ЖУРНАЛ ФIЗИЧНИХ ДОСЛIДЖЕНЬт. 19, № 4 (2015) 4002(6 с.)

JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL STUDIESv. 19, No. 4 (2015) 4002(6 p.)

NOBEL PRIZES IN QUANTUM MECHANICS: A STATISTICAL APPROACH

Barde Nilesh1, Desai Suhas2, Bardapurkar Pranav3∗1Department of Physics, Badrinarayan Barwale Mahavidyalaya, Jalna, Maharashtra, India

2Department of Physics, Government College of Engineering, Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India∗3Department of Physics, S.N. Arts, D.J.M. Commerce & B.N.S. Science College, Sangamner, Maharashtra, India

∗Corresponding author: pranavbardapurkar@yahoo.com(Received October 11, 2015; in final form — December 31, 2015)

The present article presents a systematic overview of the Nobel Prize winners over the last115 years in Physics, particularly one of its branches — quantum mechanics, based on the dataavailable over the same period. An attempt has been made to show the trend lines of the areaof research in quantum mechanics in this period. Quarter-wise analysis of the prizewinners is alsopresented. Various factors such as beneficiary Universities, respective countries, and age factors ofNobel laureates are discussed. The results of statistical analysis are discussed in the light of theimplications for novices, who have a keen interest to know more about the development of quantumtheory.

Key words: Nobel laureates, quantum mechanics, statistical analysis.

PACS number(s): 03.65.−w

I. INTRODUCTION

The Nobel Foundation based in Sweden has beenawarding the most prestigious Nobel Prize for more thana century, to carry out the final will of the Swedishchemist and inventor Alfred Nobel who wished to recog-nize people whose work has conferred the greatest ben-efit to mankind. The prizes are awarded in five differ-ent fields for outstanding work, i.e. in Physics, Chem-istry, Economics, Medicine (Physiology), Literature andPeace. The prize has achieved an enormous social fameinternationally for the performance given by the laure-ates in their respective fields. Nobel Prize had proventhat it becomes a social force, which not only shapesthe organization, individuals but also improves the liv-ing standard of human beings through the elaboratedtheories especially in science. According to Alfred No-bel’s will, the award and its selection criteria is adminis-tered by the Nobel Foundation, consisting of five membercommittees which are bound to Royal Swedish Academyof Sciences. On the death anniversary of Nobel that ison December 10 every year the award is presented inStockholm. Each winner receives a medal and a mone-tary award prize, which is varied every year [1–3].

The Nobel Prize in the area of Physical sciences wasestablished in 1901. It was meant to felicitate the personwho invented or discovered the most groundbreaking re-search in the respective field. Laureates get public recog-nition and testimony for their work and are expected toplay a vital role for deciding future policies in improv-ing technological developments. Due to the fame thatmakes Nobel Prize a prestigious award internationally,common researchers are always eager to know about thefield of study interests as well as background of the win-ner. The statistical analysis of all the Nobel prizes in therespective field is also of curiosity and general scholar-

ly interest. Details of Nobel laureates always add flavorsin a student’s educational life. Currently, abundant de-mographic analysis has been done by a number of peo-ple about the winners, mostly in all the mentioned fiveareas. However, scarce literature is available about thespecialized field. In this article, a systematic analysis ofNobel laureates in quantum mechanics is presented overa period from 1901 to 2015. The main thrust of the sta-tistical analysis is to elaborate the key areas to whichthe winners had contributed, owing to which the quan-tum theory has developed in the last century. Along withthe Nobel winning concepts, there are many such dis-coveries and inventions which were excluded from theaward viz. Einstein’s mass-energy relation was the fa-mous one. It also excludes the contributors before the20th century such as Newton, Galileo, Faraday, etc. fortheir pioneer work, which really helped experimental andtheoretical physicists to develop as a specific subject inscientific community. On the similar line, researchers inquantum mechanics, which were supposed to be consid-ered for the award, but excluded and not been recog-nized, introduced few concepts. In the current article, aspecial highlight is given on these theories. The article al-so provides an overview of the laureates along with theirrespective award winning areas, which may be signifi-cant enough for those who are interested and has plansto enter a fascinating field of the quantum world [7–11].

II. ON QUANTUM MECHANICS AND ITSDEVELOPMENT

Before going into a detailed analysis of the award win-ners and their remarkable work, it is essential to overviewthe basic notions and building blocks of quantum me-chanics. This will facilitate to emphasize the significanceof the award winning concepts.

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In the early decades of the nineteenth century, it waswell known that the Newtonian mechanics could describethe motion of rigid and celestial bodies. However, theselaws failed to elucidate the motion of subatomic parti-cles but, on the other hand, quantum theory had a greatsuccess at it [4].

Quantum mechanics plays a decisive role at the microlevel. The transistor, electron microscopes and the laserbased on quantum concepts are a few examples to men-tion. Moreover, superconductivity, photonics, spintronicsand nanotechnology, which promise to give a completelydifferent and better shape to the existing technologies,are also the outcome of quantum mechanics and speakof an importance of the theory [5].

The discovery of a dual nature of matter and waves hadbeen a landmark in quantum theory. This changed theentire perception about these notions. In 1900, one yearprior to the inception of Nobel prizes, Max Planck laid afoundation stone of quantum mechanics, with the quan-tum theory of black body radiation; through which heproposed that the electromagnetic radiations are emit-ted in discrete bundles and not continuous. The bundleof energy is an integral multiple of frequency of radia-tion. which later was termed as “quanta” and led to thestepping-stone for quantum mechanics. A couple of yearslater, one of the greatest physicists: Niels Bohr coined theterm “quantization” which assumes that angular momen-tum changes discontinuously with certain discrete values.The concept of a bundle of energy packets, now knownas photons, has its origin during the same period, whichresolved the mystery of the hydrogen atom spectrum andorbital motion of electrons unexplained classically. It isbelieved that this was the end of the classical era.

Later in 1923, the French physicist Louis de-Broglieexplained the wave nature of particles. In 1924, the Indi-an Physicists Satyendra Bose along with Albert Einsteinformulated the appropriate statistical law for the parti-cles (now called “Bosons”) known as Bose–Einstein dis-tribution law. In 1925, Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit discov-ered the spin of electron, one of an important property inquantum mechanics. A theoretical matrix mechanics wasdeveloped by Werner Heisenberg in the same year, whichafter a few decades further elaborated by Max Born andPascal Jordan provided a statistical touch to the wavefunction. This initiated a specialized branch named non-relativistic quantum theory. In 1926 wave mechanics wasinvented by Schrodinger with the specialized wave func-tion Ψ, which turned out to be another formulation ofmathematical quantum theory. Wolfgang Pauli explainedwave theory (1927) by using spin concept and in 1928Paul Dirac formulated the relativistic version of quan-tum mechanics. The period, 1920 to 1930, will alwaysbe remembered as a crucial decade which witnessed therevolutionary development of quantum mechanics.

The theory was then applied for inventing fascinatingapplications like maser/lasers (Charles Townes–NicolayBasov–Aleksander Prokhorov), quantum electrodynam-ics (Julian Schwinger–Richard Feynman), quantum Halleffect (Klaus Von Klitzing), etc. Even in the 21st centuryit has been demonstrated that this theory is still emanat-

ing an exciting phenomenon such as controlling quantumstates which is necessary to develop a new generation ofquantum computers [4–6].

Despite its success to explain matter and energy interms of their basic building blocks, solving the mysteryof ultraviolet catastrophe, behavior of elementary parti-cles at the atomic level, etc. quantum mechanics is stilltreated as an abstract theory due to the wrong percep-tions and avoiding application oriented visual approachtowards the theory. However, the enormous contributionof quantum mechanics and its patrons led to the mostfascinating award, the Nobel Prize, a number of times.

III. THE ANALYSIS

The analysis of Nobel Prize admiration for contribu-tors in quantum theory was accomplished by developinga data bank comprising of details of laureates along withtheir countries, field of research, year in which they werefelicitated, organization in which the work was being car-ried out, etc.

To know the respective field of research, the Nobel lec-tures were reviewed in detail proceeding from which thecore area for award was identified. Table 1 presents com-pilation of the database. The analysis also includes thefact that the Prizes were not awarded to individuals orany organization in the field of Physics in the years 1916,1931, 1934, 1940–42.

The analysis based on the quarter century in whichprizes were awarded, age of laureates, their nationality,university, etc. is presented in the following sections.

A. Quarter

The quarter-wise awards won by laureates are present-ed in Figure 1. The first quarter of the 21st century isconsidered as a fifth quarter of the prize.

Fig. 1. Quarter-wise distribution

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NOBEL PRIZES IN QUANTUM MECHANICS: A STATISTICAL APPROACH

S.N. Name ofScientists

Nationality University Field of Research Year ofAward

1 Max Planck Germany Munich Discovery of quanta 1918

2Prince Louisde Broglie France Sorbonne Wave nature of matter 1929

3WernerHeisenberg Germany Munich Creation of quantum mechanics 1932

4ErwinSchrodinger Austria Vienna

New productive form of atomictheory 1933

5 Paul Dirac G. Britain Cambridge New productive form of atomic theory 1933

6 WolfgangPauli

Austria–USA Munich Exclusion Principle 1945

7 Max Born Germany Goettingen Statistical interpretation of the wavefunction 1954

8 WaltherBothe

Germany Berlin Coincidence method and hisdiscoveries made therewith 1954

9 CharlesTownes USA Cal Tech

Fundamental work in the field ofquantum electronics, led tomaser-laser principle

1964

10 NicolayBasov USSR Moscow

Fundamental work in the field ofquantum electronics, led toMASER-LASER principle

1964

11 AleksanderProkhorov USSR Moscow

Fundamental work in the field ofquantum electronics, led toMASER-LASER principle

1964

12Sin-ItiroTomonaga Japan Kyoto Fundamental work in quantum

electrodynamics 1965

13JulianSchwinger USA Columbia

Fundamental work in quantumelectrodynamics 1965

14RichardFeynman USA Princeton

Fundamental work in quantumelectrodynamics 1965

15Klaus vonKlitzing

Poland–Germany Wuerzburg Discovery of quantized Hall effect 1985

16RobertLaughlin USA MIT

New form of quantum fluid withfractionally charged excitations 1998

17 HorstStormer

Germany–USA

Stuttgart New form of quantum fluid withfractionally charged excitations 1998

18 Gerardus’t Hooft Netherlands Utrecht

Quantum structure of electroweakinteractions in physics 1999

19 MartiniusVeltman Netherlands Utrecht

Quantum structure of electroweakinteractions in physics 1999

20 DavidWineland USA Harvard

Experimental methods measuring andmanipulation of individual quantumsystems

2012

21 SergeHaroche France Marie

Curie

Experimental methods measuring andmanipulation of individual quantumsystems

2012

Table 1. Database for the analysis.

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BARDE NILESH, DESAI SUHAS, BARDAPURKAR PRANAV

B. Age of laureates

The statistical analysis shows that there is a wide dis-tribution of awards to laureates of different age groups.This is more elaborated in Figure 2.

Fig. 2. Age-wise distribution

The above histogram indicates that Heisenberg,Dirac and de-Broglie got their Nobel prize before theage of 40, which was too young for physicist as com-pared to other fields. Max Born was the eldest one whowas awarded at the age of 72 for his fascinating work instatistical interpretation of wave function. It is aparentfrom the graph that the majority of the laureates got theprize between the age of 41 and 50 in the mid of theircareer.

C. Nationality

Figure 3 illustrates the analysis based on native coun-try of the prizewinners.

2 2

1

5

1

2

1

5

2

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Number of Nobel laureates

Fig. 3. Nationality and the number of laureates

Though Wolfgang Pauli & Horst Stormer had the UScitizenship, their homelands, that is, Austria and Ger-many are considered for the analysis. Likewise, Klaus

von Klitzing is considered as Polish. Figure 3 indicatesthat most number of quantum physicists were from Ger-many and USA (Equal in number). Here most impor-tant thing to be noted is that the Germans were thefirst who initialized the research work in quantum the-ory, afterwards, in the second half of the century, thephysicists from the USA won the prestigious prize. Thismay be attributed to a high standard of universities inGermany prior to the world wars, as compared to thatof the USA and other countries. Japan is the only Asiancountry that succeeded into grabbing Nobel in the areaof quantum mechanics (Tomonaga won the prize for hispioneering work in quantum electrodynamics along withSchiwinger and Feynman; both from the USA).

D. University

If the University of Prize Winners is analyzed (shownin Figure 4) it can be observed that Munich in Germanyis the only university that got three Nobel laureates, i.e.Planck, Heisenberg and Pauli. Next comes with Utrechtin the Netherlands which got two Nobel laureates win-ning the prize in the year 1999 for their work in elu-cidating the quantum structure of electroweak interac-tions in physics. It is very strange to observe that nota single university from the USA and UK exists thatwon more than one Nobel prize in the field of quantumphysics, while such universities as Columbia, Princeton,MIT, Cambridge, Oxford got more than two Nobel win-ners in the field of Chemical sciences, Physiology, etc.

Fig. 4. University-wise distribution

E. Great scientists but not Nobel laureats

There are many researchers in quantum mechanicswho introduced novel concepts that contributed signif-icantly to the development of the theory and were sup-posed to be considered for the award, but excluded andwithout being recognized. Some of them are listed in Ta-ble 2 along with their field of research.

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NOBEL PRIZES IN QUANTUM MECHANICS: A STATISTICAL APPROACH

S.N. Name of the Scientists Field of Research

1 A. Sommerfeld

His noteworthy contribution includes inception of theazimuthal and spin quantum number, a pioneeringwork in fine-structure consonant. He had been thesupervisor for doctoral work for more Nobel prizewinners in Physics than any other to date.

2 Paul EhrenfestHe has made a significant contribution in relationbetween statistical and quantum mechanics, theoremfor average motion of wave packet, etc.

3 Wentzel, Kramer andBrillouin

Developed the WKB approximation method for weakpotentials

4 HilbertSignificant formulation of Hilbert space for themathematical basis of quantum theory.

5 Clebsch and GordonDefining coefficients in angular momentum andrelativistic equations.

Table 2. Eminent scientists without the Nobel prize

It was observed that Universities and colleges hadpaved a path for the advancement in research in thefield of quantum mechanics. Pre-World War I era wasmost fruitful for the universities in Germany resultingin a high standard research work as compared to otherEuropean countries. However, after the 1950’s, new insti-tutes emerged in to USA and other developed countriesand were honored with the association of most of therecipients of Nobel Prizes.

IV. KEY FINDINGS

Our analysis highlights some of the key findings listedas below:

1. Only 11% of total laureates in Physics untill 2015got the prize for their contribution in the field ofquantum mechanics.

2. Most of the key discoveries (38%) occurred in mid20th century.

3. The majority of the laureates were awarded theprize between the ages of 30 and 75.

4. Germany and USA show a momentous contribu-tion in developing quantum mechanics.

5. Munich in Germany gave three Nobel laureateswhich is much higher than any other university forsame field.

6. However, some of the researchers were unfortunatenot to have receive the prestigious award, but theyleft their impact in the field of quantum mechanicsowing to their pioneering contributions.

[1] W. Zhang, R. G. Fuller, Phys. Educ. 33, 196 (1990).[2] J. M. Moran-Mirabal, K. Andersen, J. D. McMullen, in

Fundamentals of Physics, vol. I, edited by J. L. Moran-Lopez (EOLSS Publishers, Oxford, UK, 2005), p. 169.

[3] List of Nobel Laureates in Physics, available at http://www.wikipedia.org and http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/.

[4] R. Shankar, Principles of Quantum Mechanics (PlenumPublishes, N.Y, 1994).

[5] J. M. Jauch, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics(Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1968).

[6] R. W. Robinett, Quantum Mechanics (Oxford UniversityPress, 2006).

[7] Shuwen Wang, J. Camb. Stud. 1, No. 1, 49 (2006).[8] D. Srivastava, R. Kundra, S. Diwakar, in: Proceedings of

WIS 2008 (Berlin, 2008); see at http://www.collnet.de/Berlin-2008/SrivastavaWIS2008anp.pdf

[9] B. S. Schlessinger, J. S. Schlessinger, The Who’s Who ofNobel Prize Winners (Greenwood Press, 1996).

[10] N. L. Mathkari, Curr. Sci. 91, 705 (2006).[11] P. Balram, Curr. Sci. 85, 1113 (2003).

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BARDE NILESH, DESAI SUHAS, BARDAPURKAR PRANAV

НОБЕЛIВСЬКI ПРЕМIЇ З КВАНТОВОЇ МЕХАНIКИ: СТАТИСТИЧНИЙ ПIДХIД

Барде Нiлеш1, Десаї Сугас2, Бардапуркар Пранав3

1Коледж Бадрiнараян Барвале, Джальна, Магараштра, Iндiя,2Урядовий iнженерний коледж, Ауранґабад, Магараштра, Iндiя,

3Коледж м. Санґамнер, Магараштра, Iндiя

У статтi подано систематичний огляд нобелiвських лауреатiв iз фiзики за останнi 115 рокiв в однiйiз галузей — квантовiй механiцi — та зроблено спробу показати загальну тенденцiю дослiджень. Аналiззроблено вiд моменту створення квантової теорiї за двадцятип’ятирiчними перiодами. Обговорено рiзнiчинники:вiк нобелiвських лауреатiв, унiверситети, де вони працювали, та вiдповiднi країни. Результатистатистичного аналiзу можуть зацiкавити читачiв, якi хочуть бiльше дiзнатися про розвиток квантовоїтеорiї.

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