Having gotten that silly Medicine business out of the way, the Swedish Academy has moved on to the important Award, with the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics going to Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance. This is one that people have been calling for for a while, now. I’ll try… Continue reading Physics Nobel: Giant Magnetoresistance
Category: In the News
Guess the Nobel, Win a Prize
I somehow managed to lose track of time for a bit, and forgot that it was Nobel season until I saw this morning’s announcement that the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine hase just been announced, going to Mario R. Capecchi, Sir Martin J. Evans, and Oliver Smithies, for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific… Continue reading Guess the Nobel, Win a Prize
Institute of Physics Awards 2007
The Institute of Physics is the UK’s main organization of physicists (sort of like the American Physical Society), and yesterday, they announced their awards for 2007. The full list of winners is only available as a Word file, for some odd reason, but it’s a distinguished group. The prizes are headed by the brand-new Isaac… Continue reading Institute of Physics Awards 2007
The Love of a Good Dog
Natalie Angier has a piece in the Times this morning about the loss of a beloved pet cat: Cleo was almost 16 years old, she’d been sick, and her death was no surprise. Still, when I returned to a home without cats, without pets of any sort, I was startled by my grief — not… Continue reading The Love of a Good Dog
Reality Lets Me Down, Again
From the “You Read Too Much SF” file: I was really disappointed by the press release that went with the headline: Mysterious energy burst stuns astronomers A headline like that really ought to involve bodies strewn about a remote observatory, and enigmatic alien forces roaming free, perhaps being hunted by menacing government agents. Sadly, it… Continue reading Reality Lets Me Down, Again
Requiem for the Space Age
The New York Times is commemorating the 50th anniversary of Sputnik with a huge clump of articles about, well, space. I’m a little surprised that I haven’t seen more said about these– they turned up in my RSS feeds on Tuesday, but I’ve been both busy and slightly ill, and haven’t gotten around to blogging… Continue reading Requiem for the Space Age
Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions
Physics World has a somewhat puzzling news article about the solar system: Physicists have known for some time that the motions of Pluto and the inner planets are chaotic. This means that a small external force on a planet could, over time, cause a major change in the position of the planet within its orbit.… Continue reading Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions
Alpher Obituaries
I don’t know if it’s official enough for Wikipedia, but the college has posted a nice obituary for Ralph Alpher: Alpher taught at Union from 1986 to 2004 and was director of the Dudley Observatory. He also spent more than 30 years at the General Electric Research and Development Center in Niskayuna. In 1948, as… Continue reading Alpher Obituaries
Ralph Asher Alpher, 1921-2007
I am sorry to report the passing of Ralph Alpher, of the famous “Alpher-Bethe-Gamow” paper. I don’t know many details, but he’s been in poor health for some time, so this is sad but not surprising news. Ralph Alpher was an astrophysicist and cosmologist whose thesis work with George Gamow on the origin of the… Continue reading Ralph Asher Alpher, 1921-2007
Ocean’s Eleven at NASA
There’s a story about theft of supplies at NASA in the Times today. It’s an eight-paragraph wire service blurb, which wouldn’t be worth a mention, but for this: In one instance documented by the accountability office, an unidentified worker explained the fate of a missing laptop, worth $4,265: “This computer, although assigned to me, was… Continue reading Ocean’s Eleven at NASA