David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in topology, a branch of mathematics that describes properties that change only in increments.SOUNDBITE (English) Goran K. Hansson, Permanent Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:“The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2016 Nobel Prize in physics with one half to David J. Thouless and the other half to F. Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.” SOUNDBITE (English) Duncan Haldane, Nobel laureate in Physics: ++AUDIO VIA PHONE++I was very, very surprised. And very gratified. There’s a lot of tremendous new discoveries, which are based on this original work and have extended it many ways, and now happening.”SOUNDBITE (English) Thors Hans Hansson, Member of Nobel Committee and Professor of Theoretical Physics:It has combined beautiful mathematical and profound physics insights and has achieved unexpected results that have been confirmed by experiments. It’s really beautiful and it’s deep.