender pay gap</a>. It wasn’t a victory just for her but for women in the field. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GyTN5PYAAAAJ&hl=en">As an economist</a>, I take this issue personally. My field has <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gender-gap-in-economics-is-huge-its-even-worse-than-tech-156275">a huge gender gap</a>. Only 24% of tenure-track faculty in economics are women. In contrast, women make up 43% of tenure-track faculty across academia as a whole.</p>
<h2>More than just stocks and bonds</h2>
<p>Part of the problem is that economics is often stereotypically associated with finance, money and banking. This narrow perception might not appeal to everyone. Women in particular tend to be drawn to areas that have <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/why-having-more-womendiverse-economists-benefits-us-all">direct bearing on social challenges</a>. </p>
<p>But economics is about much more than just the stock market. In fact, vast areas of the discipline deal with social issues – <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-insurance-coverage-for-kids-through-medicaid-and-chip-helps-their-moms-too-178249">health</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-drives-chinese-migrants-to-ghana-its-not-just-an-economic-decision-177580">development</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/teach-all-young-people-universal-basic-skills-by-2030-it-will-give-huge-boost-to-gdp-41792">education</a> and, yes, <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-tips-for-women-to-negotiate-a-higher-salary-200415">gender inequality</a>. </p>
<p>For instance, labor economists study issues like <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26617/w26617.pdf">family leave policies</a> and the <a href="https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GenderGap.html">gender pay gap</a> – areas that directly affect women’s lives. </p>
<p>It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that women have had a greater presence in labor economics than in other subfields. </p>
<p>Women have also historically been drawn to <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w23953">health economics, development economics and education economics</a>. But those fields don’t get as much attention, and the public sometimes doesn’t even recognize them as being part of economics at all.</p>
<p>They may even get the short shrift in Econ 101. A study of introductory economics textbooks found that <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/01/19/women-are-underrepresented-economics-textbooks-says-new-analysis-implications-fields">75% of people named</a> in them were men. Women weren’t even equally represented in hypothetical examples.</p>
<h2>Where are the women?</h2>
<p>Not only are women underrepresented as economists, economics as a field has historically ignored the role women play in the economy. Even as the study of family economics gained traction in the 1970s, the pivotal roles of women <a href="https://www.imf.org/en/News/Podcasts/All-Podcasts/2023/06/09/claudia-goldin-on-family-economics">were often sidelined</a>. </p>
<p>Traditional models often oversimplified households’ decision-making processes and overlooked women’s contributions. This led economists to undervalue the unpaid labor women provided in households and perpetuate <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c2970/c2970.pdf">stereotypical gender roles in their analyses</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young reporter in a suit is shown speaking to economist Claudia Goldin, who stands with her hands clasped." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552869/original/file-20231009-23-jkaxfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nobel Prize winner Claudia Goldin takes a reporter’s question after a press conference on Oct. 9, 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/claudia-goldin-the-henry-lee-professor-of-economics-at-news-photo/1715805733">Carlin Stiehl/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Goldin has challenged these traditional male-centric narratives. Through her groundbreaking research – particularly on wage inequalities and the “<a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w30323">motherhood penalty</a>” – Goldin has turned the spotlight on women’s economic roles and challenges.</p>
<p>Her findings reveal the complexities of wage disparities, emphasizing issues like the challenges women face after childbirth. For instance, <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/dynamics_of_the_gender_gap_for_young_professionals_in_the_financial_and_corporate_sectors.pdf">career interruptions such as maternity leave</a> or reduced work hours to care for children and other relatives can reduce women’s earnings and job prospects in the long term. </p>
<p>It’s vital to note that Goldin’s research doesn’t attribute the gender pay gap to employer discrimination. Instead, her insights advocate for the establishment of robust support systems. </p>
<p>Strengthening child care facilities, improving parental leave policies, offering workplace flexibility and otherwise bolstering policies that support families with kids can play a pivotal role in addressing the wage gap, her findings suggest. In the absence of such supports, women are bound to keep earning less than men after they become parents.</p>
<h2>A win for one, a victory for many</h2>
<p>Goldin’s Nobel recognition isn’t merely an honor for her individual achievements. It serves as a beacon for women in economics and academia as a whole. </p>
<p>First, her win challenges the historical gender imbalance in such prominent awards, signaling a long-overdue recognition for women’s contributions to economics. It provides hope for young female economists that their work can also achieve such renown.</p>
<p>Beyond this, her Nobel nod underscores a crucial point: Economics is a rich and complex discipline that goes beyond traditional monetary and financial issues. It’s about parenthood. It’s about child care. It’s about people’s struggles. It’s about social change.</p>
<p>In essence, Goldin’s win shows the world just how expansive, inclusive, diverse and interconnected the field really is. Economics isn’t just <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dismal_science">the dismal science</a>. It’s a human science.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Veronika Dolar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Goldin is showing the world that economics is about more than just finance.
Veronika Dolar, Associate Professor of Economics, SUNY Old Westbury
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215227
2023-10-08T00:12:51Z
2023-10-08T00:12:51Z
Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, in prison for speaking up against human rights violations, has been a voice for women for almost two decades
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552623/original/file-20231007-20-wcxpc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=181%2C40%2C3163%2C2188&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women's rights advocate, won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. Photo taken in 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tehran-iran-narges-mohammadi-a-jailed-iranian-womens-rights-news-photo/1708936159?adppopup=true">Reihane Taravati / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Woman, Life, Freedom,” the slogan adopted by Iranians to protest the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/death-of-Jina-Mahsa-Amini">unjust death of Mahsa Amini in 2022</a>, is, according to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/06/world/nobel-peace-prize?te=1&nl=from-the-times&emc=edit_ufn_20231006">most suitable way to describe the work</a> of the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, <a href="https://pen.org/advocacy-case/narges-mohammadi/">Narges Mohammadi</a>.</p>
<p>Mohammadi is the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-nobel-prize-narges-mohammadi-shirin-ebadi-4839c9fb79dc74d83851acb20849dade#:%7E:text=When%20Shirin%20Ebadi%20won%20her,the%20country's%20government%20from%20within%22%22">second Iranian woman</a> to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, exactly 20 years after Shirin Ebadi was awarded the prize for her work to promote democracy and initiate legal reform under Islamic law in 2003. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/06/world/nobel-peace-prize/the-nobel-peace-prize-has-honored-imprisoned-activists-before?smid=url-share">Mohammadi is the fourth</a> Nobel Peace Prize laureate to be chosen while still incarcerated, joining the ranks of <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1991/kyi/facts/">Aung San Suu Kyi</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2022/bialiatski/facts/">Ales Bialiatski</a>.</p>
<p>According to the Nobel committee, Mohammadi has been <a href="https://iran-protests.com/narges-mohammadi/">arrested no less than 13 times</a>. She has been convicted five times, sentenced to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. While she has been released on and off over the past four years, her work on behalf of women and her outspoken advocacy against the death penalty have made her a repeated target of the Islamist regime in Iran. </p>
<p>To this day, she remains behind bars in Iran’s most notorious prison for political detainees, Evin, which is located in the hills of northern Tehran.</p>
<p>I have been studying women’s rights, human rights and gender and sexual politics in Iran for more than two decades. I have had the opportunity to meet and work with Shirin Ebadi and dozens of women’s rights activists in Iran throughout my time <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=15943">conducting fieldwork on Iran’s sexual revolution</a>. I have witnessed the bravery of Iranian women as they boldly agitated for change. Women’s activism in Iran is not just a recent phenomenon – they have been at the forefront of calls for change in Iran for more than a century.</p>
<h2>Activism after the Iranian revolution</h2>
<p>Mohammadi began finding her activist roots as a student in the late 1980s and early 1990s at Imam Khomeini International University, where she wrote articles decrying the repression women in Iran faced. Following the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2014/2/11/iran-1979-the-islamic-revolution-that-shook-the-world">revolution in 1979</a>, the Islamist regime that took power under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued mandatory veiling decrees and imposed harsh limitations on travel, child custody, inheritance and divorce, as it ushered in an era of harsh repression for women. </p>
<p>Mohammadi was born in Zanjan, Iran, but grew up just outside of Tehran in the suburb of Karaj. After graduating from high school, she moved to Qazvin, northwest of Tehran to attend university, where she studied physics and engineering. Upon her arrival, she quickly became an activist, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2012/05/profile-nationalist-religious-and-steadfast-narges-mohammadi.html">co-founding a group called Tashakkol Daaneshjooei Roshangaraan</a> – translated as Illuminating Student Group – where she wrote articles calling for accountability from the regime. </p>
<p>Her writings led to her arrest twice during her time as a college student. This marked the beginning of a decades-long passion for promoting human rights in Iran that landed her in jail repeatedly. In 2002, Mohammadi, along with the Ebadi, founded the <a href="https://www.humanrights-ir.org/about-us">Defenders of Human Rights Center</a>, whose mandate is to defend the rights of women, political prisoners and ethnic minorities in Iran.</p>
<p>When she was awarded the Sakharov Prize in 2018, for “defence of human rights and freedom of thought,” Mohammadi <a href="https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2023/oct/06/nobel-prize-writings-narges-mohammadi#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CWe%20are%20fueled%20by%20a,freedom%20embraces%20the%20Iranian%20people.%E2%80%9D">called for ending the death penalty</a> and injustices against women. She protested against the imprisonment and torture of political and civil rights activists, and she said she “will not be silent in the face of human rights violations.” </p>
<p>In 2007, when Shirin Ebadi <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/1079179.html">established the National Peace Council</a> for peaceful resistance to the death penalty, harsh family laws and poor treatment of prisoners, Mohammadi was elected president of the 83-member body.</p>
<h2>Echoing the call for change</h2>
<p>Mohammadi follows a long line of women who have been at the forefront of calls for change in Iran, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/04/iranian-women-and-the-struggle-for-democracy-i-the-pre-revolution-era.html">dating back to the era of the Persian Empire</a>. </p>
<p>In 1906, a Constitutional Revolution – referred to as the <a href="https://www.iranchamber.com/history/constitutional_revolution/constitutional_revolution.php">Mashrouteh Revolution</a> – took place. This was a movement that pressed for codification of laws and rights to protect the people of Iran when the country was under the threat of colonialism. Women were at the forefront to call for equal rights for all Iranians – including and especially equal rights for all genders.</p>
<p>Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, women’s activism has gotten louder and more bold. Thousands of protesters have spent the last four decades calling for accountability, equality and human rights under the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>In 2009, women were central to the <a href="https://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/green-movement">Green Movement</a> that called for democracy and election transparency. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/middleeast/23neda.html">Green Movement</a> was an expression of outrage at the alleged <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/a-decade-after-iran-s-green-movement-some-lessons/">fraudulent re-election of conservative hardliner</a> Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. </p>
<p>And while men and women marched alongside one another, it was women who led the way. Neda Aga Soltan, a 26-year-old student protester who was shot while standing peacefully in support of the protests on the streets of Tehran by a member of Iran’s paramilitary forces, <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/tehranbureaudeathintehran/">quickly became the face of the protests</a>.</p>
<p>In 2022, women of all ages and religious, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds joined the protests when <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/15/1199882515/a-year-after-mahsa-aminis-death-iran-still-reels-from-protests-and-crackdowns">22-year-old Mahsa Amini died</a> in custody. Amini had traveled to Tehran from Kurdistan Province for a holiday with her brother. But as soon as she stepped off the train, Amini was arrested by the morality police. The protests, following her death in custody, came to be known the world over for their defining chant of “Zan, Zendigi, Azadi” – Women, Life, Freedom. Schoolgirls as young as 12 were <a href="https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2023/mar/08/mass-poisoning-schoolgirls-iran#:%7E:text=Between%20November%202022%20and%20March,rights%20groups%20and%20government%20officials">standing up in public</a> during these protests demanding accountability from the Islamist regime. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552611/original/file-20231006-31-21b8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Several Iranian protesters hold photographs of a young woman during a demonstration." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552611/original/file-20231006-31-21b8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552611/original/file-20231006-31-21b8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552611/original/file-20231006-31-21b8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552611/original/file-20231006-31-21b8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552611/original/file-20231006-31-21b8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552611/original/file-20231006-31-21b8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552611/original/file-20231006-31-21b8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Iranian protesters call for justice for Mahsa Amini during a protest organized in London’s Trafalgar Square.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/iranian-protesters-hold-photographs-of-mahsa-amini-during-news-photo/1244373894?adppopup=true">Steve Taylor/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>These protests were not an isolated incident of bravery. Rather, they were the result of decades of resistance movements led by women tired of facing oppression and inequality.</p>
<h2>Sowing the seeds of dissent</h2>
<p>The recognition by the Nobel committee of Mohammadi’s work puts the global spotlight on the fight for women’s rights in the Middle East.</p>
<p>Mohammadi’s family, the Oslo-based award committee, and her colleagues at the Defenders of Human Rights Center have all articulated the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2023/press-release/">significance of the prize</a>, not just for Mohammadi, but for all Iranian women who continue to bravely resist the oppression of the Iranian regime.</p>
<p>In 2022, the <a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2022/in-full/1-benchmarking-gender-gaps-2022/">World Economic Forum ranked Iran</a> among the worst five countries in the world for women’s economic opportunities and participation, health, educational attainment and political power. </p>
<p>It is unclear, though, whether Mohammadi knows about her win. She shared <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/06/world/nobel-peace-prize-winner-2023-intl/index.html">a message from prison</a> on Oct. 4 through her family when she was told that she was under consideration as a finalist. She said that she will continue to strive for “democracy, freedom, and equality” and vowed to remain in Iran to continue her activism. “Standing alongside the brave mothers of Iran, I will continue to fight against the relentless discrimination, tyranny, and gender-based oppression by the oppressive religious government until the liberation of women,” she said. </p>
<p>It is highly unlikely that Iranian women will give up the fight – even under threat of tear gas, arrest and years of detention or brutality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215227/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pardis Mahdavi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Narges Mohammadi is the second Iranian woman, after Shirin Ebadi, to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She remains locked up in Evin, Iran’s most notorious prison for political detainees.
Pardis Mahdavi, President, University of La Verne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215180
2023-10-06T16:19:34Z
2023-10-06T16:19:34Z
Jon Fosse: Nobel prize in literature winner is a playwright who puts outsiders centre stage
<p>When <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/05/jon-fosse-wins-the-2023-nobel-prize-in-literature#:%7E:text=His%20longer%20works%20include%20the,international%20Booker%20prize%20in%202022.">Jon Fosse</a> receives this year’s Nobel prize in literature in December, it will be collected by a playwright and novelist whose work examines the lives of ordinary people on the outer reaches of society, trying to cope with the challenges and hardships of daily life. </p>
<p>But his work is suffused with hope and affection as well as a darker sense of foreboding. There is a warm affinity between Fosse and the characters that populate his plays, highlighting their humanity.</p>
<p>Fosse, a Norwegian who lives in Bergen, has also been much praised for his seven-part novel <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/septology/jon-fosse/damion-searls/9781804270066">Septology</a>, nominated for the International Booker prize in 2022. But few beyond Scandinavia and Germany realise his international success was built on his work as a dramatist. So who is this Scandinavian writer who has scooped the world’s most sought-after literary prize? </p>
<p>Fosse’s work straddles a variety of genres, including several novels, 40 plays, several collections of poetry, children’s literature, essays and translations. Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel committee for literature described his ability to “evoke man’s loss of orientation” as providing “access to a deeper experience close to divinty”.</p>
<p>Fosse started off writing poetry and fiction, which is rooted in the landscape and language of Norway’s rugged west coast, where he grew up. He is well known for writing in <a href="https://www.sprakradet.no/Vi-og-vart/Om-oss/English-and-other-languages/English/norwegian-bokmal-vs.-nynorsk/">Nynorsk</a>, a minority language used mostly in western Norway. Some regard Fosse’s use of it a political gesture. </p>
<h2>Theatre was ‘irrelevant’</h2>
<p>It was not always obvious that Fosse would become a playwright. He did not initially consider theatre to be the place for him. He read a lot of drama and drama theory, but the theatre still seemed irrelevant. He was at that time mostly occupied with writing poetry and fiction.</p>
<p>When he finally (and reluctantly) attended a ten-day course for aspiring playwrights in 1985, it was not an immediate success. On the contrary, his first plays were met with incomprehension. No one could not understand how his plays could be staged. They did not follow the conventions of traditional drama and the characters was not fully developed in the usual ways.</p>
<p>His first staged production was the short play <a href="https://tga.nl/en/productions/nooit-van-elkaar">And We’ll Never Be Parted</a> (1994), followed in 1996 by <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/fosse-plays-one-9781840022704">Somebody is Going to Come</a>. And We’ll Never Be Parted focuses on a woman waiting on her husband to come home, mulling over memories, marriage and infidelity. It sparked debate in Norway about what made good theatre, with one critic describing it as “naive”.</p>
<p>Some found his plays were too literary, or placed too much emphasis on the Norwegian setting, and that they failed to articulate the universal themes of the drama. But a Swedish theatre agent, Berit Gullberg, recognised something brilliant in Fosse and wanted to push his work beyond Norway. </p>
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<p>Giljotin, a small, alternative theatre in Stockholm with just 50 seats, opened up a new way of looking at Fosse’s drama. Director Kia Berglund took on <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/fosse-plays-one-9781840022704/">The Child</a> (1996) about a young couple awaiting their first baby, successfully creating the mysterious atmosphere that permeates the play.</p>
<p>It was clear that Fosse was a highly watchable dramatist, but also that audiences were required to listen carefully to the text and tune into its rhythms. In his plays, dialogue is sparse. He employs pauses and silences to transmit meaning and build up mood and atmosphere.</p>
<p>Fosse has often been compared to the Irish playwright <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/samuel-beckett">Samuel Beckett</a>. But his plays rarely contain major philosophical discussions. Instead, they leave what is unspoken – those unarticulated feelings, desires and emotions that lie beneath the surface – to create tension and drama. </p>
<h2>Spreading the word</h2>
<p>Gullberg’s sustained efforts led to a production of Fosse’s second play, Somebody is Going to Come (about two people who buy a remote house by the sea), by French director Claude Régy in 1999. It was performed at an exceedingly slow pace, running twice as long as its Norwegian premiere. In 2003, Régy took on Fosse’s second play, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/fosse-plays-three-9781840024784/">Death Variations</a> (2001) about a young woman’s suicide, to critical acclaim.</p>
<p>At the turn of the millennium, Fosse’s plays began to be performed at several prestigious theatres in Germany. Two leading theatre magazines called Fosse “the master of <em>unheimlich</em>”, meaning the uncanny – a state of unease and fear.</p>
<p>But it was mainly Falk Richter’s 2000 Zurich production of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/nightsongs-9781840022827/">Night Songs</a> (1998), about a young couple falling apart in the suburbs, and Luk Percival’s 2001 Munich version of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/fosse-plays-two-9781840023848/">Dream of Autumn</a> (1999) – about a couple meeting in a cemetery on a stage filled with crunching gravel – that opened up German theatre to Fosse. Both productions illuminated the discreet humour in his dramas.</p>
<p>His plays came at just the right time, just as audiences were tiring of the <a href="https://howlround.com/post-dramatic-turn-german-theatre">violent German theatre aesthetic</a> with its dramatically expressive form. This led to “Fosse fever”, with his works being shown all over Germany.</p>
<p>Many theatres commissioned new plays and secured world premieres. For many years Fosse was the most-performed contemporary playwright in Europe and soon began to find audiences around the world. His works translated especially well to theatres in Japan and Korea, where the mysterious atmosphere of his plays was not considered strange.</p>
<p>However, launching in the UK proved difficult, with one of his first productions at the Royal Court criticised as pretentious and boring. But in 2011 when French director Patrice Chéreau staged <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/i-am-the-wind-9781849430715/">I am the wind</a> (2008), about two men in a boat tackling a storm, at the Young Vic, he found a form that won over British audiences.</p>
<p>This merry-go-round of of productions and premieres was exhausting for Fosse, who decided to stop writing drama and devote himself to fiction. The number of productions declined and his success shifted to the epic novels he produced, such as Trilogy (2014), about two lovers trying to find their place in the world. </p>
<p>These days Fosse is turning once again to drama, trying to find a balance between the two. The Nobel prize now means that more people will discover his plays, and certainly much of his best work will be restaged, giving new audiences the chance to enter Fosse’s unique universe.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215180/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rikard Hoogland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The prize has gone to a Norwegian playwright and novelist whose work examines the lives of ordinary people on the outer reaches of society.
Rikard Hoogland, Senior Lecturer & Associate Professor in Theatre Studies, Department of Culture & Aesthetics, Stockholm University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215143
2023-10-06T05:01:17Z
2023-10-06T05:01:17Z
Jon Fosse wins the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature for giving ‘voice to the unsayable’
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2023/press-release/">Jon Fosse</a> has just been awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature for his “innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”.</p>
<p>The worthy winner, aged 64, is a major figure in Norwegian literary and cultural circles and the fourth Norwegian to win the most prestigious award in world literature. He’s also the second Nobel Prize for Literature winner in a row to be published (in English translation) by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/books/fitzcarraldo-nobel-prize-ernaux.html">Fitzcarraldo Editions</a>, following French writer Annie Ernaux’s win last year.</p>
<p>Fosse, who the translator <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/06/09/pure-prose/">Damion Searles</a> calls one of the “elder statesmen of Norwegian letters”, works across multiple genres and mediums and writes using a language called “<a href="https://www.hf.uio.no/multiling/english/news-and-events/news/2021/lme">Nynorsk</a>”, or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nynorsk">New Norwegian</a>. (It’s one of two current written forms of Norwegian – used by just 10% of the Norwegian population.) Some, <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-second-silent-language-a-conversation-with-jon-fosse/">though not the writer himself</a>, have interpreted this as a quietly political gesture. </p>
<p>Anders Olsson, chairman of the Nobel Literature Committee, described Fosse as blending “a rootedness in the nature and language of his Norwegian background” with the artistic techniques of modernism.</p>
<p>Despite having been in the running for the award for a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/01/nobel-literature-bets-jon-fosse-odds-slashed">number of years</a>, Fosse, as with several other 21st century European laureates like <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2004/summary/">Elfriede Jelinek</a> and the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/03/21/literatures-most-controversial-nobel-laureate">controversial</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2019/handke/facts/">Peter Handke</a>, is still largely unknown in the English-speaking world.</p>
<p>“I have been among the favourites for ten years, and felt sure that I would never get the prize,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/05/books/jon-fosse-nobel-prize-literature.html">Fosse said</a> in a statement issued by his publisher. “I simply cannot believe it.”</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/patrick-white-was-the-first-australian-writer-to-win-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-50-years-later-is-he-still-being-read-214724">Patrick White was the first Australian writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature – 50 years later, is he still being read?</a>
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<h2>Septology – an experimental tour de force</h2>
<p>With the receipt of the Nobel, however, his profile will inevitably rise. This is surely a good thing. What, though, should readers who might be new to Fosse’s body of work expect? </p>
<p>Fosse’s massive literary oeuvre includes roughly 40 plays – the Nobel committee called him “one of the most recognised and widely performed playwrights of our time” – as well as novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books and translations.</p>
<p>His debut novel, Red, Black (originally published as <em>Raudt, svart</em>), was published in 1983. The first play he wrote that was performed, And Never Shall We Part (<em>Og aldri skal vi skiljast</em>) was staged in 1994.</p>
<p>“It was the first time I had ever tried my hand at this kind of work, and it was the biggest surprise of my life as a writer,” he <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/controversial-or-safer-pick-for-nobel-literature-prize/news-story/e0b2d56239d0fb9b43a63c5dd313edc3">once said</a> of writing his first play. “I knew, I felt, that this kind of writing was made for me.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552454/original/file-20231006-27-uy95d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552454/original/file-20231006-27-uy95d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552454/original/file-20231006-27-uy95d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552454/original/file-20231006-27-uy95d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552454/original/file-20231006-27-uy95d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552454/original/file-20231006-27-uy95d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552454/original/file-20231006-27-uy95d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552454/original/file-20231006-27-uy95d0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>One work in particular stands out, though: his monumental novel sequence, the near 800-page, one-sentence long <a href="https://giramondopublishing.com/books/jon-fosse-septology/">Septology</a> – written after Fosse converted to Catholicism in 2013. (Formerly an atheist, he had grown up in a strict Lutheran family.)</p>
<p>This experimental tour de force, which was nominated for the International Booker Prize in 2022 for its third volume, focuses on an ageing painter and widower, Asle, living on the southwest coast of Norway. He lives near another painter who shares his name, but is lonely and consumed by alcohol. (Incidentally, Fosse himself famously gave up drinking many years ago, after being treated in hospital for alcohol poisoning.) The doppelgängers grapple with existential questions about death, love, light and shadow, faith and hopelessness. </p>
<p>In the New York Times, Randy Boyagoda <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/books/review/jon-fosse-septology.html">rapturously wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Having read the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse’s “Septology”, an extraordinary seven-novel sequence about an old man’s recursive reckoning with the braided realities of God, art, identity, family life and human life itself, I’ve come into awe and reverence myself for idiosyncratic forms of immense metaphysical fortitude.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/annie-ernaux-french-feminist-who-uses-language-as-a-knife-wins-nobel-prize-for-literature-192084">Annie Ernaux, French feminist who uses language as 'a knife', wins Nobel Prize for Literature</a>
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<h2>‘The Beckett of the 21st century’</h2>
<p>While a touch gnomic, the Nobel committee’s emphasis on the “unsayable” side of things offers a useful initial means for approaching certain of the more experimental aspects of Fosse’s work, and Septology in particular. </p>
<p>For me, it aligns Fosse’s aesthetic sensibility with that of a much earlier Nobel laureate, the Irish dramatist and novelist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1969/summary/">Samuel Beckett</a> – who the Nobel committee also compared him to (along with other modernists like <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/georg-trakl">Georg Trakl</a>).</p>
<p>Indeed, the <a href="https://frontline.thehindu.com/news/jon-fosse-wins-2023-nobel-prize-in-literature-for-giving-voice-to-the-unsayable/article67384704.ece">the French press</a> has described him as the “Beckett of the 21st century”.</p>
<p>In his 1983 late masterwork, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1090870">Worstword Ho</a>, Beckett wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ooze on back not to unsay but say again the vasts apart. Say seen again. No worse again. The vasts of void apart. Of all so far the missaid the worse missaid.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In it, Beckett looks to test the very possibilities of linguistic expression, in keeping with his broader existential project. (Suffice to say: the conclusion he comes to is characteristically downbeat.)</p>
<p>A dauntingly experimental work, in the reckoning of the critical theorist <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/news/4058-pascale-casanova-beckett-s-combinatorial-art">Pascale Cassanova</a>, it “denounces the taken-for-granted realist assumptions on which the whole literary edifice is based”. This is worth keeping in mind when it comes to Fosse. </p>
<p>As the journalist Dani Garavelli <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/culture/books/i-is-another-jon-fosse-not-a-novel-jenny-erpenbeck/">notes</a>, in what appears to be a clear nod in the direction of Beckett (who he admires), Fosse “reflects on the inadequacy of language in the struggle for intimacy” in his work.</p>
<p>Fosse has <a href="https://www.thelocal.no/20231005/who-is-norways-nobel-winning-author-jon-fosse">called Beckett</a> “a painter for the theatre rather than an actual author”.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/55434012">I is Another</a>, published in English in 2020 (the second instalment of Septology), Fosse writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it’s not something to put into words, because you can’t put what a good picture says into words, and as for my pictures the closest he can get to is to say that there’s an approaching distance, something far away that gets closer, in my pictures, it’s as if something imperceptible becomes perceptible and yet still stays imperceptible, it’s still hidden, it is something staying hidden, if you can say it that way […]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here, as in the pessimistic modernist monologues of Thomas Bernhard (another writer Fosse has been compared to), he touches on questions of artistic and written expression. And, too, on what appear to be the irreducible shortcomings of human communication.</p>
<p>Fosse, who began writing in Nynorsk - which he terms a “minority language” - at the age of 12, seems to have spent much of his life grappling with those questions and limits. Nearly ten years ago, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/mar/12/jon-fosse-writing-another-play-doesnt-give-me-pleasure">he reflected</a>: “Writing has been a way of surviving.” It remains to be said whether the Nobel will change Fosse’s feelings. Only time will tell.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215143/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For Jon Fosse, the fourth Norwegian to win the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, writing has been a way of surviving.
Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214784
2023-10-05T12:33:59Z
2023-10-05T12:33:59Z
How a disgruntled scientist looking to prove his food wasn’t fresh discovered radioactive tracers and won a Nobel Prize 80 years ago
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551579/original/file-20231002-27-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=392%2C8%2C5059%2C3473&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">George De Hevesy working in his lab at Stockholm University in 1944. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hungarian-radiochemist-george-de-hevesy-at-work-in-his-news-photo/870101654?adppopup=true">Keystone Features/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each October, the Nobel Prizes celebrate a handful of groundbreaking scientific achievements. And while many of the awarded discoveries revolutionize the field of science, some originate in unconventional places. For <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1943/hevesy/biographical/">George de Hevesy</a>, the 1943 Nobel Laureate in chemistry who discovered radioactive tracers, that place was a boarding house cafeteria in Manchester, U.K., in 1911. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551573/original/file-20231002-29-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white headshot of a young man with a mustache wearing a suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551573/original/file-20231002-29-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551573/original/file-20231002-29-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551573/original/file-20231002-29-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551573/original/file-20231002-29-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551573/original/file-20231002-29-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551573/original/file-20231002-29-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551573/original/file-20231002-29-bnczk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/George_de_Hevesy.jpg">Magnus Manske</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>De Hevesey had the sneaking suspicion that the staff of the boarding house cafeteria where he ate at every day was reusing leftovers from the dinner plates – each day’s soup seemed to contain all of the prior day’s ingredients. So he came up with a plan to test his theory. </p>
<p>At the time, de Hevesy was working with radioactive material. He <a href="https://tech.snmjournals.org/content/jnmt/24/4/291.full.pdf">sprinkled a small amount</a> of radioactive material in his leftover meat. A few days later, he took an electroscope with him to the kitchen and <a href="https://tech.snmjournals.org/content/jnmt/24/4/291.full.pdf">measured the radioactivity</a> in the prepared food. </p>
<p>His landlady, who was to blame for the recycled food, exclaimed “this is magic” when de Hevesy showed her his results, but really, it was just the first successful radioactive tracer experiment. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=vlmJRrsAAAAJ&hl=en">We are</a> a team <a href="https://www.chemistry.msu.edu/faculty-research/faculty-members/liddick-sean.aspx">of chemists</a> and physicists <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MkkjF8YAAAAJ&hl=en">who work</a> at the <a href="https://frib.msu.edu">Facility for Rare Isotope Beams</a>, located at Michigan State University. De Hevesy’s early research in the field has revolutionized the way that modern scientists like us use radioactive material, and it has led to a variety of scientific and medical advances.</p>
<h2>The nuisance of lead</h2>
<p>A year before conducting his recycled ingredients experiment, Hungary-born de Hevesy had <a href="https://orau.org/health-physics-museum/articles/four-tales-george-de-hevesy.html">traveled to the U.K.</a> to start work with nuclear scientist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1908/rutherford/facts/">Ernest Rutherford</a>, who’d won a Nobel Prize just two years prior.</p>
<p>Rutherford was at the time <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/ed040p36">working with a radioactive substance</a> called radium D, a valuable byproduct of radium because of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/half-life-radioactivity">its long half-life</a> (22 years). However, Rutherford couldn’t use his radium D sample, as it had large amounts of lead mixed in. </p>
<p>When de Hevesy arrived, Rutherford asked him <a href="https://tech.snmjournals.org/content/jnmt/24/4/291.full.pdf">to separate the radium D</a> from the nuisance lead. The nuisance lead was made up of a combination of stable isotopes of lead (Pb). Each isotope had the same number of protons (82 for lead), but a different number of neutrons.</p>
<p>De Hevesy worked on separating the radium D from the natural lead using chemical separation techniques for almost two years, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1943/hevesy/lecture/">with no success</a>. The reason for his failure was that, unknown to anyone at the time, radium D was actually a different form of lead – namely the radioactive isotope, or radioisotope Pb-210. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, de Hevesy’s failure led to an even bigger discovery. The creative scientist figured out that if he could not separate radium D from natural lead, he could use it as a tracer of lead.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/hunting-for-rare-isotopes-the-mysterious-radioactive-atomic-nuclei-that-will-be-in-tomorrows-technology-86177">Radioactive isotopes</a>, like Pb-210, are unstable isotopes, which means that over time they will transform into a different element. During this transformation, called radioactive decay, they typically release particles or light, which can be <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/radioactivity">detected as radioactivity</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TJgc28csgV0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Through radioactivity, an unstable isotope can turn from one element to another.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This radioactivity acts as a signature indicating the presence of the radioactive isotope. This critical property of radioisotopes allows them to be used as tracers.</p>
<h2>Radium D as a tracer</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.iaea.org/topics/radiotracers">A tracer</a> is a substance that stands out in a crowd of similar material because it has unique qualities that make it easy to track. </p>
<p>For example, if you have a group of kindergartners going on a field trip and one of them is wearing a smartwatch, you can tell if the group went to the playground by tracking the GPS signal on the smartwatch. In de Hevesy’s case, the kindergartners were the lead atoms, the smart watch was radium D, and the GPS signal was the emitted radioactivity. </p>
<p>In the 1910s, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00000541">Vienna Institute of Radium Research</a> had a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2013.0070">larger collection of radium</a> and its byproducts than any other institution. To continue his experiments with radium D, de Hevesy moved to Vienna in 1912. </p>
<p>He collaborated with Fritz Paneth, who had also attempted the impossible task of separating radium D from lead without success. The two scientists “spiked” samples of different chemical compounds with small amounts of a radioactive tracer. This way they could study chemical processes by tracking the movement of the radioactivity <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/hevesy-lecture.pdf">across different chemical reactions</a></p>
<p>De Hevesy continued his work studying chemical processes using different isotopic markers for many years. He even was the first to introduce nonradioactive tracers. One nonradioactive tracer he studied was a heavier isotope of hydrogen, <a href="https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/what-is-deuterium">called deuterium</a>. Deuterium is 10,000 times less abundant than common hydrogen, but is roughly twice as heavy, which makes it easier to separate the two.</p>
<p>De Hevesy and his co-author used deuterium to track water in their bodies. In their investigations, they took turns ingesting samples and measuring the deuterium in their urine to study <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/134879a0">the elimination of water</a> from the human body. </p>
<p>De Hevesy was awarded the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1943/summary/">1943 Nobel Prize in chemistry</a> “for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes.” </p>
<h2>Radioactive tracers today</h2>
<p>More than a century after de Hevesy’s experiments, many fields now routinely use radioactive tracers, from medicine to materials science and biology. </p>
<p>These tracers can monitor the progression of disease in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23095023">medical procedures</a>, the uptake of nutrients in <a href="https://doi.org/10.2976/1.2921207">plant biology</a>, the age and flow of <a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-249-2020">water in aquifers</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2021.110076">measurement of wear and corrosion of materials</a>, among other applications. Radioisotopes allow researchers to follow the paths of nutrients and drugs in living systems without invasively cutting the tissue.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551730/original/file-20231003-15-397yxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four brain scans, two in contrasted colors with the background shown as white and the brain as gray, two with the background shown as black and the brain shown either as gray or orange." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551730/original/file-20231003-15-397yxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551730/original/file-20231003-15-397yxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551730/original/file-20231003-15-397yxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551730/original/file-20231003-15-397yxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551730/original/file-20231003-15-397yxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551730/original/file-20231003-15-397yxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551730/original/file-20231003-15-397yxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Radioactive tracers, seen in the top left photo as a white spot and indicated by an arrow in the top right, are often used today in brain scans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/positron-emission-tomography-ct-scan-uses-a-royalty-free-image/1463929233?phrase=brain+scan+radioactive+tracer&adppopup=true">mr. suphachai praserdumrongchai/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In modern research, scientists focus on producing new isotopes and on developing procedures to use radioactive tracers more efficiently. The <a href="https://frib.msu.edu/">Facility for Rare Isotope Beams</a>, or FRIB, where the three of us work, has a program dedicated to the production and harvesting of unique radioisotopes. These radioisotopes are then used in medical and other applications. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/powerful-linear-accelerator-begins-smashing-atoms-2-scientists-on-the-team-explain-how-it-could-reveal-rare-forms-of-matter-185754">FRIB produces radioactive beams</a> for its basic science program. In the production process, a large number of unused isotopes are collected in a tank of water, where they can be later <a href="https://doi.org/10.1039/D0NJ04411C">isolated and studied</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552099/original/file-20231004-26-tls88s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two scientists, a woman wearing a white shirt and a man wearing a dark blue shirt, squat on the concrete ground in a laboartory with lots of machinery and shelves, and a green lit ceiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552099/original/file-20231004-26-tls88s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552099/original/file-20231004-26-tls88s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552099/original/file-20231004-26-tls88s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552099/original/file-20231004-26-tls88s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552099/original/file-20231004-26-tls88s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552099/original/file-20231004-26-tls88s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552099/original/file-20231004-26-tls88s.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scientists Greg Severin and Katharina Domnanich at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One recent study involved the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1039/D0NJ04411C">isolation of the radioisotope Zn-62</a> from the irradiated water. This was a challenging task considering there were 100 quadrillion times more water molecules than Zn-62 atoms. Zn-62 is an important radioactive tracer utilized to follow the metabolism of zinc in plants and in nuclear medicine.</p>
<p>Eighty years ago, de Hevesy managed to take a dead-end separation project and turn it into a discovery that created a new scientific field. Radioactive tracers have already changed human lives in so many ways. Nevertheless, scientists are continuing to develop new radioactive tracers and find innovative ways to use them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Artemis Spyrou receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Liddick receives funding from the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration. He is affiliated with the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharina Domnanich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Some Nobel Prize-winning ideas originate in strange places, but still go on to revolutionize the scientific field. George de Hevesy’s research on radioactive tracers is one such example.
Artemis Spyrou, Professor of Nuclear Physics, Michigan State University
Katharina Domnanich, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Michigan State University
Sean Liddick, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Michigan State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214991
2023-10-05T10:02:21Z
2023-10-05T10:02:21Z
I helped select the Nobel laureates in physics – here’s how our committee decides
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552071/original/file-20231004-27-5j7ipt.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C104%2C1949%2C1221&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The author, Mats Larsson, on the right during the 2023 announcement.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kungliga Vetenskapsakademin</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I am serving my ninth and final year in the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/about/the-nobel-committee-for-physics/">Nobel Committee for Physics</a>, which is an absolutely fascinating job – albeit hard. The best bit is hearing the reactions of the shocked laureates when they receive some of the biggest news of their lives over the phone.</p>
<p>Sometimes, I also give presentations about how Nobel laureates are selected. This can be in front of participants in a Nobel symposium, or in front of a high school class. And I have noticed that, while the topic tends to generate great interest, the process is poorly understood. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-in-physics-awarded-for-work-unveiling-the-secrets-of-electrons-214880">Nobel prize in physics awarded for work unveiling the secrets of electrons</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Explaining how the laureates are selected isn’t entirely straightforward, however – there are strict rules of secrecy. I have to rely on material taken from the official website of the Nobel prize on the one hand, and case studies that are older than 50 years and therefore no longer secret on the other.</p>
<p>The Nobel Committee consists of about six to eight members appointed by the <a href="https://www.kva.se/en/">Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</a>. The work to select a prize is divided into three parts. The first and very important part is the nominations. The committee sends out about 3,000 letters to researchers all over the world each September and October asking for nominations, with a deadline of January 31 the following year. </p>
<p>The list of nominees is regulated so that certain people are always consulted, including former Nobel laureates, professors of physics in the Nordic countries, and members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.</p>
<p>Then there is quite a large other group of people who are invited to make nominations but only for a few years at a time, so this part of the process is rotated regularly. Finally, many universities are asked to consult some faculty for their nomination, and once again the universities are rotated.</p>
<p>The second part involves expert reports. Based on the nominations, the committee identifies certain areas of physics where discoveries or inventions have occurred at a level that may make them eligible for an award. </p>
<p>The committee then solicits confidential reports from experts in these chosen areas, who are asked whether they regard these discoveries or inventions of sufficient importance to motivate a Nobel prize. If they do, they are also asked to identify the individuals they consider have made the most important contributions.</p>
<p>The final part is the work done by the committee. At the beginning of June, the committee meets and puts together a shortlist of the most interesting prize candidates. The discussions in the committee are always open, sharp, frank and sometimes emotional, but never hostile.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552295/original/file-20231005-17-rxez58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Image of Einstein." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552295/original/file-20231005-17-rxez58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552295/original/file-20231005-17-rxez58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552295/original/file-20231005-17-rxez58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552295/original/file-20231005-17-rxez58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552295/original/file-20231005-17-rxez58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552295/original/file-20231005-17-rxez58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552295/original/file-20231005-17-rxez58.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Albert Einstein did not win the Nobel prize for his theory of relativity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 1920s, for example, there was enormous pressure to award Albert Einstein. But some members of the committee were sceptical about the theory of relativity. The compromise was to award Einstein for the explanation of a phenomenon called <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1921/summary/">the photoelectric effect</a> instead, which is exactly the effect <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-in-physics-awarded-for-work-unveiling-the-secrets-of-electrons-214880">this year’s laureates</a> have investigated in great detail. </p>
<p>Amazingly, while the other successful theory of modern physics, quantum mechanics, has been richly awarded with Nobel prizes (1932/33, 1945, 1954, 2022), it took until 2020 for the theory of relativity <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2020/penrose/facts/">to be awarded explicitly</a>.</p>
<h2>Final stages</h2>
<p>During the summer, each committee member works on their own to prepare certain sections of the final prize report. During a retreat in August, the committee meets and finalises this report, with a recommendation to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. There are actually several meetings between committee members during the summer months, but contact by email and telephone is strictly forbidden. </p>
<p>The report, including a suggestion for a maximum of three laureates and a citation, is then sent to the academy. In September, the suggestion is discussed among the physics members of the academy. During a second September meeting, this group takes a vote on whether it supports the suggestion from the committee. </p>
<p>In October, on the same day the prize is announced, the academy meets again to make a final decision, which cannot be appealed. Once the decision has been taken, the laureates are contacted by telephone. Finally, the decision is announced at a press conference that is broadcast live on Swedish public TV and on the academy’s homepage. </p>
<p>The day after the announcement, a few of the committee members start helping with the poster that will be freely available to the public in connection with the Nobel lectures in December. </p>
<p>By now, the work on next year’s Nobel prize in Physics has already started – even before this year’s nominations were known. There are always expert reports that are discussed and solicited. The work never stops!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214991/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mats Larsson receives funding from Vetenskapsrådet (VR) and has previously been funded by Naturvetenskapliga forskningsrådet (NFR).</span></em></p>
The discussions in the committee are always open, frank and sometimes emotional, but never hostile.
Mats Larsson, Professor of molecular physics, Stockholm University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214976
2023-10-05T09:20:07Z
2023-10-05T09:20:07Z
Nobel prize in chemistry awarded for ‘quantum dot’ technology that gave us today’s high definition TVs
<p>The 2023 Nobel prize in chemistry <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/press-release/">has been awarded</a> to a trio for the discovery and development of particles so tiny they were once thought too small to be possible. They are widely used in television screens, LED lights and to guide surgeons removing cancer tumours.</p>
<p><a href="https://chemistry.mit.edu/profile/moungi-bawendi/">Moungi G. Bawendi</a> from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, <a href="https://www.chem.columbia.edu/content/louis-e-brus">Louis E. Brus </a>from Columbia University in the US and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/ekimov/facts/">Alexei I. Ekimov</a> from Nanocrystals Technology Inc. in New York in the US will share the prize sum of 11 million Swedish kronor (£822,910).</p>
<p>The trio all contributed to the discovery and development of quantum dots, which are nanoparticles (particles between one to 100 nanometres in size) so small that their size actually determines their properties. </p>
<p>Such particles obey the rules of quantum mechanics, governing nature on the smallest of scales, meaning they have optical and electronic properties that are different from those of larger particles. </p>
<p>For example, quantum dots absorb light and emit it at another wavelength – with the resulting colour depending on the particle’s size.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-future-is-bright-the-future-is-quantum-dot-televisions-35765">The future is bright, the future is ... quantum dot televisions</a>
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<p>The work started in the early 1980s when Ekimov discovered how to create coloured glass using nanoparticles of copper chloride. A few years later, Brus was the first scientist to prove that nanoparticles in a fluid exhibit quantum effects.</p>
<p>In 1993, Bawendi revolutionised the chemical production of quantum dots, which meant they could be used for practical applications such as in technology and healthcare. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Drawing of quantum dots absorbing light." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552064/original/file-20231004-19-ych3n5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How quantum dots absorb light.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So why are quantum dots so important in the fields of display devices and medical imaging?</p>
<p>As technology for home and commercial use has increased in complexity, so has the resolution and contrast performance of display screens. High definition displays were introduced from 2003 to 2009 where they became the dominant display type available to the public. The successor, ultra high definition, has become today’s standard. </p>
<p>Quantum dots helped increase the range of display colours to more accurately reflect the range of colours the human eye can naturally perceive. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CiDB6OBx3Qo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>A major problem for technology researchers was how to increase the pallet of colours and sub-colours to do this. Quantum dots give us that flexibility and control.</p>
<p>Quantum dots ultimately offer more accuracy when developing technologies because you can change their properties, such as colour, by changing their size. </p>
<p>Nanotechnology techniques allow us to create molecules of different sizes, to emit different wavelengths of light more accurately and consistently. Quantum dots are bringing us much closer to display screens that reproduce the full range of colours humans can discern. </p>
<p>Quantum dots have been a game changer for medical imaging, too. They have helped create more advanced systems for tumour detection, to study human cells, angiograms (a type of X-ray to examine blood vessels) and even camera-guided surgery and robotic surgery. </p>
<p>Researchers studying the immune system and chemical reactions in the body rely on quantum dots to illustrate their studies more accurately. </p>
<p>We still have not realised the full potential of quantum dots. They have already made their mark on the technology and medical sectors. But they also have the potential to create more accurate imaging for other sectors too, such as astronomy. They might even help create next generation solar cell technology to improve solar cell efficiency for power production.</p>
<p>Not so long ago, we didn’t know quantum dots had different frequencies. Now they are an important part of the technology in our TVs, our lights and the medical science that treats and diagnoses diseases. It’s hard to say how we will be using quantum dots in the future - the limit may be our imagination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurence Murphy consults for JVC , Pansonic and SMPTE.</span></em></p>
Quantum dot technology has also helped revolutionise medical imagining.
Laurence Murphy, Senior Lecturer & Researcher in Media Technology, University of Salford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215015
2023-10-04T21:19:46Z
2023-10-04T21:19:46Z
Quantum dots are part of a revolution in engineering atoms in useful ways – Nobel Prize for chemistry recognizes the power of nanotechnology
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552184/original/file-20231004-19-i1snbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=143%2C24%2C3655%2C2727&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Flasks of quantum dots fluorescing at the Nobel Prize announcement.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/laboratory-flasks-are-used-for-explanation-during-the-news-photo/1705001725">Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2023 Nobel Prize for chemistry <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2007/summary/">isn’t the</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1986/summary/">first Nobel</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2010/summary/">awarded for</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2016/summary/">research in</a> <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1996/summary/">nanotechnology</a>. But it is perhaps the most colorful application of the technology to be associated with the accolade.</p>
<p>This year’s prize recognizes <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8086TkwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Moungi Bawendi</a>, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GT0oh5QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Louis Brus</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/ekimov/facts">Alexei Ekimov</a> for the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2023/press-release/">discovery and development of quantum dots</a>. For many years, these <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsanm.0c01386">precisely constructed nanometer-sized particles</a> – just a few hundred thousandths the width of a human hair in diameter – were the darlings of nanotechnology pitches and presentations. As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b8NhWc4AAAAJ&hl=en">researcher</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_D._Maynard">adviser</a> on nanotechnology, <a href="https://2020science.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/maynard-ucla-090417-handouts.pdf">I’ve even used them myself</a> when talking with developers, policymakers, advocacy groups and others about the promise and perils of the technology.</p>
<p>The origins of nanotechnology predate Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov’s work on quantum dots – the physicist Richard Feynman speculated on what could be possible through nanoscale engineering <a href="http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1976/">as early as 1959</a>, and engineers like Erik Drexler were speculating about the possibilities of atomically precise manufacturing <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/42881/engines-of-creation-by-k-eric-drexler/">in the the 1980s</a>. However, this year’s trio of Nobel laureates were part of the earliest wave of modern nanotechnology where researchers began <a href="https://andrewmaynard.substack.com/p/living-in-a-material-world">putting breakthroughs in material science to practical use</a>.</p>
<p>Quantum dots brilliantly <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/fluorescence">fluoresce</a>: They absorb one color of light and reemit it nearly instantaneously as another color. A vial of quantum dots, when illuminated with broad spectrum light, shines with a single vivid color. What makes them special, though, is that their color is determined by how large or small they are. Make them small and you get an intense blue. Make them larger, though still nanoscale, and the color shifts to red.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="diagram of colorful circles of different sizes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552172/original/file-20231004-26-sy0ozo.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The wavelength of light a quantum dot emits depends on its size.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2015.00480">Maysinger, Ji, Hutter, Cooper</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>This property has led to many arresting images of rows of vials containing quantum dots of different sizes going from a striking blue on one end, through greens and oranges, to a vibrant red at the other. So eye-catching is this demonstration of the power of nanotechnology that, in the early 2000s, quantum dots became iconic of the strangeness and novelty of nanotechnology.</p>
<p>But, of course, quantum dots are more than a visually attractive parlor trick. They demonstrate that unique, controllable and useful interactions between matter and light can be achieved through engineering the physical form of matter – modifying the size, shape and structure of objects, for instance – rather than playing with the chemical bonds between atoms and molecules. The distinction is an important one, and it’s at the heart of modern nanotechnology.</p>
<h2>Skip chemical bonds, rely on quantum physics</h2>
<p>The wavelengths of light that a material absorbs, reflects or emits are usually determined by the chemical bonds that bind its constituent atoms together. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/synthetic-dye">Play with the chemistry of a material</a> and it’s possible to fine-tune these bonds so that they give you the colors you want. For instance, some of the earliest dyes <a href="https://thedreamstress.com/2013/09/terminology-what-are-aniline-dyes-or-the-history-of-mauve-and-mauveine/">started with a clear substance such as aniline</a>, transformed through chemical reactions to the desired hue.</p>
<p>It’s an effective way to work with light and color, but it also leads to products that <a href="https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/chemistry/colourful-chemistry-artificial-dyes">fade over time as those bonds degrade</a>. It also frequently involves using chemicals that are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-822850-0.00013-2">harmful to humans and the environment</a>.</p>
<p>Quantum dots work differently. Rather than depending on chemical bonds to determine the wavelengths of light they absorb and emit, they rely on very small clusters of semiconducting materials. It’s the <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/what-quantum-dot">quantum physics of these clusters</a> that then determines what wavelengths of light are emitted – and this in turn depends on how large or small the clusters are.</p>
<p>This ability to tune how a material behaves by simply changing its size is a game changer when it comes to the intensity and quality of light that quantum dots can produce, as well as their resistance to bleaching or fading, their novel uses and – if engineered smartly – their toxicity.</p>
<p>Of course, few materials are completely nontoxic, and quantum dots are no exception. Early quantum dots were often based on cadmium selenide for instance – the component materials of which are toxic. However, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-quantum-dot-tvs-and-their-toxic-ingredients-actually-better-for-the-environment-35953">potential toxicity of quantum dots needs to be balanced</a> by the likelihood of release and exposure and how they compare with alternatives. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people walk past colorful multi-screen display at a trade show" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552185/original/file-20231004-21-o7term.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Quantum dots are now a normal part of many consumer items, including televisions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/trade-visitors-walk-past-televisions-with-quantum-dots-news-photo/1040134228">Soeren Stache/picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since its earlier days, quantum dot technology has evolved in safety and usefulness and has found its way into an increasing number of products, from <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/01/primer-quantum-dot/">displays</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.2c00695">lighting</a>, to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-88431-0.00025-9">sensors</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2147/IJN.S357980">biomedical applications</a> and more. In the process, some of their novelty has perhaps worn off. It can be hard to remember just how much of a quantum leap the technology is that’s being used to promote the <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/home-entertainment/this-top-secret-prototype-display-will-blow-your-mind/">latest generation of flashy TVs</a>, for instance.</p>
<p>And yet, quantum dots are a pivotal part of a technology transition that’s revolutionizing how people work with atoms and molecules.</p>
<h2>‘Base coding’ on an atomic level</h2>
<p>In my book “<a href="https://andrewmaynard.net/films-from-the-future/">Films from the Future: the Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies</a>,” I write about the concept of “<a href="https://andrewmaynard.substack.com/p/how-our-mastery-of-biological-physical-and-cyber-base-code-is-transforming-how-we-think-about-b2eae9d589d0">base coding</a>.” The idea is simple: If people can manipulate the most basic code that defines the world we live in, we can begin to redesign and reengineer it. </p>
<p>This concept is intuitive when it comes to computing, where programmers use the “base code” of 1’s and 0’s, albeit through higher level languages. It also makes sense in biology, where scientists are becoming increasingly adept at reading and writing the base code of DNA and RNA – in this case, using the chemical bases adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine as their coding language. </p>
<p>This ability to work with base codes also extends to the material world. Here, the code is made up of atoms and molecules and how they are arranged in ways that lead to novel properties.</p>
<p>Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov’s work on quantum dots is a perfect example of this form of material-world base coding. By precisely forming small clusters of particular atoms into spherical “dots,” they were able to tap into novel quantum properties that would otherwise be inaccessible. Through their work they demonstrated the transformative power that comes through coding with atoms.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="alt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552183/original/file-20231004-25-wr0i0a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=646&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An example of ‘base coding’ using atoms to create a material with novel properties is a single molecule ‘nanocar’ crafted by chemists that can be controlled as it ‘drives’ over a surface.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://news.rice.edu/news/2020/rice-rolls-out-next-gen-nanocars">Alexis van Venrooy/Rice University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They paved the way for increasingly sophisticated nanoscale base coding that is now leading to products and applications that would not be possible without it. And they were part of the inspiration for a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02146-4">nanotechnology revolution</a> that is continuing to this day. Reengineering the material world in these novel ways far transcends what can be achieved through more conventional technologies.</p>
<p>This possibility was captured in a 1999 U.S. National Science and Technology Council report with the title <a href="https://trid.trb.org/view/636880">Nanotechnology: Shaping the World Atom by Atom</a>. While it doesn’t explicitly mention quantum dots – an omission that I’m sure the authors are now kicking themselves over – it did capture just how transformative the ability to engineer materials at the atomic scale could be.</p>
<p>This atomic-level shaping of the world is exactly what Bawendi, Brus and Ekimov aspired to through their groundbreaking work. They were some of the first materials “base coders” as they used atomically precise engineering to harness the quantum physics of small particles – and the Nobel committee’s recognition of the significance of this is well deserved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215015/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Maynard has previously received funding for nanotechnology-based work from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts</span></em></p>
Quantum dots are a prime example of the way nanotechnology engineers materials at an atomic scale.
Andrew Maynard, Professor of Advanced Technology Transitions, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214724
2023-10-04T19:05:24Z
2023-10-04T19:05:24Z
Patrick White was the first Australian writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature – 50 years later, is he still being read?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551955/original/file-20231004-27-unbcb6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C3982%2C2994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Patrick White c.1940</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Patrick_White_writer.jpg">Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Did you know that 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of Patrick White winning the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Australian writer to be so honoured? </p>
<p>Until last week, neither did I. Nor did many of my fellow academics. As a lover of White’s writing, I was shocked by my own lack of awareness, which was quickly overshadowed by the realisation that seemingly everyone had overlooked it. Surely someone must have commented? </p>
<p>As far as I have been able to find, there has been one article back in autumn by Barnaby Smith in the NSW State Library’s magazine <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/openbook_autumn23.pdf">Openbook</a> and few Twitter posts similarly aghast at the neglect. </p>
<p>By contrast, you are more than likely aware that this October marks the 50th anniversary of the Sydney Opera House, officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II two days after the announcement of White’s award. As David Marr recounts in his biography of White, when the photographers crowding around White’s house were asked if they could come back in the morning, they replied: “We have to do the Queen in the morning.” </p>
<h2>Cultural cringe</h2>
<p>When I first began thinking about writing this piece, I was motivated by a sense of frustration that White – and Australian literature more generally – was again being neglected. </p>
<p>My first thought could be summarised as follows: “How dare they forget him! There should have been conferences and celebrations – a festival that would leave the Opera House in the dust! Imagine the furore if Ireland had forgotten Beckett’s 50th anniversary in 2019! What a contemptuous place this is that can neglect an important occasion for one of its greatest writers!”</p>
<p>Previous anniversaries had received significant attention. The 50th anniversary of White’s best-known novel Voss in 2007 was marked with a <a href="https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/remembering-patrick-white">two-day symposium</a>. The centenary of his birth in 2012 was likewise acknowledged with <a href="http://www.asaa.net.au/files/PATRICK%20WHITE%20CENTENARY%20-%20Speakers%20v3.pdf">conferences</a> in Australia and various international locations.</p>
<p>What was different about this anniversary? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551942/original/file-20231004-29-ladl5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551942/original/file-20231004-29-ladl5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551942/original/file-20231004-29-ladl5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551942/original/file-20231004-29-ladl5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551942/original/file-20231004-29-ladl5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551942/original/file-20231004-29-ladl5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551942/original/file-20231004-29-ladl5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551942/original/file-20231004-29-ladl5c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Patrick White in October 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Patrick_White_1973.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite my anger, should I really have been that surprised? Last semester, I had quizzed my first year Literary Studies students to see if anyone knew who our first Nobel laureate in literature was. </p>
<p>Silence. </p>
<p>When I told them, no one had heard of Patrick White, let alone read him. </p>
<p>The same goes for Miles Franklin (both the author and the prize), Christina Stead and Joseph Furphy, just to name the canonical writers I thought they might have known. Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson were the only two to receive a reprieve. </p>
<p>Contemporary Australian authors didn’t fare much better. When I asked them why they didn’t read much Australian literature, the most frequent answer – usually tempered with laughter – was: “Well, I guess it’s just not very good, is it?”</p>
<p>Here is the opportune time to introduce the impossible to avoid concept of the “<a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/the-cultural-cringe-by-a-a-phillips/">cultural cringe</a>”, the term coined by A.A. Phillips in 1950. The cringe, Phillips wrote, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>mainly appears in an inability to escape needless comparisons. The Australian reader, more or less consciously, hedges and hesitates, asking himself ‘Yes, but what would a cultivated Englishman think of this?’ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When it comes to White’s reception, especially post-Nobel, the cringe is everywhere apparent. It was fostered by the prize citation itself. For the Nobel committee, White was worthy of the prize because he had created an “epic and psychological narrative art which has introduced a new continent into literature”. </p>
<p>As many people have highlighted, White’s Nobel was a watershed moment of international recognition for Australian literature. It would be followed by Thomas Keneally winning the Booker Prize in 1982 for <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/schindlers-ark">Schindler’s Ark</a> and Peter Carey winning of the same award in 1988 for <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/books/oscar-and-lucinda">Oscar and Lucinda</a>. </p>
<p>Here were signs, at last, that Australians could produce real literature – at least, according to Europe and Britain. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/minimalist-poet-antigone-kefala-wins-the-patrick-white-award-for-her-contribution-to-australian-literature-195194">Minimalist poet Antigone Kefala wins the Patrick White Award for her contribution to Australian literature</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A writer unread?</h2>
<p>White’s relationship to Australian literature was always shaky, if not outright venomous. He infamously chastised mainstream Australian writing as little more than the “dreary dun-coloured offspring of journalistic realism”. </p>
<p>Many Australian readers were happy to return the favour. His local critical reception was often uncomprehending, and at times hostile. A.D. Hope’s similarly infamous review of <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-tree-of-man-9781741667707">The Tree of Man</a> judged the novel to be “pretentious and illiterate verbal sludge”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551926/original/file-20231003-29-6sre11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551926/original/file-20231003-29-6sre11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551926/original/file-20231003-29-6sre11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551926/original/file-20231003-29-6sre11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551926/original/file-20231003-29-6sre11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551926/original/file-20231003-29-6sre11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551926/original/file-20231003-29-6sre11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551926/original/file-20231003-29-6sre11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first U.S. edition of The Tree Of Man.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tree_of_Man#/media/File:TheTreeOfMan.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>White’s uneven reception reflected an anxiety about what Australian literature actually was. This is still a live issue in literary studies. The preeminent questions asked in undergraduate Australian literature units are still: What is Australian literature? What counts as Australian literature? What is the writer’s relationship to the “nation”? </p>
<p>But these questions are today asked within the context of ever-diminishing Australian literature programs at universities, where you will be lucky to find one that offers more than one unit about it, and sometimes not even that. On these grounds, one could easily conclude that White’s star has diminished. Madeleine Watts, in her 2019 article, appropriately titled <a href="https://lithub.com/on-patrick-white-australias-great-unread-novelist/">On Patrick White, Australia’s Great Unread Novelist</a>, would certainly agree. </p>
<p>Christos Tsiolkas makes a similar argument in his <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/patrick-white">2018 book on White</a> for Black Inc.’s “Writers on Writers” series. He reflects that his desire to write the book emerged out of a “sense of pissed-offness” at not having been made to engage with White earlier by “my tutors, my fellow writers and our critics”. </p>
<p>That Watts and Tsiolkas are both novelists themselves might explain their fervour for White, a writer who fits well under the moniker a “writer’s writer”. And yet White’s reputation has always been tied up with the myth of him being a great “unread” novelist. Watts herself quotes a letter White wrote in 1981, in the last decade of his life, in which he declared: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m a dated novelist, whom hardly anyone reads, or if they do, most of them don’t understand what I am on about. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not even close to the only time White voiced such frustrations. They are littered throughout his letters and documented in David Marr’s biography. Equally, one of the clichéd tenets of White scholarship has been an attempt to figure out whether we should continue to read him or not – as if this were really the fundamental question on everyone’s mind.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551934/original/file-20231004-19-dta6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551934/original/file-20231004-19-dta6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551934/original/file-20231004-19-dta6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551934/original/file-20231004-19-dta6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551934/original/file-20231004-19-dta6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551934/original/file-20231004-19-dta6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551934/original/file-20231004-19-dta6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551934/original/file-20231004-19-dta6rd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So many of our contemporary discussions about literature – when we remember to have them – constellate around issues that are really at the service of generating discourse about “literature”, rather than genuine criticism and engagement with its artistic qualities. </p>
<p>I’m drawn to these debates as much as anyone. The questions of why literature matters and what makes it meaningful should be discussed frequently. They are some of the most interesting questions we can ask. But the problem with these discussions, and the perpetual crisis of the humanities and literature that we hear about so much, is that they distract us from what is actually meaningful about literature: reading it. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/homemade-and-cosmopolitan-the-idiosyncratic-writing-of-gerald-murnane-continues-to-attract-devotees-210271">Homemade and cosmopolitan, the idiosyncratic writing of Gerald Murnane continues to attract devotees</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Reputation</h2>
<p>When I set out to the write this piece, I wanted to follow through on my anger. I wanted to claim that it was a scandal White had been forgotten by our cultural institutions, that it was a sign of our degraded cultural state. But the more I have thought about it, the more I have been drawn to the idea that maybe, just maybe, this is the best thing that could happen to White and Australian literary culture more broadly.</p>
<p>Ever since he won the Nobel prize, White has been unable to escape the institutional framing of his work, whether he is being critiqued negatively or positively. The question that is asked of White is not just “should we read him”, but should we <em>study</em> him. He has been bound up in cultural debates that may never cease. </p>
<p>White’s reputation as a canonical writer, and more specifically as a “difficult” modernist author and a “writer’s writer”, is a disaster when it comes to getting people, including students, to actually read him. He is not only the kind of writer one would expect to study at school and university; many people assume he can only be read in those contexts. </p>
<p>Of course, White is a difficult writer, though it is often overlooked that he can also be funny, especially in his depictions of suburbia. A favourite scene is this one in <a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-cockatoos-text-classics">The Cockatoos</a>, describing an existential choice familiar to every Australian:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Olive Davoren fell asleep, a pillow-end between shoulder and cheek, like a violin.</p>
<p>She had noticed seed at Woolworths and Coles; it was only a matter of choosing.</p>
<p>One of the birds was pecking at her womb. He rejected it as though finding a husk.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What has never been in doubt is the beauty and sensuality of White’s writing. When reading him, I often feel like Laura Trevelyan in <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/voss-9781742756882">Voss</a>, listening to the eponymous German explorer:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She did not raise her head for those the German spoke, but heard them fall, and loved their shape. So far departed from the rational level to which she had determined to adhere, her own thoughts were grown obscure, even natural. She did not care. It was lovely. She would have liked to sit upon a rock and listen to words, not of any man, but detached, mysterious, poetic words that she alone would interpret through some sense inherited from sleep. Herself disembodied. Air joining air experiences a voluptuousness no less intense because imperceptible.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551933/original/file-20231004-21-ajfugr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551933/original/file-20231004-21-ajfugr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551933/original/file-20231004-21-ajfugr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551933/original/file-20231004-21-ajfugr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551933/original/file-20231004-21-ajfugr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551933/original/file-20231004-21-ajfugr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551933/original/file-20231004-21-ajfugr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551933/original/file-20231004-21-ajfugr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1177&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The more we can learn to read White in this spirit – absolving our rational forms of scholarly detachment, just a bit – the more we might be able to read him as it has always been possible to read him: listening to the shape of his words, their voluptuousness.</p>
<p>Imagine, perverse as this may sound, if White never won the Nobel prize? Could it be possible that the reading of his work would be in a better place today? At the very least, we wouldn’t have nearly as much of the “pretentious and illiterate verbal sludge” – to borrow a phrase – that is obsessed with the discourse around White, rather than his actual works.</p>
<p>Literary prizes, as <a href="https://giramondopublishing.com/heat/archive/beth-driscoll-how-prizes-work-in-the-literary-economy/">Beth Driscoll</a> has highlighted, have become an essential part of literary culture. They provide many benefits for winning writers. The domestic and international sales of White’s books greatly increased in the years after he won the Nobel. If he had never won, it’s perfectly conceivable that his work would now be out-of-print. </p>
<p>But the aura of a prize shines briefly. Sometimes it might fade after a week, a year, sometimes 50. But it will fade. What remains is the work itself.</p>
<p>Immediately after the Nobel Prize announcement in 1973, White was interviewed on television by Mike Carlton. Asked whether the prize was a “crowning achievement”, White responded: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I hope my books are the crowning achievement of my career, not awards. But perhaps that is vain. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Vain or not, it would seem, maybe until now, that the award has been the crowning achievement. In light of the neglect of its 50th anniversary, maybe we can start to read White again – read him as aesthetically-minded individuals, not as institutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Reuben Mackey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The aura of a major literary prize will inevitably fade. What we are left with is the work itself.
Reuben Mackey, Sessional teacher and PhD Candidate, Literary Studies, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214931
2023-10-04T12:33:56Z
2023-10-04T12:33:56Z
Making ‘movies’ at the attosecond scale helps researchers better understand electrons − and could one day lead to super-fast electronics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551941/original/file-20231004-25-lxu197.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=172%2C12%2C2703%2C1090&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Attosecond light pulses help researchers understand the movement of electrons. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2022-01-27-researchers-use-attosecond-x-ray-pulses-track-electron-motion-highly-excited">Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Electrons moving around in a molecule might not seem like the plot of an interesting movie. But a group of scientists will receive the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/">2023 Nobel Prize in physics</a> for research that essentially <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-in-physics-prize-awarded-for-work-unveiling-the-secrets-of-electrons-214880">follows the movement of electrons</a> using ultrafast laser pulses, like capturing frames in a video camera. </p>
<p>However, electrons, which partly <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/electron">make up atoms</a> and form the glue that bonds atoms in molecules together, don’t move around on the same time scale people do. They’re much faster. So, the tools that <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fO8mIS8AAAAJ&hl=en">physicists like me</a> use to capture their motion have to be really fast – attosecond-scale fast.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nrel.gov/comm-standards/editorial/scientific-notation.html">One attosecond</a> is one billionth of a billionth of a second (10<sup>-18</sup> second) – the ratio of one attosecond to one second is the same as the ratio of one second to the age of the universe. </p>
<h2>Attosecond pulses</h2>
<p>In photography, capturing clear images of fast objects requires a camera with a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/shutter-photography">fast shutter</a> or a fast strobe of light to illuminate the object. By taking multiple photos in quick succession, the motion of the object can be clearly resolved.</p>
<p>The time scale of the shutter or the strobe must match the time scale of motion of the object – if not, the image will be blurred. This same idea applies when researchers attempt to <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/advanced-physicsprize2023.pdf">image the ultrafast motion of electrons</a>. Capturing attosecond-scale motion requires an attosecond strobe. The 2023 <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/">Nobel laureates in physics</a> made seminal contributions to the generation of such attosecond laser strobes, which are very short pulses generated using a powerful laser.</p>
<p>Imagine the electrons in an atom are constrained within the atom by a wall. When a femtosecond (10<sup>-15</sup> second) laser pulse from a high-powered femtosecond laser is directed at atoms of a noble gas such as argon, the strong electric field in the pulse lowers the wall.</p>
<p>This is possible because the laser electric field is comparable in strength to the electric field of the nucleus of the atom. Electrons see this lowered wall and pass through in a bizarre process called <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-did-a-breakthrough-speed-test-in-quantum-tunnelling-and-heres-why-thats-exciting-113761">quantum tunneling</a>. </p>
<p>As soon as the electrons exit the atom, the laser’s electric field captures them, accelerates them to high energies and slams them back into their parent atoms. This process of recollision results in creation of attosecond bursts of laser light.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551903/original/file-20231003-29-34udqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A diagram showing how electrons gain, then release energy when exposed to a laser's electric field, with a pink arrow showing the laser's energy and small drawings of spheres stuck together indicating the atom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551903/original/file-20231003-29-34udqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551903/original/file-20231003-29-34udqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551903/original/file-20231003-29-34udqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551903/original/file-20231003-29-34udqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551903/original/file-20231003-29-34udqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551903/original/file-20231003-29-34udqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551903/original/file-20231003-29-34udqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A laser’s electric field allows electrons to escape from the atom, gain energy and then release energy as they’re reabsorbed back into the atom.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/">Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Attosecond movies</h2>
<p>So how do physicists use these ultrashort pulses to make movies of electrons at the attosecond scale?</p>
<p>Conventional movies are made one scene at a time, with each instant captured as a frame with video cameras. The scenes are then stitched together to form the complete movie. </p>
<p>Attosecond movies of electrons use a similar idea. The attosecond pulses act as strobes, lighting up the electrons so researchers can capture their image, over and over again as they move – like a movie scene. This technique is called <a href="https://web.mit.edu/gediklab/research.html">pump-probe spectroscopy</a>.</p>
<p>However, imaging electron motion directly inside atoms is currently challenging, though researchers are developing several approaches using advanced microscopes to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2017.97">make direct imaging possible</a>. </p>
<p>Typically, in pump-probe spectroscopy, a “pump” pulse gets the electron moving and starts the movie. A “probe” pulse then lights up the electron at different times after the arrival of the pump pulse, so it can be captured by the “camera,” such as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoemission_spectroscopy">photoelectron spectrometer</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vy71bJJ9EnU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Pump-probe spectroscopy.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The information on the motion of electrons, or the “image,” is captured using sophisticated techniques. For example, a photoelectron spectrometer detects how many electrons were removed from the atom by the probe pulse, or a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrometer">photon spectrometer</a> measures how much of the probe pulse was absorbed by the atom.</p>
<p>The different “scenes” are then stitched together to make the attosecond movies of electrons. These movies help provide fundamental insight, with help from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/wcms.1673">sophisticated theoretical models</a>, into attosecond electronic behavior. </p>
<p>For example, researchers have measured <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab2160">where the electric charge is located</a> in organic molecules at different times, on attosecond time scales. This could allow them to control electric currents on the molecular scale.</p>
<h2>Future applications</h2>
<p>In most scientific research, fundamental understanding of a process leads to control of the process, and such control leads to new technologies. <a href="https://theconversation.com/tenacious-curiosity-in-the-lab-can-lead-to-a-nobel-prize-mrna-research-exemplifies-the-unpredictable-value-of-basic-scientific-research-214770">Curiosity-driven research</a> can lead to unimaginable applications in the future, and attosecond science is likely no different. </p>
<p>Understanding and controlling the behavior of electrons on the attosecond scale could enable researchers to use <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/acsomega.0c02098">lasers to control chemical reactions</a> that they can’t by other means. This ability could help engineer new molecules that cannot be created with existing chemical techniques.</p>
<p>The ability to modify electron behavior could lead to ultrafast switches. Researchers could potentially convert an <a href="https://www.mpg.de/6694490/light-frequencies-electronics">electric insulator to a conductor on attosecond scales</a> to increase the speed of electronics. Electronics currently process information at the picosecond scale, or 10<sup>-12</sup> of a second. </p>
<p>The short wavelength of attosecond pulses, which is typically in the extreme-ultraviolet, or EUV, regime, may see applications in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_ultraviolet_lithography">EUV lithography</a> in the semiconductor industry. EUV lithography uses laser light with a very short wavelength to etch tiny circuits on electronic chips.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551901/original/file-20231003-25-g5a55f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A line of silver pipes and machinery, in a bright room, with red and blue handles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551901/original/file-20231003-25-g5a55f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551901/original/file-20231003-25-g5a55f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551901/original/file-20231003-25-g5a55f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551901/original/file-20231003-25-g5a55f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551901/original/file-20231003-25-g5a55f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551901/original/file-20231003-25-g5a55f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551901/original/file-20231003-25-g5a55f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://science.osti.gov/bes/suf/User-Facilities/X-Ray-Light-Sources/LCLS">Department of Energy</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the recent past, free-electron lasers such as the <a href="https://lcls.slac.stanford.edu/">Linac Coherent Light Source</a> at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the United States have emerged as a source of bright X-ray laser light. These now generate pulses on the attosecond scale, opening many possibilities for research using attosecond X-rays.</p>
<p>Ideas to generate laser pulses on the zeptosecond (10<sup>-21</sup> second) scale have also been proposed. Scientists could use these pulses, which are even faster than attosecond pulses, to study the motion of particles like protons within the nucleus. </p>
<p>With numerous research groups actively working on exciting problems in attosecond science, and with <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/">2023’s Nobel Prize in physics</a> recognizing its importance, attosecond science has a long and bright future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214931/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Niranjan Shivaram receives funding from the National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy. </span></em></p>
The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics recognized researchers studying electron movement in real time − this work could revolutionize electronics, laser imaging and more.
Niranjan Shivaram, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214867
2023-10-04T10:06:05Z
2023-10-04T10:06:05Z
How we hired 2023 Nobel laureate Anne L'Huillier – and why we knew she was destined for greatness
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551821/original/file-20231003-29-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C3%2C1061%2C925&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">L'Huillier and her husband at the Nobel prize celebration in Lund. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sune Svanberg</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most of the atomic physics division at Lund University were assembled in a spacious room with a big screen to await <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-in-physics-awarded-for-work-unveiling-the-secrets-of-electrons-214880">the announcement of the 2023 Nobel laureates in physics</a> from the Royal Academy of Sciences on October 3. Of course, the Nobel secrecy is perfect, but there was still some expectation in the air.</p>
<p>When the screen with the laureates appeared, and with our colleague <a href="https://www.atomic.physics.lu.se/research/attosecond-physics-from-lasers-to-applications/group-members/anne-lhuillier/">Anne L'Huillier´s</a> face included, the roar almost lifted the roof – the big lasers in the basement must have been brought out of alignment! </p>
<p>L'Huillier, however, was nowhere to be seen – she had been giving a lecture to students.</p>
<h2>New laser facility</h2>
<p>About 30 years ago, the atomic physics group in Lund was considering a new research orientation. We ultimately selected the field of high-power laser-matter interaction. For this purpose, we managed to acquire a quite unique laser in 1992 (called a terawatt laser), firing 10 ultrashort pulses per second. </p>
<p>This was possible thanks to good academic contacts with leading laser groups in the US and Europe, as well as with industrial partners. The generous support by the <a href="https://www.wallenberg.org/en">Wallenberg Foundation</a> (a key player in Swedish research financing) secured the realisation of arguably the most attractive system at the time for performing advanced research in a novel field of atomic physics. </p>
<p>At this point, L'Huillier was an up and coming researcher in France. Only years earlier, in 1987, had she discovered that many different overtones of light arise when you transmit infrared laser light through a noble gas – as a result of the gas and laser interacting. </p>
<p>With our new facility, we were able to attract L´Huillier to come to Lund with her own dedicated experimental set-up. This came quite naturally since we had, as project preparation, also visited the <a href="https://www.cea.fr/english/Pages/Welcome.aspx">CEA Saclay Center</a> where she was employed. I also invited her to be one of the key speakers at the inauguration of our new facility in Lund.</p>
<p>When on site for the experiments, it immediately became clear to us that L'Huillier was an extremely talented physicist, both regarding experiments and theory, with great promise for the future. We published our <a href="https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.48.4709">first joint paper</a> in 1993.</p>
<p>L'Huillier felt good about Lund and, for many different reasons, decided to stay on. At first, she was employed on a lectureship and later on a dedicated professorship, which we got funded. This was a strike of luck for Lund – L'Huillier could easily have obtained prestigious positions elsewhere. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="L'Huillier." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552020/original/file-20231004-27-ub1q9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552020/original/file-20231004-27-ub1q9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552020/original/file-20231004-27-ub1q9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552020/original/file-20231004-27-ub1q9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552020/original/file-20231004-27-ub1q9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552020/original/file-20231004-27-ub1q9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552020/original/file-20231004-27-ub1q9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1023&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">L'Huillier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sune Svanberg</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She was also very dedicated to learning Swedish. That says a lot. In a small country like Sweden, the natural language in an international endeavour like science is English, but L'Huillier became absolutely fluent in our “exotic” language.</p>
<p>At an early stage, I transferred the leadership of the high-power Laser laboratory to L´Huillier and <a href="https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lucat/user/b397f426de6e2a942dbab05b63c2a3e7">Claes-Göran Wahlström</a>. With the help of many talented collaborators, the field has developed tremendously in Lund, making it one of the leading hubs in this fascinating research field. </p>
<p>L´Huillier energetically pursued her work with <a href="https://www.rp-photonics.com/high_harmonic_generation.html">high harmonics</a> and the associated formation of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03047-w#:%7E:text=Attosecond%20pulses%20can%20reveal%20what,has%20happened%E2%80%9D%2C%20says%20Nisoli.">attosecond laser pulses</a>. These were the areas for which she ultimately won the Nobel prize – work that has helped scientists gain a window into the high-speed world of electrons.</p>
<p>In particular, she could show that processes earlier considered to occur instantaneously in fact come about with an extremely short delay.</p>
<h2>Modest and rigorous</h2>
<p>L´Huillier is absolutely brilliant. Despite that, she has always had quite a low-key personality. She cares a lot for her collaborators and students. It is perhaps her modesty and lack of interest in fame and glamour that makes her such a great physicist. She doesn’t cut corners and has a deep, genuine interest in science. </p>
<p>She has been, and is, a true role model for young scientists – female and male alike – showing how excellent research can be combined with enthusiastic teaching. </p>
<p>L´Huillier eventually talked to the Royal Academy in Stockholm during a scheduled break in her class. She later joined our celebration party, beaming and extremely happy. Clearly this was the ultimate achievement, the diamond among the many other distinctions she had already received. </p>
<p>The celebrations went on all afternoon, together with university leadership and students alike. L´Huillier was in an endless row of interviews. Receiving the highest scientific award will certainly change her life, but I am sure that she will always remain the same generous and modest person that we all came to know her as. </p>
<p>Our warmest congratulations to our “own” Nobel laureate!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sune Svanberg is an emeritus professor at Lund University, who received the initial funding for the build up of the Lund High Power Laser Facility.</span></em></p>
L'Huillier was busy teaching when she her Nobel prize was awarded.
Sune Svanberg, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Lund University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214907
2023-10-04T01:42:55Z
2023-10-04T01:42:55Z
What is an attosecond? A physical chemist explains the tiny time scale behind Nobel Prize-winning research
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551866/original/file-20231003-27-fn9thz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C3%2C2295%2C1292&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Work in attosecond physics has led to a better understanding of how electrons move around. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/image-of-an-atomic-structure-consisting-of-protons-royalty-free-image/1337003441?phrase=electron">Oselote/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A group of three researchers earned the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-physicsprize2023.pdf">2023 Nobel Prize in physics</a> for work that has revolutionized how scientists study the electron – by illuminating molecules with attosecond-long flashes of light. But how long is an attosecond, and what can these infinitesimally short pulses tell researchers about the nature of matter?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.austincollege.edu/aaron-harrison/">I first learned</a> of this area of research as a graduate student in physical chemistry. My doctoral adviser’s group had a project dedicated to studying <a href="http://bromine.cchem.berkeley.edu/atto.htm">chemical reactions with attosecond pulses</a>. Before understanding why attosecond research resulted in the most prestigious award in the sciences, it helps to understand what an attosecond pulse of light is.</p>
<h2>How long is an attosecond?</h2>
<p>“Atto” is the <a href="https://www.nrel.gov/comm-standards/editorial/scientific-notation.html">scientific notation prefix</a> that represents 10<sup>-18</sup>, which is a decimal point followed by 17 zeroes and a 1. So a flash of light lasting an attosecond, or 0.000000000000000001 of a second, is an extremely short pulse of light. </p>
<p>In fact, there are approximately as many attoseconds in one second as there are seconds in the <a href="https://81018.com/universeclock/">age of the universe</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551859/original/file-20231003-21-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A diagram showing an attosecond, depicted as an orange collection of hexagons, on the left, with the age of the universe, depicted as a dark vacuum on the right, and a heartbeat, depicted as a human heart, in the middle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551859/original/file-20231003-21-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551859/original/file-20231003-21-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551859/original/file-20231003-21-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551859/original/file-20231003-21-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551859/original/file-20231003-21-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551859/original/file-20231003-21-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551859/original/file-20231003-21-rkpekw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=322&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An attosecond is incredibly small when compared to a second.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/">©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Previously, scientists could study the motion of heavier and slower-moving atomic nuclei with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/femtosecond-laser">femtosecond (10<sup>-15</sup>) light pulses</a>. One thousand attoseconds are in 1 femtosecond. But researchers couldn’t see movement on the electron scale until they could generate attosecond light pulses – electrons move too fast for scientists to parse exactly what they are up to at the femtosecond level.</p>
<h2>Attosecond pulses</h2>
<p>The rearrangement of electrons in atoms and molecules guides a lot of processes in physics, and it underlies practically every part of chemistry. Therefore, researchers have put a lot of effort into figuring out how electrons are moving and rearranging. </p>
<p>However, electrons move around very rapidly in physical and chemical processes, making them difficult to study. To investigate these processes, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/spectroscopy">scientists use spectroscopy</a>, a method of examining how matter absorbs or emits light. In order to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-physchem-040215-112025">follow the electrons in real time</a>, researchers need a pulse of light that is shorter than the time it takes for electrons to rearrange. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vy71bJJ9EnU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Pump-probe spectroscopy is a common technique in physics and chemistry and can be performed with attosecond light pulses.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As an analogy, imagine a camera that could only take longer exposures, around 1 second long. Things in motion, like a person running toward the camera or a bird flying across the sky, would appear blurry in the photos taken, and it would be difficult to see exactly what was going on. </p>
<p>Then, imagine you use a camera with a 1 millisecond exposure. Now, motions that were previously smeared out would be nicely resolved into clear and precise snapshots. That’s how using the attosecond scale, rather than the femtosecond scale, can illuminate electron behavior. </p>
<h2>Attosecond research</h2>
<p>So what kind of research questions can attosecond pulses help answer?</p>
<p>For one, breaking a chemical bond is a fundamental process in nature where electrons that are shared between two atoms separate out into unbound atoms. The previously shared electrons undergo ultrafast changes during this process, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax0076">attosecond pulses</a> made it possible for researchers to follow the real-time breaking of a chemical bond. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys620">ability to generate attosecond pulses</a> – the research for which three researchers earned the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/">2023 Nobel Prize in physics</a> – first became possible in the early 2000s, and the field has <a href="https://phys.org/news/2010-04-electrons-science-attosecond-scale.html">continued to grow rapidly</a> since. By providing shorter snapshots of atoms and molecules, attosecond spectroscopy has helped researchers understand electron behavior in single molecules, such as how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32313-0">electron charge migrates</a> and how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0086775">chemical bonds</a> between atoms break. </p>
<p>On a larger scale, attosecond technology has also been applied to studying how electrons behave in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb0979">liquid water</a> as well as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-021-00635-y">electron transfer in solid-state semiconductors</a>. As researchers continue to improve their ability to produce attosecond light pulses, they’ll gain a deeper understanding of the basic particles that make up matter.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aaron W. Harrison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Three scientists won the 2023 Nobel Prize in physics for their work developing methods to shoot laser pulses that only last an attosecond, or a mind-bogglingly tiny fraction of a second.
Aaron W. Harrison, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Austin College
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214880
2023-10-03T19:26:40Z
2023-10-03T19:26:40Z
Nobel prize in physics awarded for work unveiling the secrets of electrons
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551709/original/file-20231003-21-aqjkmc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C26%2C964%2C607&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Screenshot at</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Niklas Elmehed © Nobel Prize Outreach</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2023 Nobel prize in physics <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release/">has been awarded</a> to a trio of scientists for pioneering tools used to study the world of electrons.</p>
<p>Electrons are sub-atomic particles that play a role in many phenomena we see every day, from electricity to magnetism. This year’s three Nobel physics laureates demonstrated a way to create extremely short pulses of light in order to investigate processes that involve electrons.</p>
<p><a href="https://physics.osu.edu/people/agostini.1">Pierre Agostini</a> from The Ohio State University in the US, <a href="https://www.mpg.de/348075/quantum-optics-krausz">Ferenc Krausz</a> from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany and <a href="https://www.atomic.physics.lu.se/research/attosecond-physics-from-lasers-to-applications/group-members/anne-lhuillier/">Anne L’Huillier</a> from Lund University in Sweden will share the prize sum of 11 million Swedish kronor (£822,910). </p>
<p>Changes in electrons typically occur in a few tenths of an “attosecond”, which is a billionth of a billionth of a second. In order to study such brief events, special technology was needed. </p>
<p>The laureates developed experimental methods that produced pulses of light so short that they are measured in attoseconds. These could then be used to study the fleeting dynamics of electrons in physical matter – something that wasn’t previously possible.</p>
<p>The attosecond pulses, the shortest flashes of light ever produced, sparked a revolution in photonics – the science of light waves. They were used to take snapshots of electrons in different physical systems, such as in atoms, chiral molecules – molecules that are mirror images of one another – and very tiny nanoparticles among others.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-an-attosecond-a-physical-chemist-explains-the-tiny-time-scale-behind-nobel-prize-winning-research-214907">What is an attosecond? A physical chemist explains the tiny time scale behind Nobel Prize-winning research</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<p>The laureates have all contributed to enabling the investigation of such processes. For the first time, these quick pulses allowed scientists to match up the time scale of their observations to the natural, very fast time scales at which electron dynamics occurred.</p>
<p>This achievement required significant innovations in laser science and engineering – innovations that this year’s Nobel laureates worked on for decades.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Anne L´Huiller, Lund University." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551714/original/file-20231003-23-smtq3j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551714/original/file-20231003-23-smtq3j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551714/original/file-20231003-23-smtq3j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551714/original/file-20231003-23-smtq3j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551714/original/file-20231003-23-smtq3j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551714/original/file-20231003-23-smtq3j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551714/original/file-20231003-23-smtq3j.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1066&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anne L´Huiller, Lund University.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>L’Huillier discovered a new effect that arose as the result of interactions between laser light and atoms in a gas. This interaction could be used to produce pulses of ultraviolet light that were each a few hundred attoseconds long. </p>
<p>Agostini and Krausz took this discovery even further. In 2001, Agostini was able to <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1059413">produce short light pulses</a> and measure their width. The series of bursts produced using something called the <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2017.0475">RABBIT technique</a> lasted just 250 attoseconds. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Ferenc Krausz." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551850/original/file-20231003-23-u8z27z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551850/original/file-20231003-23-u8z27z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551850/original/file-20231003-23-u8z27z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551850/original/file-20231003-23-u8z27z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=872&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551850/original/file-20231003-23-u8z27z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551850/original/file-20231003-23-u8z27z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551850/original/file-20231003-23-u8z27z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1095&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ferenc Krausz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">wikipedia</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At around the same time, Krausz developed a different experimental approach, using it to successfully <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/35107000">isolate a light pulse</a> that lasted 650 attoseconds.</p>
<p>The two approaches developed by Agostini and Krausz form the basis for much attosecond research carried out today.</p>
<h2>Exciting applications</h2>
<p>There are some exciting potential applications for these attosecond pulses. </p>
<p>They could be used to study previously <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/advanced-physicsprize2023.pdf">unknown physical phenomena</a> in different types of material.</p>
<p>A spin-off area known as <a href="https://site.physics.georgetown.edu/%7Evankeu/webtext2/Workspace/Optical%20telecom/webpage%20directories/ultrafast%20switching.htm">ultra-fast switching</a> could also one day lead to the development of very fast-working electronics.</p>
<p>Attosecond pulse science could also find uses in medical diagnostics. By exposing a blood sample to a very fast pulse of light, scientists can detect tiny changes in the molecules in that sample. This could lead to a new way of diagnosing disorders, including cancer.</p>
<p>Our team at King’s has been working to combine the resolution on physical processes that attosecond pulses enable with novel <a href="https://www.attokings.com/">advances in quantum information processing</a>. This would create pulses of quantum light at the attosecond time scale that could have applications in quantum computing.</p>
<p>The award of the Nobel prize in this field inspires us to redouble our efforts to break novel ground. We wish our colleagues continued success, and we are eager to see what they will surprise us with next.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214880/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amelle Zaïr receives funding from EPSRC, STFC XFEL hub and The Royal Society.</span></em></p>
The 2023 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”.
Amelle Zaïr, Senior Lecturer of Physics, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213959
2023-10-03T12:32:41Z
2023-10-03T12:32:41Z
Superconductivity at room temperature remains elusive a century after a Nobel went to the scientist who demonstrated it below -450 degrees Fahrenheit
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550757/original/file-20230927-17-jys9l4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C2%2C991%2C705&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Photograph of the first Solvay Conference in 1911 at the Hotel Metropole. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes is standing third from the right.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_Conference#/media/File:1911_Solvay_conference.jpg">Benjamin Couprie/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 8, 1911, Dutch physicist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1913/onnes/facts/">Heike Kamerlingh Onnes</a> scribbled in pencil an almost unintelligible note into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3490499">a kitchen notebook</a>: “near enough null.” </p>
<p>The note referred to the electrical resistance he’d measured during a landmark experiment that would later be credited as the discovery of superconductivity. But first, he and his team would need many more trials to confirm the measurement.</p>
<p>Their discovery opened up a world of potential scientific applications. The century since has seen many advances, but superconductivity researchers today can take lessons from <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1913/onnes/facts/">Onnes’ original, Nobel Prize-winning work</a>.</p>
<p>I have always been interested in origin stories. As a physics professor and the author of books on the <a href="https://galileo-unbound.blog/books-by-d-d-nolte/">history of physics</a>, I look for the interesting backstory – the twists, turns and serendipities that lie behind great discoveries. </p>
<p>The true stories behind these discoveries are usually more chaotic than the rehearsed narratives crafted after the fact, and some of the lessons learned from Onnes’ experiments remain relevant today as researchers search for new superconductors that might, one day, operate near room temperature.</p>
<h2>Superconductivity</h2>
<p>A rare quantum effect that allows electrical currents to flow without resistance in superconducting wires, <a href="https://www.energy.gov/science/doe-explainssuperconductivity">superconductivity allows for</a> a myriad of scientific applications. These include <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-2048/30/1/014007">MRI machines</a> and powerful <a href="https://home.cern/news/series/superconductors/superconductors-boost-acceleration">particle accelerators</a>.</p>
<p>Imagine giving a single push to a row of glass beads strung on a frictionless wire. Once the beads start moving down the wire, they never stop, like a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/perpetual-motion">perpetual motion</a> machine. That’s the idea behind superconductivity – particles flowing without resistance.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nT2xCfBucT4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Superconductivity happens when a current experiences no electrical resistance.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For superconductors to work, they need to be cooled to ultra-low temperatures colder than any Arctic blast. That’s how Onnes’ original work cooling helium to near <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/absolute-zero">absolute zero temperature</a> set the stage for his unexpected discovery of superconductivity.</p>
<h2>The discovery</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Heike-Kamerlingh-Onnes">Onnes</a>, a physics professor at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, built the leading low-temperature physics laboratory in the world in the first decade of the 20th century. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1913/onnes/biographical/">His lab</a> was the first to turn helium from a gas to a liquid by making the gas expand and cool. His lab managed to cool helium this way to a temperature of -452 degrees Farenheit (-269 degrees Celsius).</p>
<p>Onnes then began studying the electrical conductivity of metals at these cold temperatures. He started with mercury because mercury in liquid form can conduct electricity, making it easy to fill into glass tubes. At low temperatures, the mercury would freeze solid, creating metallic wires that Onnes could use in his conductivity experiments.</p>
<p>On April 8, 1911, his lab technicians transferred liquid helium into a measurement cryostat – a glass container with a vacuum jacket to insulate it from the room’s heat. They cooled the helium to -454 F (-270 C) and then measured the electrical resistance of the mercury wire by sending a small current through it and measuring the voltage.</p>
<p>It was then that Onnes wrote the cryptic “near enough null” measurement into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3490499">his kitchen notebook</a>, meaning that the wire was conducting electricity without any measurable resistance.</p>
<p>That date of April 8 is often quoted as the discovery of superconductivity, but the full story isn’t so simple, because scientists can’t accept a scribbled “near-enough null” as sufficient proof of a new discovery.</p>
<h2>In pursuit of proof</h2>
<p>Onnes’ team performed its next experiment <a href="https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3490499">more than six weeks later</a>, on May 23. On this day, they cooled the cryostat again to -454 F (-270 C) and then let the temperature slowly rise. </p>
<p>At first they barely measured any electrical resistance, indicating superconductivity. The resistance stayed small up to -452 F, when it suddenly rose by over a factor of 400 as the temperature inched up just a fraction of a degree. </p>
<p>The rise was so rapid and so unexpected that they started searching for some form of electrical fault or open circuit that might have been caused by the temperature shifts. But they couldn’t find anything wrong. They spent five more months improving their system before trying again. On Oct. 26 they repeated the experiment, capturing the earlier sudden rise in resistance. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549876/original/file-20230924-17-dcurwt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graph with the resistence of Mercury on the y axis and temperature on the x axis, showing a sharp drop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549876/original/file-20230924-17-dcurwt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549876/original/file-20230924-17-dcurwt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549876/original/file-20230924-17-dcurwt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549876/original/file-20230924-17-dcurwt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549876/original/file-20230924-17-dcurwt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549876/original/file-20230924-17-dcurwt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549876/original/file-20230924-17-dcurwt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The resistance of mercury as recorded on Oct. 26, 1911, by Onnes’ lab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Superconductivity_1911.png">Heike Kamerlingh Onnes via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One week later, Onnes presented these results to the first <a href="http://www.solvayinstitutes.be/html/solvayconference.html">Solvay Conference</a>, and two years later he received his Nobel Prize in physics, recognizing his low-temperature work generally but not superconductivity specifically. </p>
<p>It took another three years of diligent work before Onnes had his irrefutable evidence: He measured persistent currents that did not decay, demonstrating truly zero resistance and superconductivity on April 24, 1914.</p>
<h2>New frontiers for critical temperatures</h2>
<p>In the decades following Onnes’ discovery, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1654966">many researchers have explored</a> how metals act at supercooled temperatures and have learned more about superconductivity. </p>
<p>But if researchers can observe superconductivity only at super low temperatures, it’s hard to make anything useful. It is too expensive to operate a machine practically if it works only at -400 F (-240 C).</p>
<p>So, scientists began searching for superconductors that can work at practical temperatures. For instance, K. Alex Müller and J. Georg Bednorz at the <a href="https://www.zurich.ibm.com/">IBM research laboratory</a> in Switzerland figured out that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.16.579">metal oxides</a> like lanthanum-barium-copper oxide, known as LBCO, could be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.237.4819.1133">good candidates</a>.</p>
<p>It took the IBM team about three years to find superconductivity in LBCO. But when they did, their work <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01303701">set a new record</a>, with superconductivity observed at -397 F (-238 C) in 1986.</p>
<p>A year later, in 1987, a lab in Houston replaced lanthanum in LBCO with the element yttrium to create YBCO. They <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.58.908">demonstrated superconductivity at -292 F</a>. This discovery made YBCO the first practical superconductor, because it could work while immersed in inexpensive liquid nitrogen.</p>
<p>Since then, researchers have observed superconductivity at temperatures <a href="https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.50.4260">as high as -164 F</a> (-109 C), but achieving a room-temperature superconductor has remained elusive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549878/original/file-20230924-15-nnist7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart of the discoveries of new superconductors plotted as critical temperature versus year of discovery, with each discovery labeled with a shape, color and abbreviation." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549878/original/file-20230924-15-nnist7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549878/original/file-20230924-15-nnist7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549878/original/file-20230924-15-nnist7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549878/original/file-20230924-15-nnist7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549878/original/file-20230924-15-nnist7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549878/original/file-20230924-15-nnist7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/549878/original/file-20230924-15-nnist7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Timeline of accomplishments in superconductivity research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Timeline_of_Superconductivity_from_1900_to_2015.svg">Gingras.ol/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2023, two groups claimed they had evidence for room-temperature superconductivity, though both reports have been met with <a href="https://theconversation.com/hopes-fade-for-room-temperature-superconductor-lk-99-but-quantum-zero-resistance-research-continues-211733">sharp skepticism</a>, and both are now in limbo following further scrutiny.</p>
<p>Superconductivity has always been tricky to prove because some metals can masquerade as superconductors. The lessons learned by Onnes a century ago – that these discoveries require time, patience and, most importantly, proof of currents that never stop – are still relevant today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David D. Nolte receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>
Superconductivity may sound like science fiction, but the first experiments to achieve it were conducted over a century ago. Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, credited with the discovery, won a Nobel Prize in 1913.
David D. Nolte, Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214770
2023-10-03T00:31:22Z
2023-10-03T00:31:22Z
Tenacious curiosity in the lab can lead to a Nobel Prize – mRNA research exemplifies the unpredictable value of basic scientific research
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551551/original/file-20231002-25-ii4mxj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2100%2C1427&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Basic research often involves lab work that won't be appreciated until decades down the line.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/pcr-diagnostics-kit-royalty-free-image/1285418766">Sebastian Condrea/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/">2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine</a> will go to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discovery that modifying <a href="https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/messenger-rna">mRNA</a> – a form of genetic material your body uses to produce proteins – could reduce unwanted inflammatory responses and allow it to be delivered into cells. While the impact of their findings may not have been apparent at the time of their breakthrough over a decade ago, their work paved the way for the development of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-mrna-and-dna-vaccines-could-soon-treat-cancers-hiv-autoimmune-disorders-and-genetic-diseases-170772">Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines</a>, as well as many other therapeutic applications currently in development. The <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/summary/">2023 Nobel Prize in physics</a> likewise will go to a team of scientists who used lasers to clarify the behavior of electrons, and many prior Nobels have honored basic research.</em></p>
<p><em>We asked André O. Hudson, a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zLwzHqcAAAAJ&hl=en">biochemist and microbiologist</a> at the Rochester Institute of Technology, to explain how basic research like that of this year’s Nobel Prize winners provides the foundations for science – even when its far-reaching effects won’t be felt until years later.</em></p>
<h2>What is basic science?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/basic-research-definition">Basic research</a>, sometimes called fundamental research, is a type of investigation with the overarching goal of understanding natural phenomena like how cells work or how birds can fly. Scientists are asking the fundamental questions of how, why, when, where and if in order to bridge a gap in curiosity and understanding about the natural world.</p>
<p>Researchers sometimes conduct basic research with the hope of eventually developing a technology or drug based on that work. But what many scientists typically do in academia is ask fundamental questions with answers that may or may not ever lead to practical applications.</p>
<p>Humans, and the animal kingdom as a whole, are <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(13)00265-0.pdf">wired to be curious</a>. Basic research scratches that itch.</p>
<h2>What are some basic science discoveries that went on to have a big influence on medicine?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/">2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine</a> acknowledges basic science work done in the early 2000s. Karikó and Weissman’s discovery about modifying mRNA to reduce the body’s inflammatory response to it allowed other researchers to leverage it to make improved vaccines.</p>
<p>Another example is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/guns-not-roses-heres-the-true-story-of-penicillins-first-patient-178463">discovery of antibiotics</a>, which was based on an unexpected observation. In the late 1920s, the microbiologist Alexander Fleming was growing a species of bacteria in his lab and found that his Petri dish was accidentally contaminated with the fungus <em>Penicillium notatum</em>. He noticed that wherever the fungus was growing, it impeded or inhibited the growth of the bacteria. He wondered why that was happening and subsequently went on to isolate penicillin, which was approved for medical use in the early 1940s.</p>
<p>This work fed into more questions that ushered in the age of antibiotics. The 1952 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine was awarded to Selman Waksman for his <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1952/summary/">discovery of streptomycin</a>, the first antibiotic to treat tuberculosis.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CNbnLgetqHs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Penicillin was discovered by accident.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Basic research often involves seeing something surprising, wanting to understand why and deciding to investigate further. Early discoveries start from a basic observation, asking the simple question of “How?” Only later are they parlayed into a medical technology that helps humanity.</p>
<h2>Why does it take so long to get from curiosity-driven basic science to a new product or technology?</h2>
<p>The mRNA modification discovery could be considered to be on a relatively fast track from basic science to application. Less than 15 years passed between Karikó and Weissman’s findings and the COVID-19 vaccines. The importance of their discovery came to the forefront with the pandemic and the <a href="https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2022/two-years-covid-vaccines-prevented-millions-deaths-hospitalizations">millions of lives</a> they saved.</p>
<p>Most basic research won’t reach the market until <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aaa0599">several decades</a> after its initial publication in a science journal. One reason is because it depends on need. For example, <a href="https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-consumers-and-patients-drugs/orphan-products-hope-people-rare-diseases">orphan diseases</a> that affect only a small number of people will get less attention and funding than conditions that are ubiquitous in a population, like cancer or diabetes. Companies don’t want to spend billions of dollars developing a drug that will only have a small return on their investment. Likewise, because the return on investment for basic research often isn’t clear, it can be a hard sell to support financially.</p>
<p>Another reason is cultural. Scientists are trained to chase after funding and support for their work wherever they can find it. But sometimes that’s not as easy as it seems.</p>
<p>A good example of this was when the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-human-genome-project-pieced-together-only-92-of-the-dna-now-scientists-have-finally-filled-in-the-remaining-8-176138">human genome was first sequenced</a> in the early 2000s. A lot of people thought that having access to the full sequence would lead to treatments and cures for many different diseases. <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-sequencing-the-human-genome-failed-to-produce-big-breakthroughs-in-disease-130568">But that has not been the case</a>, because there are many nuances to translating basic research to the clinic. What works in a cell or an animal might not translate into people. There are many steps and layers in the process to get there.</p>
<h2>Why is basic science important?</h2>
<p>For me, the most critical reason is that basic research is how we <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1210%2Fme.2014-1343">train and mentor future scientists</a>. </p>
<p>In an academic setting, telling students “Let’s go develop an mRNA vaccine” versus “How does mRNA work in the body” influences how they approach science. How do they design experiments? Do they start the study going forward or backward? Are they argumentative or cautious in how they present their findings?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551554/original/file-20231002-28-a388bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Close-up of scientist wearing nitrile gloves looking into microscope hovering over Petri dish" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551554/original/file-20231002-28-a388bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551554/original/file-20231002-28-a388bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551554/original/file-20231002-28-a388bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551554/original/file-20231002-28-a388bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551554/original/file-20231002-28-a388bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551554/original/file-20231002-28-a388bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551554/original/file-20231002-28-a388bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are many steps between translating findings in a lab to the clinic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/scrutinising-a-new-sample-royalty-free-image/1206157642">Marco VDM/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Almost every scientist is trained under a basic research umbrella of how to ask questions and go through the scientific method. You need to understand how, when and where mRNAs are modified before you can even begin to develop an mRNA vaccine. I believe the best way to inspire future scientists is to encourage them to expand on their curiosity in order to make a difference. </p>
<p>When I was writing my dissertation, I was relying on studies that were published in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Many of these studies are still cited in scientific articles today. When researchers share their work, though it may not be today or tomorrow, or 10 to 20 years from now, it will be of use to someone else in the future. You’ll make a future scientist’s job a little bit easier, and I believe that’s a great legacy to have.</p>
<h2>What is a common misconception about basic science?</h2>
<p>Because any immediate use for basic science can be very hard to see, it’s easy to think this kind of research <a href="https://theconversation.com/funding-basic-research-plays-the-long-game-for-future-payoffs-100435">is a waste of money or time</a>. Why are scientists breeding mosquitoes in these labs? Or why are researchers studying migratory birds? The same argument has been made with astronomy. Why are we spending billions of dollars putting things into space? Why are we looking to the edge of the universe and studying stars when they are millions and billions of light years away? How does it affect us?</p>
<p>There is a need for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1912436117">more scientific literacy</a> because not having it can make it difficult to understand why basic research is necessary to future breakthroughs that will have a major effect on society.</p>
<p>In the short term, the worth of basic research can be hard to see. But in the long term, history has shown that a lot of what we take for granted now, such as common medical equipment like <a href="https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200111/history.cfm">X-rays</a>, <a href="https://nationalmaglab.org/magnet-academy/history-of-electricity-magnetism/pioneers/theodore-maiman/">lasers</a> and <a href="https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200607/history.cfm">MRIs</a>, came from basic things people discovered in the lab. </p>
<p>And it still goes down to the fundamental questions – we’re a species that seeks answers to things we don’t know. As long as curiosity is a part of humanity, we’re always going to be seeking answers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>André O. Hudson receives funding from the National Institutes of Health. </span></em></p>
The winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine made a discovery that helped create the COVID-19 vaccines. They couldn’t have anticipated the tremendous impact of their findings.
André O. Hudson, Dean of the College of Science, Professor of Biochemistry, Rochester Institute of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208859
2023-10-02T19:11:50Z
2023-10-02T19:11:50Z
What has the Nobel Prize in Physics ever done for me?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551265/original/file-20230930-15-nkkytb.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/luminous-white-led-bulb-on-wooden-2096282497">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Each October, physics is in the news with the awarding of the Nobel Prize. The work acknowledged through this most prestigious award often seems far removed from our everyday lives, with prizes given for things like “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1966/">optical methods for studying Hertzian resonances in atoms</a>” and “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1999/">elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions</a>”.</p>
<p>However, these lauded advances in our basic understanding of the world often have very real, practical consequences for society.</p>
<p>To take just a few examples, Nobel-winning physics has given us portable computers, efficient LED lighting, climate modelling and radiation treatment of cancer. </p>
<h2>Thin magnets and portable computers</h2>
<p>In 2007, the physics Nobel was awarded jointly to Peter Grünberg and Albert Fert for the discovery of “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2007/press-release/">giant magnetoresistance</a>”. </p>
<p>In the late 1980s, Grünberg and Fert (and their research groups) were independently studying very thin layers of magnets. They both noticed that electricity flowed through the layers differently depending on the direction of the magnetic fields.</p>
<p>These teams were looking to understand fundamental properties of very thin magnets. However, their findings led to something we now take for granted: portable computers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A photo of an opened hard drive on a yellow background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551266/original/file-20230930-27-sxcuty.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551266/original/file-20230930-27-sxcuty.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551266/original/file-20230930-27-sxcuty.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551266/original/file-20230930-27-sxcuty.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551266/original/file-20230930-27-sxcuty.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551266/original/file-20230930-27-sxcuty.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551266/original/file-20230930-27-sxcuty.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘giant magnetoresistance’ effect won its discoverers the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics – and made portable hard drives possible.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hard-disk-drive-open-cover-computer-2115380288">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the time, most computers stored information on a hard disk drive made of a magnetic material. To read the information from the drive, a very small and very accurate magnetic field sensor is needed. </p>
<p>The discovery of giant magnetoresistance allowed for the development of far more sensitive sensors, which in turn made hard disk drives and computers smaller. (Today, magnetic hard disk drives are being overtaken by even smaller <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive">solid state drives</a>.)</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-store-data-on-magnets-the-size-of-a-single-atom-82601">How to store data on magnets the size of a single atom</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In short, we would not have laptops without the discovery that won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics. </p>
<p>The effect of this research – like that of so much fundamental research – was completely unanticipated.</p>
<h2>A light bulb moment</h2>
<p>Sometimes, however, physics research does have a practical goal all along. One such example is the quest for energy-efficient lighting.</p>
<p>Old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs are highly inefficient. Because they work by heating a wire until it glows, they waste a lot of energy as heat. In fact, less than 10% of the energy they consume goes to producing light. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, scientists realised light emitting diodes, or LEDs – small electronic components that emit light of a specific colour – would make more efficient light sources. But there was a problem. Although red and green LEDs had been developed in the middle of the twentieth century, nobody knew how to make a blue LED.</p>
<p>LEDs are thin sandwiches of materials that respond to electricity in a very particular way. When an electron moves from one energy level to another inside the material, it emits light of a specific colour. </p>
<p>All three colours of light (red, green and blue) would be needed to produce the kind of white light people want in their homes and workplaces. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A photo of a strip of blue LED lights against a dark background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551274/original/file-20231001-19-qlom3i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551274/original/file-20231001-19-qlom3i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551274/original/file-20231001-19-qlom3i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551274/original/file-20231001-19-qlom3i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551274/original/file-20231001-19-qlom3i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551274/original/file-20231001-19-qlom3i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551274/original/file-20231001-19-qlom3i.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The invention of blue LEDs made it possible to create white light far more efficiently than with incandescent bulbs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/vertical-shot-blue-led-tape-glowing-2101501642">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 1990s, in the culmination of almost 30 years of work by many groups, the missing blue LEDs were found. In 2014, Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2014/press-release/">received the physics Nobel</a> for the discovery. </p>
<p>The layers of material chosen to make up the sandwich, plus the quality of each layer, had to be refined in order to make the first blue LED. Since the initial discovery, materials scientists have continued to improve the design and manufacture to make blue LEDs more efficient.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/your-phone-screen-just-won-the-nobel-prize-in-physics-32456">Your phone screen just won the Nobel Prize in physics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Lighting accounts for up to 20% of total electricity consumption. LEDs use roughly <a href="https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/energy-efficiency-and-reducing-emissions/save-energy-in-the-home/lighting/choose-the-right-led-lighting">one sixth as much energy</a> as incandescent light bulbs. They also last much longer, with a lifetime of around 25,000 hours. </p>
<h2>Climate models, radiation and beyond</h2>
<p>Environmental endeavours are probably not what springs to mind when you think of the Nobel Prize in Physics. Yet another example also comes to mind, the study of a chaotic and complex system with great importance to us all: Earth’s climate.</p>
<p>Half of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics was given to Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann, scientists who developed <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2021/summary/">early models for Earth’s weather and climate</a>. Their work also linked global warming to human activity.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white photograph portrait of a woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551275/original/file-20231001-17-ef6emp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551275/original/file-20231001-17-ef6emp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551275/original/file-20231001-17-ef6emp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551275/original/file-20231001-17-ef6emp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551275/original/file-20231001-17-ef6emp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551275/original/file-20231001-17-ef6emp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551275/original/file-20231001-17-ef6emp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marie Curie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 for her work on radioactivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie#/media/File:Marie_Curie_c._1920s.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of the 222 people awarded the physics Nobel since 1901, <a href="https://theconversation.com/and-then-there-were-three-finally-another-woman-awarded-a-nobel-prize-in-physics-104323">only three have been women</a>. The most famous of those three is perhaps Marie Curie, who took home one quarter of the prize in 1903. </p>
<p>Curie’s work on understanding how atoms can decay into other kinds of atoms, producing nuclear radiation, profoundly changed life in the twentieth century.</p>
<p>The study of nuclear radiation led to the development of nuclear weapons, but also to radiation treatment for cancer. And further, it has led to carbon dating to determine the age of artefacts, allowing us to better understand <a href="https://www.ansto.gov.au/news/radiocarbon-dating-supports-aboriginal-occupation-of-south-australia-for-29000-years">ancient civilisations</a>. </p>
<p>So when we find out who is awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics, no matter what it’s for – and prospects include research on quantum computing, “slow light” and “self-assembling matter” – we can be sure of one thing. The awarded research will likely end up affecting our lives in extraordinary ways that may not at first be apparent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Livesey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The science that wins the Nobel Prize in Physics each year can be hard to get your head around – but it often has real everyday implications.
Karen Livesey, Senior Lecturer of Physics, University of Newcastle
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/214763
2023-10-02T15:57:01Z
2023-10-02T15:57:01Z
Nobel prize in medicine awarded to mRNA pioneers – here’s how their discovery was integral to COVID vaccine development
<p>Billions of people around the world have received the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. The rapid development of these vaccines changed the course of the pandemic, providing protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. </p>
<p>But these vaccines would not have been possible it if weren’t for the pioneering work of <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/">this year’s winners</a> of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine decades earlier.</p>
<p>Dr Katalin Karikó and Dr Drew Weissman, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, have been given the prestigious award for their discoveries into mRNA biology. The pair were the first to discover a way of modifying mRNA that allowed it to successfully be delivered to cells and replicated by them. </p>
<p>Their discovery was not only integral to COVID-19 vaccine development, but may also lead to the development of many other therapies – such as vaccines for cancer.</p>
<h2>Life’s work</h2>
<p>Karikó is a Hungarian biochemist and Weissman an American physician scientist. The two began working together in 1985 when Karikó was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, where Weissman was already working as an immunologist. They had a shared interest in how mRNA could be used to make new therapies. </p>
<p>Messenger RNA (better known as mRNA) is an essential molecule to life. It’s made in the body from our very own DNA in a process called translation. DNA is our special encoded handbook of instructions for manufacturing proteins, which are the building blocks for material in the body. </p>
<p>Our mRNA copies and carries these genetic instructions from our DNA to our cells. The cells then make whatever protein they’ve been instructed to, such as haemoglobin which helps red blood cells carry oxygen around the body.</p>
<p>Karikó and Weissman thought that if it was possible to commandeer this process, mRNA could be used to instruct cells to essentially make their own cures. But at the time they started working together, attempts by other researchers to do this had been unsuccessful.</p>
<p>The researchers faced two major challenges as they began their work. The first was being able to prevent the host from mounting an immune response against the modified mRNA. The second was being able to deliver the mRNA into the host safely without it degrading.</p>
<p>To understand how they overcame the first barrier, it’s important to understand mRNA’s structure. Normally, mRNA molecules contain four types of smaller molecules known as bases (nucleosides): A (adenine), U (uridine), G (guanine), and C (cytosine). Different sequences of these bases can be strung together to produce the basis of an mRNA molecule.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A digital illustration of a strand of mRNA." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551466/original/file-20231002-19-lxrhms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551466/original/file-20231002-19-lxrhms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551466/original/file-20231002-19-lxrhms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551466/original/file-20231002-19-lxrhms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551466/original/file-20231002-19-lxrhms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551466/original/file-20231002-19-lxrhms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551466/original/file-20231002-19-lxrhms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Messenger RNA copies and carries genetic instructions from our DNA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/molecular-model-messenger-ribonucleic-acid-mrna-2205462601">Kateryna Kon/ Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In early experiments, Karikó and Weismann found that injecting normal mRNA molecules into mice led to an immune response. This meant the mouse’s immune system saw the new mRNA as an invading pathogen and the immune cells would destroy it, instead of replicating it.</p>
<p>So the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00608-w">researchers modified</a> the U nucleoside to create a pseudouridine, a chemical compound which stabilises RNA’s structure. When they repeated their experiment with the modified mRNA, the mice exhibited <a href="https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(05)00211-6?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1074761305002116%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">no immune response</a>.</p>
<p>But Karikó and Weismann still faced the second challenge of being able to deliver the bespoke mRNA without it degrading. </p>
<p>They decided to use lipids (a nanoparticle) to deliver it. These fatty chemical compounds are an essential part of the cell membrane, controlling what enters and leaves the cell. Specially created lipids allowed the mRNA molecules <a href="https://www.cell.com/molecular-therapy-family/molecular-therapy/fulltext/S1525-0016(16)32681-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1525001616326818%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">to be delivered</a> without being degraded or broken down by the immune system. </p>
<p>Karikó and Weissman’s research had successfully eliminated the obstacles that had previously stood in the way of using mRNA clinically. Being able to instruct the body to replicate virtually any harmless protein could have potential for treating a range of diseases and even protect against viral infections.</p>
<h2>COVID vaccines</h2>
<p>When their research was first published, it didn’t garner <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/health/nobel-prize-medicine.html#:%7E:text=Katalin%20Karik%C3%B3%20and%20Drew%20Weissman%2C%20who%20together%20identified%20a%20chemical,Physiology%20or%20Medicine%20on%20Monday.">much attention</a>. But in 2011, two biotech companies – Moderna and BioNTech – took notice and began research into mRNA medicines.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder why. Traditional vaccine production methods are time consuming, expensive and don’t work for every vaccine. But Karikó and Weissman’s work showed that synthetic mRNA could be made at a large scale. </p>
<p>Researchers had already been working on developing mRNA vaccines before the pandemic, such as a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03590-y#:%7E:text=There%20is%20some%20research%20suggesting,immune%20responses%20in%20guinea%20pigs.">vaccine for Ebola</a> that didn’t receive much commercial interest. But in 2020, when COVID-19 began spreading around the globe, vaccines were needed quickly to offer protection.</p>
<p>Using the foundational work of Karikó and Weissman, scientists developed a bespoke mRNA sequence which mimicked the spike protein (which allows the virus to enter our cells). This produced a harmless COVID particle which our cells then replicated, allowing our bodies to protect us from severe COVID infections when it encountered the real virus.</p>
<p>Karikó and Weissman’s discoveries years earlier were critical in making the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines possible. But these aren’t the only ways their work could be applied. </p>
<p>Researchers are now hoping to develop mRNA vaccines for diseases such as HIV and Zika virus. Studies have also shown mRNA vaccines might be useful in treating <a href="https://theconversation.com/pancreatic-cancer-a-personalised-mrna-vaccine-may-boost-effects-of-treatment-205606">certain types of cancer</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alice Godden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The prestigious prize was awarded to Dr Katalin Karikó and Dr Drew Weissman from the University of Pennsylvania.
Alice Godden, Senior research associate, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213688
2023-09-28T23:50:21Z
2023-09-28T23:50:21Z
Just 3 Nobel Prizes cover all of science – how research is done today poses a challenge for these prestigious awards
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550986/original/file-20230928-27-5ki0mu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=235%2C0%2C3660%2C2832&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Has the Nobel Prize category 'chemistry' morphed into 'biochemistry'?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/october-2021-north-rhine-westphalia-mülheim-an-der-ruhr-the-news-photo/1235729277">picture alliance via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>I’ve been primarily an experimental chemist – the kind of person who goes into the laboratory and mixes and stirs chemicals – since the beginning of my career in 1965. Today, and for the past 15 years, I’m a full-time <a href="https://chemistry.richmond.edu/faculty/jseeman/">historian of chemistry</a>.</p>
<p>Every October, when the announcements are made of <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-prizes-in-chemistry/">that year’s Nobel laureates</a>, I examine the results as a chemist. And all too often, I share the same response as many of my fellow chemists: “Who are they? And what did they do?”</p>
<p>One reason for that bewilderment – and disappointment – is that in many recent years, none of my “favorites” or those of my fellow chemists will travel to Stockholm. I am not suggesting that <a href="https://www.chemistryworld.com/nobel-prize/the-data-behind-the-nobel-prizes/4010453.article">these Nobel laureates</a> are undeserving – quite the opposite. Rather, I am questioning whether some of these awards belong within the discipline of chemistry.</p>
<p>Consider some recent Nobel Prizes. In 2020, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna received the Nobel Prize “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2020/summary/">for the development of a method for genome editing</a>.” In 2018, Frances H. Arnold received the Nobel Prize “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2018/arnold/facts/">for the directed evolution of enzymes</a>,” which she shared with George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2018/press-release/">for the phage display of peptides and antibodies</a>.” In 2015, Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar received the Nobel Prize “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2015/summary/">for mechanistic studies of DNA repair</a>.”</p>
<p>All of them received Nobel Prizes in chemistry – not the Nobel Prize in <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/all-nobel-laureates-in-physiology-or-medicine/">physiology or medicine</a>, even though these achievements seem very clearly situated within the disciplines of medicine and the life sciences. There are many other similar examples.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550989/original/file-20230928-23-jju93g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woman and man in formal dress at awards ceremony" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550989/original/file-20230928-23-jju93g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550989/original/file-20230928-23-jju93g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550989/original/file-20230928-23-jju93g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550989/original/file-20230928-23-jju93g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550989/original/file-20230928-23-jju93g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550989/original/file-20230928-23-jju93g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550989/original/file-20230928-23-jju93g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">2018 co-laureate Frances Arnold receives her Nobel Prize in chemistry from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/co-laureate-of-the-2018-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-us-news-photo/1071162052">Henrik Montgomery/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These recent mismatches are even clearer when you look further back in time. Consider the 1962 Nobel Prize awarded to Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins “for their <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1962/summary/">discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids</a> and its significance for information transfer in living material.” <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/DNA">DNA</a>, of course, is the most famous nucleic acid, and these three scientists were honored for deciphering how its atoms are bonded together and arranged in their three-dimensional double-helix shape.</p>
<p>While the “structure of DNA” most certainly is an achievement in chemistry, the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to Watson, Crick and Wilkins. Clearly, their Nobel achievements have had great consequences in the life sciences, genetics and medicine. Thus awarding them the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine is quite appropriate.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550991/original/file-20230928-23-vr2kf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="metal model of structure of DNA molecule double helix" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550991/original/file-20230928-23-vr2kf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550991/original/file-20230928-23-vr2kf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550991/original/file-20230928-23-vr2kf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550991/original/file-20230928-23-vr2kf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550991/original/file-20230928-23-vr2kf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550991/original/file-20230928-23-vr2kf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550991/original/file-20230928-23-vr2kf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A model of a DNA molecule using some of Watson and Crick’s original metal plates.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/this-reconstruction-of-the-double-helix-model-of-dna-news-photo/90739243">Science & Society Picture Library via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But note the disconnect. The Nobel Prizes in chemistry in 2020, 2018 and 2015 are more life-science- and medicine-oriented than Watson, Crick and Wilkins’ for the structure of DNA. Yet the former were awarded in chemistry, while the latter was in physiology and medicine.</p>
<p>What is going on? What does this trend reveal about the Nobel Foundation and its award strategies in response to the growth of science?</p>
<h2>A gradual evolution in the Nobel Prizes</h2>
<p>Several years ago, chemist-historian-applied mathematician <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b4CW5CEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Guillermo Restrepo</a> and I collaborated to study the relationship of scientific discipline to the Nobel Prize.</p>
<p>Each year, the Nobel Committee for chemistry <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/search.php">studies the nominations</a> <a href="https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/chem.202203985">and proposes the recipients</a> of the Nobel Prize in chemistry to its parent organization, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which ultimately selects the Nobel laureates in chemistry (and physics).</p>
<p>We found a strong correlation between the disciplines of the members of the committee and the disciplines of the awardees themselves. Over the lifetime of the Nobel Prizes, there has been a continuous increase – from about 10% in the 1910s to 50% into the 2000s – in the percentage of committee members whose research is best identified within the life sciences.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201906266">Restrepo and I concluded</a>: As go the expertise, interests and the disciplines of the committee members, so go the disciplines honored by the Nobel Prizes in chemistry. We also concluded that the academy has intentionally included more and more life scientists on their selection committee for chemistry.</p>
<p>Now some perceptive readers might ask, “Is not the discipline of biochemistry just a subdiscipline of chemistry?” The underlying question is, “How does one define the disciplines in science?”</p>
<p>Restrepo and I reasoned that what we term “intellectual territory” defines the boundaries of a discipline. Intellectual territory can be assessed by bibliographic analysis of the scientific literature. We examined the references, often called citations, that are found in scientific publications. These references are where authors of journal articles cite the related research that’s previously been published – often the research they have relied and built on. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201906266">We chose to study two journals</a>: a chemistry journal named Angewandte Chemie and a life science journal named, rather aptly, Biochemistry.</p>
<p>We found that the articles in Angewandte Chemie mostly cite articles published in other chemistry journals, and the articles in Biochemistry mostly cite articles in biochemistry and life sciences journals. We also found that the reverse is true: Scientific publications that cite Angewandte Chemie articles are mostly in chemistry journals, and publications that cite Biochemistry articles are mostly in biochemistry and life science journals. In other words, chemistry and the life sciences/biochemistry reside in vastly different intellectual territories that don’t tend to overlap much.</p>
<h2>Not letting labels be limiting</h2>
<p>But now, perhaps a shocker. Many scientists don’t really care how they are classified by others. Scientists care about science.</p>
<p>As I’ve heard Dudley Herschbach, recipient of the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1986/summary/">1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry</a>, respond to the oft-asked question of whether he’s an experimental chemist or a theoretical chemist: “The molecules don’t know, nor do they care, do they?”</p>
<p>But scientists, like all human beings, do care about recognition and awards. And so, chemists do mind that the Nobel Prize in chemistry has morphed into the Nobel Prize in chemistry and the life sciences.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550994/original/file-20230928-19-rbogdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="black and white head shot of man in early 20th C attire" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550994/original/file-20230928-19-rbogdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550994/original/file-20230928-19-rbogdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550994/original/file-20230928-19-rbogdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550994/original/file-20230928-19-rbogdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550994/original/file-20230928-19-rbogdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550994/original/file-20230928-19-rbogdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550994/original/file-20230928-19-rbogdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1044&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacobus Henricus van ‘t Hoff received the first Nobel Prize in chemistry for 'discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/jacobus-henricus-vant-hoff-dutch-chemist-nobel-prize-for-news-photo/629452997">Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901, the community of scientists and the number of scientific disciplines have grown tremendously. Even today, new disciplines are being created. New journals are appearing. Science is becoming more multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary. Even chemistry as a discipline has grown dramatically, pushing outward its own scholarly boundaries, and chemistry’s achievements continue to be astounding.</p>
<p><a href="https://cen.acs.org/people/nobel-prize/biochemists-life-scientists-winning-Nobel/97/web/2019/12">The Nobel Prize hasn’t evolved sufficiently with the times</a>. And there just are not enough Nobel Prizes to go around to all the deserving.</p>
<p>I can imagine an additional Nobel Prize for the life sciences. The number of awardees could expand from the current three-per-prize maximum to whatever fits the accomplishment. Nobel Prizes <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/facts/nobel-prize-facts/">could be awarded posthumously</a> to make up for past serious omissions, an option that was used by the Nobel Foundation for several years and then discontinued.</p>
<p>In truth, the Nobel Foundation has evolved the prizes, but very deliberately and without the major transformations that I think will certainly be required in the future. It will, I believe, eventually break free, figuratively and literally, from the mire of Alfred Nobel’s will and more than a century of distinguished tradition.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/alfred-nobels-will/">When Nobel designed the prizes</a> named after him in the late 1800s and early 1900s, he couldn’t have known that his gift would become a perpetual endowment and have such lasting – indeed, even increasing – significance. Nobel also could not have anticipated the growth of science, nor the fact that over time, some disciplines would fade in importance and new disciplines would evolve.</p>
<p>So far, the extremely competent and highly dedicated scholars at the Nobel Foundation and their partner organizations – and I acknowledge with real appreciation their selfless devotion to the cause – haven’t responded adequately to the growth of the sciences or to the inequities and even incompleteness of past award years. But I have confidence: In time, they will do so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey I. Seeman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Nobel Prize categories were set up more than a century ago. Since then, science has grown and evolved in unpredictable ways.
Jeffrey I. Seeman, Visiting Research Scholar in Chemistry, University of Richmond
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/211163
2023-09-19T20:08:53Z
2023-09-19T20:08:53Z
The Nobel Peace Prize often reveals how contentious peace can be
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<p>Leading up to the announcement of the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/">Nobel Peace Prize</a>, there is widespread speculation about who will win. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/nobel-peace-prize/nomination/">351 nominees</a> for the 2023 prize, 259 individuals and 92 organizations. Although the list is confidential, there is widespread speculation about who’s on it, including favourites and long shots, repeat and first-time nominees. </p>
<p>This global moment of interest in peace is important, but it doesn’t tell us much other than that peace is elusive. </p>
<p>Looking at the longer history of the Nobel Peace Prize tells us that peace takes many forms, including ending armed conflicts, resisting racial discrimination, standing up for the oppressed and caring for the vulnerable. Peace can also be political and controversial.</p>
<h2>Taking a stand against war</h2>
<p>The early recipients were usually prominent men from Europe and the United States, and their peace work took the form of preventing or ending wars. </p>
<p>The first Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded in 1901 to <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1901/passy/facts/">Frédéric Passy</a>, a French economist and politician who founded the French Peace Society and organized a peace congress in 1878. American president <a href="https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/laureates/1906">Theodore Roosevelt</a> received the 1906 prize for “his role in bringing to an end the bloody war recently waged between two of the world’s great powers, Japan and Russia.”</p>
<p>Over time, the list of laureates has expanded to include women and non-elites from all over the world. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Two black-and-white photos of smiling women." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548178/original/file-20230913-21-waipff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548178/original/file-20230913-21-waipff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548178/original/file-20230913-21-waipff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548178/original/file-20230913-21-waipff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548178/original/file-20230913-21-waipff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548178/original/file-20230913-21-waipff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548178/original/file-20230913-21-waipff.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Nobel Foundation Archive)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1976/williams/facts/">Betty Williams</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1976/corrigan/facts/">Mairead Corrigan</a> did clerical work in Belfast and became peace activists after the death of three children in an IRA-related incident. </p>
<p>Corrigan was aunt to the children; Williams witnessed their deaths. They shared the 1976 prize for launching a peace movement to end sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.</p>
<h2>Protecting people, defending human rights</h2>
<p>Humanitarian work that supports people who are in danger or vulnerable has informed the selection of peace laureates from the start of the Nobel Peace Prize. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1901/dunant/facts/">Henri Dunant</a>, a Swiss businessman who had established the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1863 to assist wounded soldiers, shared the 1901 prize with Passy. Dunant was selected because of “his humanitarian efforts to help wounded soldiers.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1922/nansen/facts/">Fridtjof Nansen</a>, the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, received the award in 1922 for his work to repatriate prisoners of war after the First World War and for creating the Nansen passport for refugees. <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1979/teresa/facts/">Mother Teresa</a> won in 1979 for caring for people who were terminally ill, abandoned and destitute. </p>
<p>In 1992, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1992/tum/facts/">Rigoberta Menchú Tum</a> of Guatemala was recognized for her advocacy of Indigenous rights, social justice and “ethno-cultural reconciliation.”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1509679046841737217"}"></div></p>
<p>Human rights activists have also figured prominently as laureates since the 1960s, starting with <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/facts/">Martin Luther King Jr.</a> in 1964 for “his non-violent struggle for civil rights for the Afro-American population.” </p>
<p>Other human rights laureates include <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1968/cassin/facts/">René Cassin</a> (1968), a drafter of the <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1991/kyi/facts/">Aung San Suu Kyi</a> (1991) for her efforts to establish democracy and human rights in Myanmar, and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2021/ressa/facts/">Maria Ressa</a> and <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2021/muratov/facts/">Dmitry Muratov</a> (2021) for their defence of freedom of expression. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1701505384924516364"}"></div></p>
<h2>International co-operation</h2>
<p>The prize has also recognized efforts to create internationalist attitudes and improve standards of living as essential contributions to establishing peace among nations and ensuring people live in security and with dignity.</p>
<p>American peace activist and social reformer <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1931/addams/facts/">Jane Addams</a> received the 1931 prize, at the height of the Great Depression, for her efforts to “rekindle the spirit of peace” in the United States and “the whole of mankind.”</p>
<p>U.S. President <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2009/obama/facts/">Barack Obama</a> was selected in 2009 for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between people,” while <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2006/yunus/facts/">Muhammad Yunus</a>, a South Asian economist, won in 2006 for setting up a bank to provide small long-term loans to people living in poverty so that they could become financially independent.</p>
<h2>Politicizing peace</h2>
<p>But peace can become political when its advocates oppose or try to reform governments and societies that are pursuing hostile foreign relations or promote and perpetuate injustice and oppression at home. </p>
<p>Between the two world wars, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to politicians, diplomats and officials who made substantial efforts to avoid future conflict, even though they were ultimately unsuccessful.</p>
<p>That included those who supported the <a href="https://www.ungeneva.org/en/about/league-of-nations/overview">League of Nations</a> or negotiated agreements, like the 1925 <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667899/">Locarno Treaties</a>, that were supposed to guarantee the borders between Germany and France and Germany and Belgium, and the <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/kellogg">Kellogg-Briand Pact</a> of 1928 renouncing war as an instrument of state policy.</p>
<p>The 1964 prize to King, four years before his assassination, was a timely intervention in the American civil rights movement. The 1983 award to <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1983/walesa/facts/">Lech Walesa</a>, leader of the trade union Solidarity in Poland, made an anti-communism statement. </p>
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<h2>Controversial laureates</h2>
<p>The selection of laureates can be controversial, and several have been criticized for acts and beliefs that are inconsistent with peace. </p>
<p>There was an outcry when <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1973/kissinger/facts/">Henry Kissinger</a>, the U.S. secretary of state, received the prize for his part in negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam. </p>
<p>Mother Teresa was also <a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/01/03/the_wests_big_lie_about_mother_teresa_her_glorification_of_suffering_instead_of_relieving_it_has_had_little_impact_on_her_glowing_reputation/">criticized for denying people in her care pain relief.</a> </p>
<p>As Myanmar’s leader, Suu Kyi <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-11685977">was denounced internationally for denying the genocide of Rohingya Muslims</a>. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/30/aung-san-suu-kyi-wont-be-stripped-of-nobel-peace-prize-despite-rohingya-crisis">The Nobel Committee explained that her prize could not be withdrawn after the fact</a>. </p>
<h2>Peace can threaten the powerful</h2>
<p>The pursuit of peace itself provokes opposition because it demands change. </p>
<p>Abolishing war limits the way governments promote national security. Authority and privilege are challenged in the face of calls to eliminate racism, empower Indigenous Peoples, respect freedom of expression and achieve socio-economic equality.</p>
<p>Even though peace might seem unobjectionable, the history of peace is a story of resistance, contesting the status quo and precarious advances.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francine McKenzie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Peace can become political when advocates oppose or try to reform governments and societies pursuing hostile foreign relations — or when these societies perpetuate injustice and oppression at home.
Francine McKenzie, Professor of History, Western University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.