[HN Gopher] Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Agostini, Krausz, ...
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Nobel Prize in Physics Awarded to Agostini, Krausz, and L'Huillier
Author : solarist
Score : 259 points
Date : 2023-10-03 09:50 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nobelprize.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nobelprize.org)
| apienx wrote:
| Swedish paper reported that L'Huillier was lecturing when the
| announcement took place, and just proceeded with the lesson as if
| nothing happened. Kept their cool!
|
| https://www.dn.se/sverige/nobelpristagaren-anne-l-huillier-f...
| bradrn wrote:
| Also commented on at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37749891.
| bjornsing wrote:
| Just had a call with an old classmate that works in the same
| department (and even same division). He recounted another fun
| anecdote: The PhD students in the department had set up a room
| to watch the Nobel committee's press conference as usual. They
| were pleasantly surprised when their professor started talking
| from the room next door. So she kept her cool to the very end.
| :)
| robinduckett wrote:
| Page not found?
| asicsp wrote:
| I see this:
|
| > _The Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 was awarded to Pierre
| Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier "for experimental
| methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study
| of electron dynamics in matter"_
|
| There's also a link to press release:
| https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/press-release...
| belter wrote:
| Page is up -
| https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2023/summary/
| j7ake wrote:
| Anybody know why Paul Corkum did not get awarded? He won wolf
| prize along with Krausz and L'Huillier last year.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| IIRC Nobels can only have three or fewer laureates per year.
| mdisc0rd wrote:
| Can someone ELI5 what exactly they discovered?
| thsksbd wrote:
| To add to what was said in the other answers, turning light on
| and off very quickly broadens the source so that every
| frequency is present (i.e. take the Fourier transform of a
| delta) but still focasable to a narrow point.
| dagw wrote:
| A way to turn a light on and off really really fast.
|
| If you want an ELI13-and-paid-attention-in-science-class then
| this covers it pretty well
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-physicspr...
| romseb wrote:
| I found this lab tour with Ferenc Krausz himself to be a
| great introduction to the topic:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZIUJb85BAQ
| solarist wrote:
| Like, realy realy realy fast, one billionth of one billionth
| of a second.
| wiz21c wrote:
| what is it useful for ? (honnest question)
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Another benefit of pulsing light really fast is that you
| can more easily perform studies of really delicate things
| (eg proteins) because you effectively have higher control
| over the amount of energy you're pouring into the sample.
| That isn't directly what they were working on here, but a
| similar extremely high frequency pulsing is one of the
| things that makes free-electron lasers 'next generation'
| compared to synchrotrons.
| solarist wrote:
| It's like using flash when photographing, with these
| ultra short pulses one could see how electrons move
| inside atoms and molecules.
| mongol wrote:
| You will need a really low f-stop if the exposure is one
| attosecond
| wiredfool wrote:
| No, you just need an intense flash.
| dagw wrote:
| You know how strobe light photography lets you 'freeze'
| very fast moving things so you can study what they look
| like mid motion. This is used for basically that, except
| for much much smaller things moving much much faster.
| posterboy wrote:
| that's ELI5
|
| The wavelength at the size of a watermolecule in the
| range of Exahertz x-ray rather implies very precise laser
| pulses because the focal point is proportional to the
| wavelength. It is also relevant for energy transfer into
| molecules at resonant frequencies.
|
| from the last paragraph linked above:
|
| > For example, attosecond pulses can be used to push
| molecules, which emit a measurable signal. The signal
| from the molecules has a special structure, a type of
| fingerprint that reveals what molecule it is, and the
| possible applications of this include medical
| diagnostics.
|
| Basically it's a more precise higher energy X-Ray laser.
|
| I believe the fast turning on and off is a byproduct of a
| basic method (high-harmonic generation). They do stress
| the importance of short pulses, but this again may have
| to do with decoherence of the focal point and not so much
| the speed of electrons inside the molecule, which is only
| a model (i.e. relativistic) and remains to be
| investigated with this new method.
| drt5b7j wrote:
| > The Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 was awarded to Pierre Agostini,
| Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier "for experimental methods that
| generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron
| dynamics in matter"
| jahnu wrote:
| For reference:
|
| > Attosecond pulses: Flashes of light that last only a few
| billionths of a billionth of a second. In one attosecond, light
| covers a distance of 0.3 nanometers (one nanometer is one
| millionth of a millimeter). This corresponds to the diameter of a
| water molecule.
|
| > Femtosecond pulses: Flashes of light that last one millionth of
| a billionth of a second - about one thousand times longer than
| attopulses.
|
| https://www.mpg.de/9298413/F002_focus_024-031.pdf
| kaycebasques wrote:
| The popular science background that the Nobel organization
| produced is a readable explanation:
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-physicspr...
| jbird11 wrote:
| I found these illustrations to be really informative
|
| Experimental setup -
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/fig5_fy_en_23.pdf
|
| Light / gas interaction -
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/fig4_fy_en_23.pdf
| babuloseo wrote:
| This is amazing :)
| amelius wrote:
| If the pulses are so short, would it be possible to create an EUV
| light source from this technology?
| fsh wrote:
| Lithography requires the highest possible average intensity,
| while the pulse length is irrelevant. The laser-driven tin
| plasma sources used in EUV lithography produce around 7 orders
| of magnitude more power than the most powerful sources based on
| high harmonic generation.
| amelius wrote:
| > while the pulse length is irrelevant
|
| I was thinking along the lines of: 1 attosecond corresponds
| to .3nm, so very short wavelength, so very deep UV.
| EricLeer wrote:
| The wave length and pulse length aren't the same thing
| though. The short pulsed lasers actually consists of light
| that have many different wave lengths in them!
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, but shouldn't there be a peak in the spectrum near
| the frequency corresponding to the pulselength?
| noobermin wrote:
| There is some nice sweet irony here. Very marginal inside
| baseball. I know of one of the recipients although indirectly. I
| felt like their group was kept around their university physics
| dept because they were known to be good in that field, while
| generally their colleagues were generally not respected as their
| physics (which was derisively deemed "AMO" as if it were an
| epithet) was not seen as "fundamental" enough by the particle
| physics people who held high administrative positions in the
| department. Fast forward a few years, and first Gerard Morou and
| Donna Strickland and Authur Ashkin got the Nobel for CPA and
| optical trapping, and now we have a nobel for research into
| attosecond physics.
|
| There was a nobel prize for the Higgs, but SUSY and all the other
| sorts of things particle physicists hinged on...well that didn't
| peter out, did it?
| mjfl wrote:
| seems absurd. AMO is the only opportunity to study high energy
| physics where you're not a cog in a giant machine.
| pyb wrote:
| Surprising/doubtful, never heard of AMO physics being
| marginalised anywhere.
| [deleted]
| urthor wrote:
| Academic politics is something else.
|
| I thought for awhile those guys got lucky and skip office
| politics.
|
| Then I realize that PhD level IQs + pressure to get into the
| fancy journals means that the politics is Gu Dian Xiao Shuo
| tier.
| seanhunter wrote:
| > Academic politics is something else.
|
| There is a famous formulation of this known as Sayre's
| law[1], which is often stated via the quote "In any dispute
| the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the
| value of the issues at stake. That is why academic politics
| are so bitter," which wikipedia attributes to Charles Philip
| Issawi.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre's_law
| act_of_dog wrote:
| Link didn't work because of the apostrophe. Here's a fixed
| link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law
| xxs wrote:
| posting a mobile link? the original one is fine too,
| aside using 1-based indexing
| kranke155 wrote:
| I'm advertising, where I work, it's 100% this
| leemailll wrote:
| That's a wonderful sum up. The pettiness often drive you
| insane, when you read the comments from reviewer 2
| belinder wrote:
| If academic is all politics and favoritism then wouldn't that
| also apply to the prizes at the top? The people deciding or
| at least confirming scientific breakthroughs for stuff like
| nobel prizes must be scientists too, no? So if it's all
| politics, why are they immune to it?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| There's plenty of politics and arbitrariness to Nobel
| prizes (especially in non-science prizes, eg giving Obama
| or Malala the peace prize), which probably makes it less of
| an issue that there may be some politicking within the
| small group of potential laureates since who among them
| actually wins is relatively arbitrary.
|
| Eg since only 3 people can win a prize, you can have cases
| like Francois Englert and Peter Higgs winning the prize for
| the Higgs Boson despite 4 other scientists having published
| papers on the same thing around the same time, and the
| scientists at the LHC who actually confirmed its existence.
|
| Similarly, a work can have won a prize, but if one of the
| authors passes away before the nomination is made, that
| person misses out on the title.
| nyssos wrote:
| > then wouldn't that also apply to the prizes at the top?
|
| It does, but the politics and favoritism is happening
| within a heavily selected group of very, very competent
| people. Plenty of people get snubbed for petty reasons, but
| they get snubbed in favor of others who are also doing
| Nobel-worthy work.
| daniel-s wrote:
| The Chinese translates to, "classical novels," according to
| Google.
| ovi256 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Chinese_Novels
|
| They're about court life and conflict, so of course they're
| full of court politics and intrigue
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| I'm really intrigued, but I can't read Chinese (yet!) -
| would you be able to tell me in which person these are
| written?
| VHRanger wrote:
| As an anglophone, I really enjoyed the Water Margin
| podcast [1] which is a tranlastion of one of the great
| classics in full length, and with appropriate
| explanations for contemporarty cultural context.
|
| 1. http://www.outlawsofthemarsh.com/
| thrdbndndn wrote:
| I'm a native Chinese speaker but I have no idea what OP
| means by "Gu Dian Xiao Shuo tier".
| dogben wrote:
| Wu Xia Xiao Shuo may be more appropriate.
| HerculePoirot wrote:
| In french academic circles, we use the word "mandarin" to
| refer to a powerful academic figure.
| simonh wrote:
| Cool. In the UK that's used for powerful civil servants.
| azepoi wrote:
| Understood it that way in french too.
| [deleted]
| solarist wrote:
| L'Huillier, who became the fifth woman to win the physics prize,
| was teaching when she received the call from the committee,
| having the advantage of being in the same time zone as the
| committee.
|
| (On a side note, Bing chat already knows now that she won the
| prize. Color me impressed.)
| scandinavian wrote:
| > (On a side note, Bing chat already knows now that she won the
| prize. Color me impressed.)
|
| It actually doesn't. Bing searches for your query and uses
| plain old search results as extra context for the actual LLM.
| GPT-4 still has the same knowledge cutoff as when the model was
| last trained.
|
| Here's what it feeds to the model when searching for "nobel
| prize in physics 2023":
|
| https://pastebin.com/raw/MhW4EmTx
| mambru wrote:
| How are you getting this? I is it visible to the browser
| (client)?
| scandinavian wrote:
| Yes, there's a websocket that contains all bing chat
| communication.
| saliagato wrote:
| which?
| scandinavian wrote:
| wss://sydney.bing.com/sydney/ChatHub
|
| This is using Chrome.
| tpmx wrote:
| Photo from that lecture at Lund University, Sweden:
|
| https://twitter.com/lantisfjantis/status/1709146065985777767
|
| _This year 's Nobel laureate in physics lectures us after (!!)
| being notified of her win!!_
| mingusrude wrote:
| My son was also in this class and there is a video of when
| they applaud her and she tries to continue with the lesson.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Is it up in public anywhere decent, or are the kids just
| putting it on tiktok, snapchat et al?
| onychomys wrote:
| Seems like maybe the university could spring for a laser
| pointer instead of a long stick.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| The best professors I had in my time in university were the
| ones who didn't let technology get in the way of effective
| teaching. The ones who grabbed the newest technology were
| the ones willing to waste combined days of time (that's a
| big lecture hall; there could easily be hundreds of
| students in that class).
|
| I guarantee the university would have let her expense a
| laser pointer, but those break, run out of batteries, and
| can be harder to place accurately or spot. Sticks just
| work.
| pas wrote:
| They tried, but the dot was only visible for a fraction of
| a second ...
| jacquesm wrote:
| Hehe, ok, just this once then :)
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I expect they did spring for it when the room was last
| remodelled, but since then for sure the batteries have died
| several times, some lecturer brought it with them to their
| office by mistake and forgot it there, and the students
| have stolen it.
|
| The stick however, it remains.
| sampo wrote:
| I understand, low powered red laser pointers are difficult
| to see for people with color blindness. And the high
| powered laser pointers are legal only in some countries. A
| long stick just works.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I like how lantisfjantis then goes on to report he's
| astounded that she _turned off her phone_ for the remaining
| half of the lecture.
|
| Like no shit, you try to carry on a lecture while like 20
| different journalists try to call you! The youth of today! ;)
| leemailll wrote:
| maybe she turn on her phone just for the call to come, then
| back to normal
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Yeah, she had it "off" for the lecture and turned it on
| during the break, which is when they reached her (in
| Sweden course lectures are almost always divided into
| several 45 min blocks, with a break in between each
| block).
| [deleted]
| gary_0 wrote:
| I found some details about the prizewinning research here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferenc_Krausz#Research
| v3ss0n wrote:
| [flagged]
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| It is not how it works. First, they haven't really made yet a
| verified discovery. They may be into something but years may
| pass before it will be designated as a scientific breakthrough.
| Then their work must be considered influential enough so that
| they will be nominated by someone who can do that. Then they
| must be selected by the committee. It is a long journey and
| many other discoveries are being made along the way reducing
| their chances. So there's absolutely no reason to think they
| could have received a Nobel Prize this year.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| To further add to this, one of the fastest Nobel prizes in
| Physics was also for high temperature superconductivity in
| 1987, awarded less than 2 years after the discovery was made
| public (the other which ties with it being the 1957 prize for
| parity violation).
|
| So even if LK-99 had been easily verified to be a true room
| temperature superconductor, they'd probably be looking at the
| 2024 Nobel.
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| While some teams confirmed superconductity in LK99 other teams
| got a negative result. The consensus amongst the solid-state
| community at the moment is the LK99 is NOT superconductive at
| room temperature.
|
| How is that possible ? There are often many effects at play in
| Physics. Certain phenomena can be explained in other ways.
| There are often measurement issues, modelling issues and a
| haste to say "me too" as prestige and prizes are in play.
|
| Surely HN or any human would root for room temperature
| superconductivity. It would be a massive technical progress. It
| is a pity that it did not pan out.
|
| Until the widespread consensus is that LK99 _is_ a room
| temperature superconductor and _many_ teams are able to
| reproduce the result there is no chance a nobel prize will be
| awarded for this.
|
| There usually a lag between a great discovery and a nobel. The
| prize committe is conservative that way. They want to make sure
| the science works out and they did not get carried away in the
| hype of the moment.
| throw310822 wrote:
| Sometimes I muse that it's the belief of the experimenters
| themselves that can briefly coerce the world into behaving in
| a certain way... something quantum many worlds... something
| something. :)
| tialaramex wrote:
| This is the idea that Schrodinger was attempting to
| ridicule in his cat thought experiment. The intent is that
| this idea is intuitively _ludicrous_. Unfortunately pop
| culture got hold of it and now, well, "Ooh quantum stuff,
| put cats everywhere" ...
|
| On the other hand, Greg Egan did a couple of short stories
| about what if the underlying mathematics (which necessarily
| governs our universe) is altered when we "discover" weird
| things about it and this binds us to other universes
| sharing that mathematics, so we can't go there, and they
| can't come here, but if they discover something weird about
| the relationship between Pi and set theory that becomes
| true here even though we haven't "discovered" that, and if
| they can choose to discover something different, _that_ is
| true instead.
| throw310822 wrote:
| Yes it's definitely an idea that can be found here and
| there in Greg Egan's novels and short stories. Among
| other places, towards the end of Permutation City when
| it's suggested that the world beliefs of the inhabitants
| of Permutation City (humans vs evolved artificial
| species) are themselves shaping its reality.
| thrownawaysz wrote:
| Hungary 2 in 2 so far
| rurban wrote:
| Because they are actually from the Mars.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists)
| sebstefan wrote:
| I was going to say the same for France
|
| Same as you though, does it really matter if we can't fucking
| keep them working in our universities...
| huytersd wrote:
| It doesn't matter. These things help all of humanity.
| curiousgal wrote:
| [flagged]
| huytersd wrote:
| [flagged]
| Majestic121 wrote:
| There is something about Hungary and extremely smart people :
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-consid...
| ahoka wrote:
| Just have to leave the country to be successful, or worse, to
| not get killed by the same people what will be the first to
| boast about your achievements abroad.
| ovi256 wrote:
| Some people are proud of where other people were born,
| regardless of where these other people work.
|
| Some people are proud of where other people work,
| regardless of where these other people were born.
|
| These are very different views of the world /shrug
| [deleted]
| raverbashing wrote:
| The language and the misery? :)
| [deleted]
| Beijinger wrote:
| Well, what do you expect?
|
| In his novel Budapest, the Brazilian novelist Chico Buarque
| writes that Hungarian "is rumored to be the only tongue in
| the world the devil respects."
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The Hungarian ability to produce world-class scientists went
| considerably down after the Holocaust.
| [deleted]
| HerculePoirot wrote:
| > Prize share: 1/3
|
| (x 3)
|
| Can someone elaborate on these weights ? Are there occurrences
| where the attribution weights are different between laureates ?
| [deleted]
| nuccy wrote:
| Yes, if a Nobel prize is given for two different topics (for
| three people, first person - one topic, other two - another
| topic) then 1/2, 1/4, 1/4 shares will be assigned, for example
| the prize in physics in 2019 [1].
|
| 1. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2019/summary/
| ivh wrote:
| Yes, it can also be split 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/4, e.g. when two
| competing efforts are recognized, one of which was two people.
| The rule that at most three people can share the pize can make
| this awkward.
| daoboy wrote:
| An attosecond is to a second what a second is to the age of the
| universe.
| matsemann wrote:
| I really enjoy the accompanied "Popular science
| background"-paper the Nobel Committee releases together with
| the awards. It's linked on the page, but a direct link that
| explains the contributions of this award is here:
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-physicspr...
| sidcool wrote:
| How the hell do they do it! I can't even reduce 100 ms latency
| from my API calls.
| spacemadness wrote:
| Superimposing light waves at various frequencies---similar to
| how some sound canceling headphones work with sound waves,
| where sounds cancel if of different phases--where the top of
| one wave starts at the same time the bottom of the second
| wave does. It does this by creating overtones when the light
| hits a gas. It's not just turning on light and turning it off
| again like a switch. Maybe try superimposing your API calls.
| alex_c wrote:
| Linked elsewhere in this thread:
|
| https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-
| physicspr...
|
| I understand (at an undergrad level) superimposing light
| waves. But this blows my mind:
|
| _At the same time, Ferenc Krausz and his research group in
| Austria were working on a technique that could select a
| single pulse - like a carriage being uncoupled from a train
| and switched to another track. The pulse they succeeded in
| isolating lasted 650 attoseconds_
| spacemadness wrote:
| Understanding it at a high-level certainly doesn't take
| away from the achievement one bit. You still have to be
| incredibly precise and know the techniques inside and
| out. Obviously everyone agrees since they received a
| Nobel Prize.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Don't tell the HFTs about these laser thingies!
| jb1991 wrote:
| Don't be too hard on yourself. We can't all be Nobel
| laureates.
| liotier wrote:
| Indeed - the state of HTLM parsing is not so bad that
| improving it might produce Nobel Laureates...
| liotier wrote:
| Damn, I meant HTML !
| fooker wrote:
| Sure, if you can parse it with regex! ;)
| xxs wrote:
| I know it's said in a jest. 100ms overall is extra high (not
| just reduce).
| boringg wrote:
| I thought you were being glib but no: "An attosecond is so
| short that that the number of them in one second is the same as
| the number of seconds that have elapsed since the universe came
| into existence, 13.8 billion years ago. On a more relatable
| scale, we can imagine a fash of light being sent from one end
| of a room to the opposite wall - this takes ten billion
| attoseconds."
|
| That's truly amazing that we can measure at that detail. Mind
| blowing actually.
| yard2010 wrote:
| This makes me feel empty
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| You are the universe, no reason to feel empty :)
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| > am the universe > literally mostly empty > no reason to
| feel empty?
| wayeq wrote:
| The universe is not empty, even 'empty space' is not
| empty.
| [deleted]
| Gooblebrai wrote:
| Neat! This comparison makes easier to understand the magnitude.
| RantyDave wrote:
| So, and I'm feeling a bit stupid here, not visible light? Because
| the pulse must be _a_ complete wave, right? It goes from not
| being there, to being there, to not being there. And "a few
| dozen attoseconds" is very much shorter than the wave period of
| visible light. These flashes are low end x-rays?
| gumby wrote:
| Somehow I had this brief image of some ancient, stooped and
| heavily wrinkled codger being interviewed by the BBC seemingly
| interrupted while working in the field: "Another Nobel for the
| study of the electron? That tiny lepton? In this day and age?
| They should encourage people to work on quantum gravity."
|
| I actually think this work is cool so I can't explain that
| passing image. Sometimes our brains are weird.
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