The sneaky folks at the Nobel Foundation have thrown a spanner in the works when it comes to the Physics prize. All the speculation has surrounded exotic quantum effects and theoretical esoterica, and they turn around and give it to something –gasp– practical…
The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics is split three ways: half to Charles K. Kao “for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication,” and the other half to Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith “for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor.”
Now these aren’t fundamental physics discoveries like the Aharanov-Bohm effect or the Higgs Boson, but they are undeniably important to modern life– fiver optics are absolutely essential to modern physics, and modern astronomy would be impossible without the CCD sensor. Without this year’s laureates, I wouldn’t have the shiny new camera I use to take Thursday Baby Blogging pictures, and I wouldn’t be able to use the Internet to send them to you.
So congratulations to this year’s Nobel laureates in physics. They’ve made life better for everyone, and that’s worth some recognition. And pour a little beer on the ground in memory of the glory that was Bell Labs, where Boyle and Smith did their work. The CCD joins a long list of other Nobel-winning or world-changing discoveries invented or perfected at Bell Labs, which was dismantled because Wall Street decided it wasn’t worth the investment.