How a bagel, cinnamon bun and pretzel explain this year's Nobel Prize in Physics
A member of the Nobel Prize committee tries to explain this year's physics winners using baked goods: a Swedish pretzel, a cinnamon bun, and a bagel.
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Thors Hans Hansson used a bagel, pretzel and a cinnamon bun to illustrate his explanations while announcing the winners of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics. (AFP/Getty Images)
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As It Happens6:34How a bagel, cinnamon bun and pretzel explain this year's Nobel Prize in Physics
According to the Nobel Prize committee for physics, three British scientists have discovered something amazing.
We'll have to take their word for it because the subject matter is so esoteric that you'd have to be a rocket scientist — or maybe a theoretical physicist — to understand it.
Thankfully, at Tuesday's news conference announcing the winner of the Nobel for physics, committee member Thors Hans Hansson tried to explain the discovery using something we can all understand: baked goods.
He spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off about how he held up a bagel, a cinnamon bun and a Swedish pretzel as a reference, before launching into a discussion of topological concepts of matter. Here is part of their conversation:
Professor Thors Hans Hansson mid-demonstration, after revealing the winners of the Nobel Prize in physics. (Anders Wiklund/TT/ AP)
Carol Off: Mr. Hans Hansson, did your colleagues know this morning that you were going to stand up with baked goods to try to explain this year's physics prize?
Thors Hans Hansson: A couple of them who are actually on the Nobel Committee knew about it and some of the staff. It was the wife of one of the staff members there who baked the pretzel last night.
CO: It was fresh?
THH: Yes. It was fresh. The bagels and the buns we bought. But we needed a pretzel with two holes. Most pretzels have three holes. We needed one with two holes, so she baked them for us.
Duncan Haldane, David Thouless and Michael Kosterlitz have won the Nobel Prize for Physics. (Dominic Reuter/Reuters, American Institute of Physics, Lehtikuva/Roni Rekomaa via Reuters) CO: Just tell us how you explained the prize with your baked goods.
THH: This demonstration was to explain one topic, which is actually important for this year's prize. So I hold up the bun and then I hold up the bagel and then I hold up the pretzel. I say, there are lots of things that are very different with these things. They taste differently. They have different shapes. But all these differences are not really of importance for a topologist. A topologist is a certain kind of mathematician and she will only care about one difference between these objects, namely that it has zero holes, one hole or two holes. As far as she's concerned, the bagel could be a teacup because a teacup also has one hole, if it has one ear [handle].
CO: How did the British scientists who were winning the Nobel Prize for this react to your baked goods demonstration?
THH: Well, I've only briefly said congratulations to one of them.
CO: Do you think they are going to suggest that you oversimplified their life's work?
THH: Actually I don't think so because, as theoretical physicists, we are so used to people telling us, "I don't understand anything." So we do our best to simplify to get at least something across.
Nobel committee members announce the physics prize in Stockholm on Tuesday. David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz, left to right on the screen, share the 2016 award. (Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images) CO: Who got to eat the baked goods when you were done?
THH: Actually, I had one with my coffee, after the presentation. I ate one of the pretzels.
CO: You ate the pretzel. Who got the bun and who got the bagel?
THH: The bun and the bagel are still there. I might have one of the bagels for lunch tomorrow, but Swedish bagels are not very good actually.
CO: There should be a Nobel Prize for someone who makes proper bagels — real bagels — New York or Montreal bagels. That's what you need.
THH: Someone told me Montreal bagels are good. Toronto ones are not good. I've tried those. But what can I say? I've never tried a Montreal one.
CO: Now you've sparked a real debate — way beyond physics!
THH: [Laughs] I guess so.
For more on this story, including a more detailed explanation of the Nobel Prize recipients' work in topology, listen to our full interview with Thor Hans Hansson.
