By Simon Li and Jonah Ruddock
Physics
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for their work in quantum mechanics. Independently, each of these physicists essentially proved that information could travel faster than light.
In quantum mechanics, particle pairs can be “entangled,” or share a property where when you manipulate one, you manipulate the other as well. This “spooky action at a distance,” as Einstein called it, happens irrespective of distance. The particles could be a few feet apart or an entire universe apart: changing one still means the change of another. Information between the particles must necessarily travel faster than light.
In their research, Clauser proved that light could be entangled, Aspect proved that entangled light could not be communicating through “hidden variables”, and Zeilinger proved that it was possible to “link” entangled systems together to create a quantum network.
All together, their work forms the basis of quantum computing and quantum communication; without their work, quantum computers, satellites, sensors, and so much more would not be possible.
Chemistry
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and Barry Sharpless for their work in click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.
Click chemistry is exactly what it sounds like: having molecules “snap” together in a quick, irreversible reaction with little to no byproducts. After Sharpless theorized this in 2001, both he and Meldal independently came to the conclusion of the ideal “click” reaction: a copper-catalyzed azide alkyne cycloaddition. In other words, azide and alkyne, two molecules, are snapped with a copper catalyst. This technique can be used for multiple purposes, including mapping DNA, developing pharmaceuticals, and synthesizing new molecules.
However, due to the toxicity of copper, this reaction could not be used in living organisms—until Bertozzi found a way to remove the copper catalyst in 2004. Through the use of a strained cyclooctyne instead of an alkyne, Bertozzi found that a catalyst was not needed to produce a click reaction between it and an azide.
She termed the new reaction bioorthogonal chemistry, or “not interacting with biology” chemistry, and used it to tag molecules within cancer cells without affecting their biochemistry.
Physiology or Medicine
Svante Pääbo (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)
Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo took the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine for his pioneering work in the field of paleogenomics, which deals with the comparison of genetic material between humans and extinct hominins. While he helped to uncover the extinct hominin species Denisova through DNA evidence, he is most famous for his work sequencing the Neanderthal genome. This incredible feat allows us to track the evolutionary history and genetic changes of Neanderthals over time, opening a window into the past; it also allowed Pääbo to determine that one gene variant some humans carry from Neanderthals causes them to be at a higher risk of severe illness, which, by his estimate, has resulted in one million extra deaths from COVID-19.
Pääbo’s 2014 memoir Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes recounts his work, and one of his papers has been cited over four thousand times, a number that puts it in the top two thousand most cited papers out of the fifty five million that have been published in the Web of Science since 1970. He is the founder of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, where his colleagues recently tossed him into a pond to celebrate his award.
Literature
Annie Ernaux
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature went to French author Annie Ernaux “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” Known for the minimalist, unsparing writing style of her semi-autobiographical novels, many of which deal with difficult topics like abortion, illness, sex, childhood trauma, love, and death, she is one of France’s central literary figures. She refuses to categorize her work as fiction or nonfiction; in the words of her publisher, Daniel Simon, she operates in “a genre of fiction where nothing is made up.”
Her most popular books are La Place (A Man’s Place), which details her relationship with her father, and Les années (The Years), a genre-bending piece that was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. Ernaux’s work often revolves around the divisions of class and gender, combining the political with the deeply personal, and she has been lauded for exploring women’s experiences without apology or obfuscation. Of the 119 Nobel laureates in literature, she is the seventeenth woman.
Economics
Ben S. Bernanke (Brookings Institution), Douglas W. Diamond (University of Chicago), Philip H. Dybvig (Washington University in St. Louis)
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Ben S. Bernanke, Douglas W. Diamond, Philip H. Dybvig for their research in banks and financial crises.
Ben S. Bernanke was the chair of the Federal reserve during the 2008 financial crisis. Under Bernake’s watch, the Fed began to aggressively resuscitate the economy with bailouts, emergency programs for markets about to collapse, lowered interest rates, and increased transparency within the Fed. Bernake also published a paper in 1983 explaining that bank failures caused economic downturns, and were not just a side effect.
Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig studied, throughout their careers, on the effects of banks on economic downturns. In 1983 as well, they published a paper detailing how banks led to fluidity, and thus instability—if there are no safety nets or deposit insurance for banks, then the money residing in the bank is not secure either. As a result, panic withdrawals, such as the ones during the Great Depression, occur.
Peace
Ales Bialiatsky, Memorial, and the Centre for Civil Liberties
The Nobel Peace Prize was shared by Ales Bialiatsky, a Belarusian civil rights activist currently imprisoned for his work, and two human rights organizations: Memorial, out of Russia, and the Centre for Civil Liberties, out of Ukraine.
Bialiatsky founded the human rights group Viasna in 1996, two years after the authoritarian Alexander Lukashenko came into power in Belarus. Viasna has worked to document instances of torture against political prisoners and support jailed protesters and their families during the course of Lukashenko’s regime. After a rigged election kept Lukashenko in office in 2021, Bialiatsky was one of many protesters who took to the streets, where he was arrested. According to Viasna, he is one of over a thousand political prisoners currently held without charge.
Memorial has been documenting human rights abuses in Russia and other ex-Soviet states for thirty years. They were forcibly dissolved in 2021 for failing to mark their social media posts with a “foreign agent” indicator, as the government previously mandated.
Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties has been documenting human rights abuses since 2007. During the 2013-2014 Maidan revolution, they created Euromaidan SOS, a project that would monitor state abuses and provide legal aid to civilians. In light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the project has been revived. The CCL advocates for Ukraine to affiliate itself with the International Criminal Court and for Russia to be excluded from the UN Security Council.
