Brown professor awarded Nobel Prize in physics

BROWN UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR MICHAEL Kosterlitz has been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY
BROWN UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR MICHAEL Kosterlitz has been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE – Brown University Professor J. Michael Kosterlitz has been awarded the Nobel prize in physics “for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter” by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Brown University President Christina H. Paxson congratulated Kosterlitz.
“This is such a well deserved honor, and everyone at Brown is thrilled and delighted by this recognition of Professor Kosterlitz and his important body of research and scholarship,” Paxson said in a statement.

A member of the Brown faculty since 1979, Kosterlitz, 73, is the Harrison E. Farnsworth Professor of Physics.
He is sharing one half of the Nobel prize with F. Duncan M. Haldane of Princeton University, while the other half of the prize is going to David J. Thouless of the University of Washington in Seattle.

“This year’s Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stated in a news release. “They have used advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases, or states, of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films. Thanks to their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter. Many people are hopeful of future applications in both materials science and electronics.”
Kosterlitz, who explained the existence of the superfluid state in thin films of helium, is known for his work in condensed matter physics that sorted out an apparently impossible contradiction between theory and experiment.
Using a branch of mathematics known as topology in the early 1970s, Kosterlitz and Thouless overturned the exiting theory that superconductivity or suprafluidity could not occur in thin layers. They showed that superconductivity could occur at low temperatures and explained the mechanism that makes superconductivity disappear at higher temperatures.
Gang Xiao, chair of the physics department at Brown, said he is excited Kosterlitz received the Nobel Prize in physics.
“We have anticipated this news for many years … Michael’s groundbreaking work in new and exotic phases of matter is not only important in basic research, but will also revolutionize future electronics and materials sciences. Michael has been an inspirational colleague for all of us in the physics department. Many of us are developing the exotic materials that he, Dr. Thouless and Dr. Haldane predicted many years ago,” Xiao said.
In 2007, Kosterlitz was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a fellow. He also is a fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of a Maxwell Medal from the Institute of Physics.
Brown officials said Kosterlitz was traveling and unavailable for comment. However, his son, Jonathan Kosterlitz, weighed in on the honor.
“I’ve never been more proud of my father,” his son said. “He’s a man who’s always shunned the spotlight, and no one deserves to have the sun shine on him more than he.”

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