This year's Nobel prizes were announced. Manchester guys received the prize in Physics for their achievement in "graphene", which I did not recognize at the first place. I know that fulleren (such as C-60, or so-called Bucky ball) won the prize for Chemistry, and that carbon nanotube was about to win the Physics prize. What is Graphene?
According to newspapers, nanotube is a quasi-1D object, while "Graphene" is two-dimensional. So, the Nobel organization seems to skip the one-dimensional one...but why?
I am interested in the reason why carbon nanotube was undervalued this time. This is because the department I used to belong (in the UK) put a high priority on the research on carbon nanobubes. I guess my fellows would be angry if they realize that what they invested for last 10 years is just worthless.
In addition, one of the inventers (or founders?) of the nanotube is a japanese engineer working for NEC. His comment of disappointment was placed on a Japanese newspaper, saying that "with this fact that graphene was appreciated this year, the evaluation of nanotubes has become significantly smaller now. So, my chance to receive the Nobel prize is now quite small." If this is true, I would really like to know why the one-dimensional object was skipped.
