"So this could be, certainly it was heralded at the time of the Geneva meeting, as a breakthrough in terms of opening channels more widely with the Iranians."
VOA: standard.2009.10.19
For those of you who are having a hard time comprehending all the breakthrough science, here is the audio Cliff's Notes version on the technical achievements that have been honored this year, courtesy of our science reporters.
The Pascaline was a significant breakthrough at the time of its invention, demonstrating, as it did, how complex arithmetic could be carried out by a machine.