Next week will be an exciting one for a handful of scientists with the announcement of the 2013 Nobel prizes. You'll be able to watch live at the Nobel site as the awards for physiology or medicine are announced on Monday, physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and the peace prize on Friday. Economics will follow on Monday 14 October and the literature prize soon after. (The announcements start about 11-11.30am Central European Time or 10-10.30am British Summer Time. And yes, despite the rubbish weather, we are still on summer time!)
With the recent experimental confirmation of the Higgs boson last year at the Large Hadron Collider, rumours are beginning to swirl that the physics prize might go to some of the physicists who predicted its existence and the mechanism that gives mass to matter in the Universe. Six physicists, Robert Brout, François Englert, Peter Higgs, Gerry Guralnik, Carl Richard Hagen and Tom Kibble, contributed to three revolutionary papers published in 1964 that explained this theory. The Nobel prize can be awarded to up to three people so it will be interesting to see who will be recognised and what the reaction of the physics community will be.
We'll be watching the announcements of all the prizes with great interest. There may not be a Nobel prize specifically for mathematics, but you can be sure that maths will have played a vital role in the research of many of the 2013 Nobel Laureates. You can read more about the discovery of the Higgs boson and the previous Nobel prizes on Plus.
Secret symmetry and the Higgs boson
It's official: the notorious Higgs boson has been discovered at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The Higgs is a subatomic particle whose existence was predicted by theoretical physics. Also termed the god particle, the Higgs boson is said to have given other particles their mass. But how did it do that? In this two-part article we explore the so-called Higgs mechanism, starting with the humble bar magnet and ending with a dramatic transformation of the early Universe.
The Higgs boson: a massive discovery
If it looks like the Higgs... and it smells like the Higgs... have we finally found it? In July 2012 most physicists finally agreed it's safe to say we've finally observed the elusive Higgs boson. And perhaps that is not all....
A Nobel Prize for quantum optics
The 2012 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Serge Haroche and David J. Wineland for ground-breaking work in quantum optics. By probing the world at the smallest scales they've shed light on some of the biggest mysteries of physics and paved the way for quantum computers and super accurate clocks.
How to make a marriage stable
How do you best allocate students to universities, doctors to hospitals, or kidneys to transplant patients? The solution to this tough problem was recognised in the 2013 Nobel Prize in Economics.
Shattering crystal symmetries
In 1982 Dan Shechtman discovered a crystal that would revolutionise chemistry. He was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery — but did the Nobel committee miss out a chance to honour a mathematician for his role in this revolution as well?
Exploding stars clinch Nobel Prize
The 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for a discovery that proved Einstein wrong and right at the same time.
And the Nobel Prize in Mathematics goes to...
Well, it goes to no-one because there isn't a Nobel Prize for maths. Some have speculated that Alfred Nobel neglected maths because his wife ran off with a mathematician, but the rumour seems to be unfounded. But whatever the reason for its non-appearance in the Nobel list, it's maths that makes the science-based Nobel subjects possible and it usually plays a fundamental role in the some of the laureates' work. Here we'll have a look at two of the 2010 prizes, in physics and economics.
There might not be a Nobel Prize for mathematics, but you can read more about the winners of the highly prestigious Abel prize and Fields medals.