At 11:45 local time on October 4 in Stockholm, Sweden, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three American scientists, David Solis, Duncan Haldane and Michael Skordlitz.

They received this award for their major breakthroughs in the theoretical discovery of topological phase transitions and topological stages of matter.

Three scientists will share 8 million Swedish kronor, of which David Solis will receive 4 million Swedish kronor, and Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz will share 4 million Swedish kronor.

David Solis was born in Bear Stearns, England, in 1943. He received his PhD from Cornell University and is a professor of mathematical physics at the University of Birmingham; Duncan Haldane was born in London in 1951. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and is a professor of physics at Princeton University; Michael

Kosderlitz was born in Aberdeenshire in 1942. He has a PhD from the University of Oxford and is a professor of physics at the University of Brown.

The three scientists work in the same field, but with slight differences.

Solis and Kosderitz studied the phenomenon of extremely thin layers on the surface or interior of two-dimensional materials, while Haldane studied materials that are so thin that they can be considered one-dimensional.

The common states of matter are gas, liquid and solid. Under extreme conditions, such as extreme high and low temperatures, matter will exhibit special phases.

The phase change of a substance refers to the process of a substance converting from one phase to another, such as water converting from a liquid to a gas at high temperatures.

Topology is a branch of mathematics that studies the properties of a set of figures or spaces that remain unchanged after continuously changing their shapes.

Topology was key to the laureates' achievement, explaining why the conductivity of thin layers of matter changes by integer multiples.

The Nobel Prize committee credited the three scientists for using advanced mathematical methods to study unusual phases or states of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films, and that their research "opened up a realm of unknown worlds."

The Nobel Prize in Physics was established in June 1900 according to Nobel's will. It is one of the Nobel Prizes. The award is designed to reward scientists who have made outstanding contributions to the field of human physics.

How much do you know about the Nobel Prize in Physics 1. There are no winners in 6 years. Since 1901, the Nobel Committee has awarded 110 physics prizes. Among them, there have been no winners in 6 years. They are: 1916, 1931

, 1934, 1940, 1941 and 1942.

According to the "Regulations on Awarding Nobel Prizes", if no winning work is selected in the year of the award, the prize money will be retained until the next year. If no winning work is selected in the second year, the prize money will be withdrawn to the foundation.

2. 204 laureates Since 1901, 204 individuals have won the Nobel Prize in Physics. 47 of them were won by one person, 32 were shared by two laureates, and 31 were won by three laureates.

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However, because John Bardeen was awarded the prize in 1956 and 1972, the actual number of recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics is 203.

Marie Curie, who won the prize in 1903, also won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.

3. The oldest and youngest winners As of 2015, the average age of Nobel Prize winners in physics was 55.

In 1915, the 25-year-old British scientist William Lawrence Bragg won the award together with his father William Henry Bragg for "the study of crystal structure using X-rays", becoming the youngest winner.

William Lawrence Bragg was born on March 31, 1890 and died on July 1, 1971. He was only 25 years old when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

In 2002, 88-year-old American scientist Raymond Davis won the award for his pioneering contributions in the field of astrophysics, especially the detection of cosmic neutrino species, becoming the oldest recipient.

Raymond Davis, born on October 14, 1914, died on March 31, 2006. He was 88 years old when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Female winners Among the list of Nobel Prize winners in physics, only two women have won this honor, one of whom is the well-known Marie Curie.

In 1903, Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of "natural radioactivity" with Antoine Henri Becquerel.

Another female scientist named Maria Goeppert Meyer, from the United States, won the award for her discovery of the shell structure of the atomic nucleus.

Marie Curie, whose real name was Marie Curie, was born on November 7, 1867 and died on July 4, 1934. She won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911.