David Thouless may not be a household name to many but his work on exotic states of matter has seen him and two colleagues take out this year’s Nobel prize for physics … he is also uncle to Valla resident Peter Sobey.
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Peter alerted the Guardian to the exciting news recently, saying the win was “a big deal, not just for my family, but for the whole world”.
He said had spoken with his uncle to congratulate him.
“He has a very unassuming nature and is not very pushy, otherwise he might have been awarded the prize several decades ago. It is for work on topology that he did in the 70's,” Peter said.
Peter’s mother, Susan, is David’s only sibling. She and her husband Bill moved to Valla and later Sawtell. She died in 2010.
“My uncle David and Margaret visited Australia several times, in the 60's, 90's and 2010 and I visited them in Seattle in 1990. We used to write letters (remember those?) and more lately we stay in touch by email and phone.
“David’s work will have a significant impact in coming decades on the development of computer technology.”
David Thouless will share the eight million Swedish kronor (£718,000) prize with Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz.
Peter added the following details about previous Nobel physics prize winners:
It is also worth noting that the Nobel prize in physics puts David Thouless into the same league as Paul Dirac, Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. Physics prize winners become a part of history in a way that defines the culture we live in and the way we understand the physical world. For example, consider the previous winners and how their names are still relevant today. In fact, how their names are intimately linked to their discoveries and our understanding of the world in popular culture.
1903 – Marie and Pierre Curie and Antoine Becquerel - for the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity. This was the real start of the nuclear age. Both Curie and Becquerel are now used as standard units of radioactivity levels.
1915 – Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg - Australian father and son for their use of X-rays in the analysis of crystal structures. The University of Adelaide has the Bragg Lecture Theatre (Peter took physics classes there during his time at the university where he did his PhD in Mechanical Engineering).
1918 – Max Plank - for his work on the discovery of energy quanta. His name is now used for a fundamental measurement of length.
1921 – Albert Einstein - for the discovery of the photoelectric effect. He is perhaps best known for his development of the Special and General Theories of Relativity which fundamentally changed the way we understand the nature of space and time and put the Newtonian understanding into a larger context. Most people have heard of the equation E = mc2 (energy equals mass times the speed of light squared) that relates matter to energy and the speed of light. This is a part of his legacy.
1932 – Werner Heisenberg - for the creation of quantum mechanics. He is perhaps best known in popular culture for his Uncertainty Principal.
1933 – Erwin Schrödinger and Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac - for atomic theory. Schrödinger is often popularly known for his theoretical cat which is both dead and alive. Together they laid the groundwork for the development of nuclear energy.
2013 – François Englert and Peter W. Higgs - for work on subatomic particles that was confirmed by the discovery of the Higgs boson - the so-called ‘God’ particle.
Story source courtesy of Peter Sobey: Three share Nobel prize in physics
Other related content: BBC radio interview with David Thouless, Award details and recent photo
