The 1973 Nobel Prize for physics

The 1973 Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded to Esaki, Giaever, and Josephson for their contributions to the subject of electron tunneling in solids. This is a thoroughly modern subject, in the sense that it can be understood only in terms of the wave mechanics of the electron, and has no classical counterpart whatever. It is the work of Esaki, Giaever, and Josephson which underlies the present status of tunneling in solids. Twenty years ago it was a neglected and somewhat discredited subject. Now, thanks to their pioneering experimental and theoretical discoveries, it is the source of some of the most elegant devices and phenomena of solid-state physics, and the theory is one of great intellectual beauty. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics is a well-deserved recognition of that fact.