Bob Dylan Recipient of the 2016 Noble Prize in Literature

Bob Dylan, the 75-year-old music legend is also known as the “voice of the generation” for his inspiring songs back in 1960’s onwards. Recently, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the only singer-songwriter to win the prestigious award.

The musician attained success “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. He now finds himself in line with Nobel laureate’s icons such as Winston Churchill, Thomas Mann and Rudyard Kipling.

The remarkable awarding was held at Stockholm’s stately Royal Academy Hall and was accompanied by gasps and some laughter.

Dylan wrote iconic songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind”, “The Times They Are a-Changin'”, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Like a Rolling Stone”. Their lyrics inspired many people all over the globe with some spirit of rebellion, dissent, and independence.

For the past decades, Dylan is still writing poetic songs and often performing on tours. He sometimes sang with a rasping voice that has been ridiculed by detractors.

One of his songs considered as the most expressive folk songs of all time was “Blowin’ in the Wind” written in 1962. The song “The Times They Are A-Changin” has inspired so many and also used as an anthem of the civil rights movement and Vietnam War protests.

The Swedish Academy has awarded Dylan with 8 million Swedish crown ($930,000) prize and said “Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary music is profound.”

It was also seconded by Swedish academy member, Pet Wastberg “He is probably the greatest living poet”.

Not everyone believes that Dylan neither deserved to be called a poet nor received the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. According to Novelist Norman Mailer “If Dylan’s a poet, I’m a basketball player.”

Unanimous decision by awards panel

Meanwhile, Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Nobel Academy, told a news conference there was “great unity” in the panel’s decision to give Dylan the prize.

Dylan’s life, music and lyrics have always been mysterious; He had a motorcycle accident back in 1966 and secluded himself to others. This led to the conclusion that he was under pressure by his new role of being a celebrity.

He was born a Jew and converted to Christianity in 1970’s and later denied a belief in organized religion. At some point in his life, Dylan took up boxing.

Elliott Mintz, Dylan’s spokesman, refused to give any statement about the announcement. Dylan was due to give a concert in Las Vegas on Thursday evening.

Literature was the last of this year’s Nobel prizes to be awarded. The prize is named after dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel and has been awarded since 1901. The receipients were awarded for achievements in science, literature and peace.

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The strange matter of the Nobel Prize in physics and the cinnamon bun

Three British scientists were awarded the Nobel prize for physics earlier today for groundbreaking work which is a little difficult to explain.

Even quoting the citation for the award to the trio – David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz – hardly clears matters up.

It says they won the Prize ”for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.”

Pretzel

At today’s announcement by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Thors Hans Hansson used a bagel, a cinnamon bun and a Swedish pretzel to try and explain the groundgreaking work.

Holding the three food items aloft he said: “I have a cinnamon bun, a bagel and a Swedish pretzel with two holes.

“Now for us these things are different. One is sweet, one is salty, they are different shapes.

“But if you are a topologist there is only one thing that is really interesting with these things. The bun has no holes, the bagel has one hole, the pretzel has two holes. The number of holes is what the topologist would call a topological invariant.”

The work these physicists have done could now play a significant part in the development of quantum computing which opens the door for computer processing systems millions of times more powerful than today’s technology.

Superfluids

The Acadamy said of the Nobel Prize announcement: “This year’s Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states.

“Thanks to their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter. Many people are hopeful of future applications in both materials science and electronics.

“Over the last decade, this area has boosted frontline research in condensed matter physics, not least because of the hope that topological materials could be used in new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in future quantum computers.”

London-born Prof Haldane, 65, now Professor of Physics at Princeton University in the US, said: “It is only now that a lot of tremendous new discoveries based on this work are now happening.”

Complex

Steve Bramwell, a physics professor at the London Centre for Nanotechnology, said the Nobel Prize was ‘richly deserved’ by the trio.

He said: “The behavior of the materials around us is extremely complex – the job of physics is to identify simple principles by which we can understand the material world and predict new phenomena.

“The ingenuity of Kosterlitz Thouless and Haldane has been to show how a large class of real materials can be understood in terms of the simple mathematical principles of topology.”

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