The world of physics made quantum leaps in 2012, distinguished partly by CERN’s discovery of the Higgs boson particle and by Andrei Lindé’s idea of “eternal inflation,” which envisions Big Bangs popping off endlessly. Our attempts to understand the cosmos have grown notably, but the Nobel Prize upholds its mission to award those who “have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”
It was announced this morning that this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics are Serge Haroche and David Wineland “for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems.” In other words, they took an important step forward in figuring out how to observe quantum particles without actually destroying them.
Michio Kaku speaks with The Takeaway from Singapore. He’s a theoretical physicist and author of The New York Times bestseller “Physics of the Future.”
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