Quantum Vortices and Superconductivity + Challenge Answers | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios

Scientists studying quantum vortices and their impact on superconductivity just won the Nobel Prize. Get your own Space Time tshirt at http://bit.ly/1QlzoBi Tweet at us! @pbsspacetime Facebook:...

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This year's Nobel Prize in Physics went to three researchersfor major breakthroughs in understanding the strange quantum behaviorof very, very cold materials.Half of the near one million dollar prize was awarded to David Thouless,and the other half split between collaborators Michael Kosterlitz and Duncan Haldane.These theoretical physicists pioneered work in the understanding of phase transitionsof materials at temperatures close to absolute zero.The familiar phase transitions happen due to heating or cooling of a material.For example: going from a gas to a liquid to a solid as temperature drops,and the motion of individual particles in the material gets slower and slower.However, at extremely cold temperatures, this thermal motionis so small that quantum e...