Author:  Adam Zhang

Earlier this month, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics to David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane, and J. Michael Kosterlitz “for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter." Though currently affiliated with the University of Washington, Brown University, and Princeton University, respectively, the British-born physicists were honored for work conducted in the 1970s, which revolutionized our understanding of exotic states of matter and created new perspectives on the development of quantum and nanomaterials.