I’ve been doing this summary of the Nobel Prizes since 2010. I’m late this year due to vacationing in Greece (more on that later) but here is this year’s round up, better late than never I suppose.

This year the physics prize goes to François Englert and Peter W. Higgs for independently proposing the theory of how particles acquire mass in 1964. This theory involves the existence of a special kind of particle, now known as the Higgs boson. This award is especially delightful for me, having recently worked through the From the Big Bang to Dark Energy course on Coursera which spent considerable time on the subject. This theory filled a hole in the Standard Model of physics because without mass, matter would collapse as electrons dispersed from atoms at light speed, yet some particles, such as photons, must remain massless for the Standard Model to hold. The Higgs field then breaks the symmetry, allowing some particles which do not interact with the Higgs field to remain massless, while those that do, gain mass.

The award was prompted by news this year that CERN’s Large Hadron Collider had found the proposed particle at an energy level of 125 GeV, about a hundred times heavier than a proton, definitively proving the correctness of their theory.

The chemistry award goes to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel for developing innovative techniques to simulate models of chemical reactions on a computer. Previously scientists had to choose between modelling chemical reactions in terms of classical physics or in terms of quantum mechanics. The former method allowed scientists to calculate and model large chemical molecules but since molecules are excited and become filled with energy during chemical reactions, the classical systems cannot simulate them as they have no understanding of the energy state of molecules. Quantum mechanical models do allow scientists to simulate reactions but they require enormous amounts of computing power such that scientists were restricted to only very small molecules.

This new system, published as the first computerized model of an enzymatic reaction in 1976, married the best of both worlds. Quantum physical calculations are used on the electrons and atomic nuclei that are directly involved in the reaction being studied but classical equations are used to model the other parts of the molecule. This allows scientists to model even the chemical reactions of large molecules today.

The medicine award goes to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof for working out precisely how the transportation system inside cells work. This is based around vesicles, miniature, bubble-like structures inside cells, that shuttle cargo between the different organelles of the cell or fuse with the outer membrane of the cell to deliver cargo outside of the cell. Working separately, the three scientists unravelled different parts of the system between the 1970s and the 1990s.

One of them found how genes contributed to the different facets of the vesicle system. Another discovered that proteins on the vesicles and target membranes fitted each other uniquely like two sides of a zipper, ensuring that the correct molecules would be delivered to the correct location and that the genes previously discovered coded for these proteins. The third identified molecular machinery in cells which responds to an influx of calcium ions and then directs neighboring proteins to bind vesicles to the outer membrane of the nerve cell, allowing neurotransmitter signalling substances to be released and explaining how nerve cells communicate with one another.

Finally the economics prize is awarded to Eugene F. Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert J. Shiller for their contributions to the study of asset prices. These studies spanning the 1960s to the 1980s, first established that stock prices are indeed extremely difficult to predict in the short run and that new information is incorporated very quickly in market prices. Yet paradoxically, in the longer run, they are easier to predict as the stock’s value corresponds well to the expected value of future dividends. It was further found, using a new statistical method, that the well-known Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model (CCAPM) widely used in the 1970s could not match the wide fluctuations of asset prices, prompting extensions to the model.

These findings are currently foundational to the study of asset prices in both academic research and market practice. One result is the emergence of index funds in stock markets all over the world. Another is the development of the Case-Schiller housing price index which helps gauge trends in housing prices.