Dr Cornell and Dr Wieman had to plumb the icy depths of 20 billionths of a degree above absolute zero in order to win their prize.

ECONOMIST: The 2001 Nobel prizes: Playing catch-up | The

Actually creating such condensates fell to Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman, of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who made one out of rubidium atoms, and Wolfgang Ketterle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who did the same with sodium.

ECONOMIST: The 2001 Nobel prizes: Playing catch-up | The