2025 Nobel Prize Physics Used by Law Professor Back in 1961

WASHINGTON - Oct. 7, 2025 - PRLog -- The Nobel Prize in Physics was just awarded (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2025/press-release/) to three scientists "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit," based primarily upon experiments conducted in 1984 and 1985.

But interestingly, more than 20 years earlier, an MIT student published a paper describing how he used that same quantum tunneling effect to produce a circuit which used only one active element to create a flip-flop circuit.

A flip-flop circuit is the basic circuit used in all computers to permit it to calculate using binary numbers (0 or 1). See Banzhaf, "One Tunnel-Diode Flip-Flop," PROC. IRE, vol. 49, p. 622; March, 1961.

It was the first published article by John Banzhaf, who went on to obtain two U.S. patents, showed that computer programs could be protected by copyrighting them, helped update U.S. copyright law to include computers and data processing, and wrote one of the first articles explaining how the law applied to computers. See Banzhaf, "When Your Computer Needs a Lawyer," 11 Communications of the ACM, Number 8, 1968 (https://www.google.com/url?esrc=s&q=&rct=j&sa...)

But that wasn't his first article about the law.  Before going from studying physics and circuit design at MIT to studying law at Columbia Law School, Banzhaf wrote an article explaining "Murphy's Law." See Banzhaf, The Laws of Murphy and Finagle, 1958 (http://banzhaf.net/by/MurphysLaw.pdf)

Then, just a few years ago, he was surprised to read studies (http://banzhaf.net/by/BanzhafsFirstLawArticle.html) showing that this early Murphy Law article played a role in the prominent use of the word "FOO" by computer programmers ever since, and continuing to this very day.

He knew that he may be one of the oldest living hackers (http://banzhaf.net/by/VOODOOPhoneHacking.pdf), but never dreamed that an article he wrote back in 1958 would have a significant influence on the programming of computers in 2025.

Banzhaf's novel flip-flop circuit, which he designed and then successfully tested, utilized the concept of quantum tunneling; one aspect of what has often been called "quantum weirdness" (aspects of quantum mechanics that challenge and defy human physical intuition). . .

Subsequently he made use of what might be termed legal weirdness: unearthing a concept virtually unknown at the time to help obtain special prosecutors for Richard Nixon, resurrecting a 15th century legal concept to force Spiro Agnew to return the money he took in bribes, expanding a little known legal concept to drive cigarette commercials from our airwaves, virtually inventing the concept of corrective advertising, and much more.

So both quantum mechanics and law have a certain weirdness, says the law professor, and he was able to utilize it in both seemingly foreign different fields.

http://banzhaf.net/ jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com @profbanzhaf