According to Goran Hansson, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, this year's Laureates opened the door on an unknown world where matter can assume strange states.

"The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided¹ to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 with one half to David J. Thouless, and the other half to F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transition and topological phase of matter."

All three recipients² used mathematics to understand strange physical effects in rare states of matter, such as superconductors, super-fluids and thin magnetic films.

Kosterlitz and Thouless focused on forms of matter so thin they can be considered two-dimensional.

Haldane studied matter that forms into threads so thin they could be considered one-dimensional.

Over the last decade, they have boosted research into condensed matter physics, where matter is compressed by enormous force. It's hoped such research will help create materials which could be used in new generations of electronics and superconductors, or in quantum computers.

Anna L'Huillier, Professor in atomphysics and a member of the Nobel Committee explained the relevance³ of the discoveries.

"The importance of these three theories really changed our thinking about matter,because they introduce new concepts to understand the new phases of matter, the phase transition of matter. Matter has phases of liquid, gas of different phases, phase transition is from one phase go to another. For example you can go from liquid water to ice then you have the change phase of matter. It is very important to describe phase of matter and phase transition using topological concept. It is a mathematical concept which is in geometrical forms. "

Thanks to their pioneering work, the hunt is now on for new and exotic phases of matter.

Born in 1934 in Bearsden near Glasgow, Thouless is now Emeritus⁴ Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Professor Haldane was born in 1951 in London and got his PhD from Cambridge University. But he holds the post of Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics at Princeton University.

Kosterlitz was born in 1942 in Aberdeen UK and got his PhD from Oxford⁵ University. He is now Harrison Farnsworth Professor of Physics at Brown University in USA.

This was the second prize to be announced this season. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be announced on Wednesday.

The combined award ceremony will be held on December 10.