Physics, chemistry Nobels reward Information Age pioneers

The Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry were awarded Tuesday to six scientists who helped bring about the Information Revolution of ever-smaller and faster personal computers, pocket calculators, cell phones, CD players, lifelike TV screens and Gameboys.

The physics prize went to Jack Kilby, who invented the first integrated circuit while at Texas Instruments in 1958, and two physicists whose work contributed to satellite and cell phone technology: Herbert Kroemer of the University of California-Santa Barbara and Zhores Alferov of the A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technico Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The chemistry prize went to Alan Heeger, 64, of the University of California-Santa Barbara, Alan MacDiarmid, 73, of the University of Pennsylvania and Hideki Shirakawa, 64, of the University of Tsukuba in Japan.

The three modified plastics so they can conduct electricity; the pioneering work with ''brilliant plastics'' could someday lead to computers as small and light as a wristwatch.

The prizes awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences are each worth $915,000. The chemistry prize will be split three ways, while Kilby will receive half of the physics award and his co-winners will get the rest.

Recent Nobels have celebrated basic research into the behavior of subatomic particles and chemical reactions - highly arcane subjects with few real-world applications. This year's winners conducted experiments and developed products that changed everyday life in the largest cities and the most remote villages.

''These guys have controlled the properties of materials in ways that nature wouldn't do on its own,'' said Louis Bloomfield, author of ''Why Things Work'' and a University of Virginia physicist. ''They made it complicated and incredibly precise. They make cities possible.''

Kilby's fingernail-sized integrated circuit, a forerunner of the microchip, replaced bulky and unreliable switches in the first computing devices. The Nobel panel said his work allowed electronics to become smaller, faster, cheaper and more powerful. He also co-invented the first pocket calculator.

''It's a wonderful thing,'' Kilby said of his Nobel. He said he thought the microchip ''would be important for electronics as we knew it then, but I didn't understand how much it would permit the field to expand.''

Kilby and Robert Noyce, an industrial pioneer in the Silicon Valley, are considered the co-inventors of the integrated circuit. Kilby built the first circuit, but Noyce received the first patent for a microchip, in 1961, three years before Kilby. Noyce died in 1990.

''We shared credit for the invention over the years ... I'm sorry he is not alive. I'm sure if he were, he would share in this prize,'' Kilby said.

Texas Instruments named its $154 million research complex after Kilby and endowed a professorship at the University of Texas in his name. Kilby, 76, started a foundation that distributes science and technology awards.

Alferov, 70, and Kroemer, a 72-year-old German-born U.S. citizen, independently proposed the heterostructure laser, made of semiconducting material as thin as a few atoms apiece. The technology has been used in mobile phones and satellite links, and used to build laser diodes, which drive the flow of information on the Internet and are found in compact disc players, bar-code readers and laser pointers.

Alferov, who celebrated with colleagues in St. Petersburg, hinted at the decline of his country's once-extraordinary scientific community amid the upheaval in post-Soviet society.

''Without science, Russia will not revive. Here's to our science, to our physics,'' Alferov said, raising a glass of champagne.

The three chemistry prize winners were cited for discoveries that fundamentally altered how we think of plastic and how we use it.

The three developed conductive polymers that have been used to reduce static electricity and interference on photographic film and computer screens. They have been used in the development of color television screens, cellular phone displays and ''smart windows'' that reflect sunlight, and they are employed in operating rooms to reduce static charges that could endanger patients during surgery.

''My colleagues all over the world have said, 'One of these days ...,' but it's still a fantastic surprise,'' Heeger said. ''You can take simple things like polymers that are made of plastics and from that one can make many different applications and technologies.''

The three scientists created polyacetylene, a plastic that acts much like a very fine aluminum foil and can be made in a lab without mining raw materials.

Lighter and more flexible, the new plastics are being used in cheaper and easier-to-manufacture versions of many electronic products, including light emitting diodes in digital displays. Sheets of conductive plastic films are being incorporated into thin, flat TV screens, low-static computer monitors and traffic signs that glow without bulbs.

On the horizon: molecular computers using plastic molecules to carry electrical current.

''The physics prizes are about the electronics of today and the chemistry prizes are about the electronics of the future,'' academy member Per Ahlberg said.

The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to a Swede and two Americans for discoveries about how brain cells communicate.

The economics prize will be announced Wednesday and the literature prize Thursday. The peace prize will be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway. The prizes will be presented Dec. 10.

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