At the end of every year, the Physics World editorial team reveals what it believes to be the top 10 research breakthroughs for the past year.
Winners
2014
The Physics World 2014 Breakthrough of the Year goes to ESA’s Rosetta mission for being the first to land a spacecraft on a comet. Nine other achievements are highly commended and cover topics ranging from nuclear physics to acoustics:
- Quasar shines a bright light on cosmic web
- Neutrinos spotted from Sun's main nuclear reaction
- Laser fusion passes milestone
- Electrons' magnetic interactions isolated at long last
- Disorder sharpens optical-fibre images
- Data stored in magnetic holograms
- Lasers ignite 'supernovae' in the lab
- Quantum data are compressed for the first time
- Physicists sound-out acoustic tractor beam
2013
The Physics World award for the 2013 Breakthrough of the Year goes to “the IceCube South Pole Neutrino Observatory for making the first observations of high-energy cosmic neutrinos”. Nine other achievements are highly commended and cover topics ranging from nuclear physics to nanotechnology. Read more.