Princeton University
professor F. Duncan
Haldane has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics "for
theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases
of matter."
Haldane, the Eugene Higgins
Professor of Physics who
joined the Princeton faculty in 1990, shares the prize with David Thouless of
the University of Washington and J. Michael Kosterlitz of
Brown University.
"They have used advanced
mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as
superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films," the Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences said in announcing the award.
"I was very surprised and
very gratified," the professor said during the Nobel news conference.
Kosterlitz was a visiting
professor at Princeton in 1978.
Haldane said in an interview
that it was "the usual thing" when he received notification of his
award: a call from Sweden awakened him at home around 4:30 a.m. Princeton time.
"My work was a kind of
sleeper," he said. "It was a very theoretical thing. ... It didn't
become such a big deal until my work got extended" by other scientists.
On the nature of discovery, he
said: "All these things are things that no one expects. You stumble
over something and then you find the big picture after."
Haldane, who taught a
regularly scheduled graduate class Tuesday, joins several other Princeton faculty members who
have received a Nobel Prize in physics, including Philip Anderson,
Joseph Taylor, Daniel Tsui and David Gross.
Haldane earned his B.A. in
1973 and Ph.D. in 1978, both from the University of Cambridge.
From 1977 to 1981 he was a
physicist at Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France. He joined the faculty
at the University of Southern California in 1981. He served as a member of the
technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill from 1985 to 1988,
and was a professor at the University of California-San Diego from 1986 to
1992.
He was elected a fellow of the
American Physical Society in 1986 and awarded a Sloan Foundation fellowship
from 1984 to 1988.
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