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Autumn is truly upon us; it's harvest time in the fields and orchards, and in Stockholm where the chosen few reap the noblest reward in science ' the Nobel Prizes are being awarded. The Nobel Committee frequently surprises onlookers with their decisions, including us here at the BIOVIA Science Council. It's interesting to look at the balance between "fundamental" and "applied" science as represented in the list of 108 prizes in physics. It's very possible that a random survey of people on the street would show that they mostly expect such prizes to reflect fundamental studies, bordering on the "meaning of life." This is reinforced by the media which is always happy to explain to the wider audience Higgs boson, quarks, cosmic radiation, pulsars, leptons, etc. In reality, Alfred Nobel was an engineer, and his will stated that the prize in Physics should be given "to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics." The Royal Swedish Academy of Science has followed the intention of the will and is using a rotating principle between the different fields of physics, such that the list of prizes that goes back to 1901 contains a large number of examples where the committee also honored "applied science" achievements that had a profound effect on society via all-encompassing technological changes. Here are just a few to illustrate the point: discovery of X-rays, transistors, integrated circuits, lasers, holography and optical fibers. All are an integral part of life in the 21st century, and it is difficult to imagine modern society without technologies that are based on those discoveries.The latest prize awarded to three engineers from Japan - Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura - continues the list of inventions that have quietly blended into our lives. More specifically, white LED lighting that is enabled by their development of blue light-emitting diodes is already making great contributions towards saving life on Earth from a climate catastrophe. Rapid development of efficient LED lights allowed governments around the world to pass legislation that phases out incandescent light bulbs. The math is simple ' LED lights use about one tenth of the energy required for the traditional incandescent light bulbs. "Blue LEDs" mean "greener" energy usage! Of course, blue LEDs are used not just in light bulbs. LED screens of all types (TV, phones, computers) surround us. The science behind semiconductor devices that emit light was pretty well understood when the quest for a workable technology based on the use of the wide band gap semiconductor gallium nitride had started. The problem was to come up with a scalable process for production of GaN-based stacks doped with InN, AlN and other similar materials. The group recognized for the invention was among the few who persisted with GaN (here in Cambridge similar activities never stopped at the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride).GaN-based materials pose numerous crystal growth challenges ' devices require high quality crystals of semiconductor alloys with different compositions, they need to be arranged in sandwich structures with hetero-junctions and quantum wells, and all this with the controlled level of p-doping for efficient light emission. BIOVIA scientists are proud to realize that atomistic modeling tools in our product Materials Studio, especially the ones based on quantum mechanical principles, have been widely used by the GaN research community for a long time (follow this link and search for "GaN AND diode" to see some relevant papers). First principles simulations are needed to understand how thin films grow, what is the structure of interfaces, how alloying changes the band gap and the electronic structure in general. It is a rare occasion when scientific and technological progress in physics makes an immediate and significant impact on the quality of life and the future of our planet; and what's more, this leap has been acknowledged fairly promptly by the Nobel Committee for Physics. Even though it is not as prompt as the will of Alfred Nobel actually prescribes. Next time when you are shopping for light bulbs, mentally converting "6W" labels on LEDs to the familiar "60W" on incandescent lights, remember how much scientific research ' including modeling! ' went into making LED lights possible. However, we bet that in 2015 the Nobel Prize Committee will pick a great achievement from a different field of physics and maybe award the prize for fundamental subatomic high-energy physics research on "life, Universe and everything."