Laughlin, Robert B. (1950-...), an American theoretical physicist, shared the 1998 Nobel Prize for physics with Horst L. Stormer of Germany and Daniel C. Tsui of the United States for their discovery of a new form of fluid called a quantum fluid. It was Laughlin, the theorist, who analyzed the results of their experiments and explained a baffling phenomenon called the fractional quantum Hall effect. . In this phenomenon, it seemed that electrons--the particles making up electric currents--had been divided into parts. Laughlin showed that, in reality, the electrons coordinated their movements in a way that simulated the behavior of particles with fractional charges.