Nobel topics: the people’s choice

By Hamish Johnston

It’s all hands to the pumps here at physicsworld.com HQ in the run up to the physics Nobel prize announcement, which will be made this morning at (or after) 10.30 a.m. BST.

Last week we asked our Facebook followers what field of physics they thought this year’s prize would honour – and now I can reveal the results.

Nearly half of you thought that this year’s prize will go for quantum information. While it’s tough to single out three people who should be awarded the prize, I would think Anton Zeilinger, Dave Wineland and Alain Aspect would be in the running.

In second place with about 29% of the vote is neutrino oscillations, which would put my fellow countryman Art McDonald of SNOLAB in the running along with two researchers from the Super-Kamiokande experiment in Japan.

Less than two hours to go…