Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, Shuji Nakamura won the Nobel Prize for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.
Do you think this research is so important?
I think so!!
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2014/press.html
From my point of view this year is weak for competitors. Obviously, the research done by these guys is really important and for sure it will have (and have already) a big impact on economy - but it seems like an incremental study.
Dear A. A. Timopheev,
thanks for your point of view. I think that is increasingly difficult for pure research!
In general I agree with you, Werner. However, the Nobel prize for graphene is a real prize in physics, while the Nobel prize for a blue LED, is actually rather technological achievement, having however several important breakthroughs in physics as well.
Well...)))))))
Yes, the particle accelerator and the detector are rather incremental technological achievement, the basic physical concepts of those are almost the same like they were before the new accelerator was built. It's bigger, faster, smarter... but still the same. But the concept of a mass carrying boson it's a real breakthrough in physics which could give rise to some unbelievable results in future physics and technology as well. Just imagine, that people will manage to "de-bosonificate" real objects - they will be massless. We can go to the stars and planets, which are for sure now beyond the today's horizon of our physical and technological capabilities. This is just a fantasy, but who knows...)))
I agree that the "real prize in physics" this year was given as a Nobel prize in chemistry. In combination with the other points you mentioned (as well as your conclusions) I would say that probably the main problem of nowadays is a strong overlapping between the disciplines which one hundred years ago were considered as almost independent ones.
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