Slashdot Mirror
The Top Ten Physics Highlights of 2002
Ocelot Wreak writes "Physics Web has a cool summary of The Top Ten Physics Highlights of 2002. These include anti-atoms, neutrino oscillation - a finding that requires new physics beyond the Standard Model, defying the second law of thermodynamics, and using neutrons to measure quantum gravitational effects, amongst others. For some reason, the Slashdot Effect and the latest research on iPod-based Beowulf clusters were not included..."
Just marry the poor fool. ;-)
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Congrats to you both!
PS: This lameness filtering obviously is optional, as you get away with a 4 chr post, while I had to type this whole postscript to get past some silly minimum # of characters per line.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
so when do we get the Top Ten Top Ten Stories of 2002?
"12. Hope for the future More than 300 physicists from around the world -- most of them women -- met in Paris in March for the first International Conference on Women in Physics."
In a related story: Sex makes your brain grow
Homer: "Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
"For some reason, the Slashdot Effect and the latest research on iPod-based Beowulf clusters were not included..."
Amazing, now the editors are trolling US! You know where.
But the last two points are just "Low points of the year" and "Hope for the future".
The lowpoints... you guess it, the great sham by Victor Ninov on Ununoctium.
The hope is... more women in physics! Oh the joy! You guys in Physics should be happier now... :-) If only this happens as well in Computer Science...
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
In April, physicists at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Canada presented conclusive new evidence that electron neutrinos oscillate -- or change 'flavour' -- on their way from the Sun to the Earth.
So they don't taste like chicken anymore?
SCO, Microsoft, P2P, what's your hot button?
There's nothing wrong with that, but I have q question: why is it particularly important for more women to get into physics? Why can't we just leave women alone and let them do what they want? Why do we need to perform "social architecture"?
My vote would be just to stop worrying about what group does what (and that includes race), and focus on what individuals do or don't do.
But then, maybe I'm just crazy and believe that society really should be color and sex blind. You may now begin flogging the heretic.
This list is great if for no other reason than it gives me a chance to say "Superkamiokande!" in a superhero-like voice.
Say it with me. It'll make you feel better. "Superkamiokande!"
Of course, having research I worked on mentioned in passing ("Researchers also reported on the unusual expansion characteristics in an ultra-cold Fermi gas this month") was cool too.
By analyzing social trends, it may become apparent *why* those trends exist. It has been the case in the past that groups of people were not able to do what they wanted as easily as others, and we could then modify or create laws to make the system in question more equitable.
Heh, being a woman, and being a Physics major, I can honestly agree that the dating situation was indeed grim.
This is a common misconception. Trying to get more groups invloved in science (art, etc) is not just social engineering. It is also an attempt to make science better. The more people lend their talents, the better it will be. This is obviously true in sports, as African-Americans became able to join professional teams. As Jesse Jackson once said, "we never knew how good football could be until everyone could play". The same is true for science: we will never know how good it can be until everyone can participate.
What "women want" is highly influenced by what paths in life seem available or attractive to them. This is hardly something one is born with, but much more likely the product of cultural atmosphere. The fact that there are more American women scientists than Afnagni ones makes this obvious. A restrictive environment of possibilities acts as a real barrier to entry for women, many of whom don't even think of themselves a spossible scientists. And all of that is prior to active prejudice on the part of others.
My mom is a chemist and she had to fight like hell her whole life just to work, much less to do that work and still be considered a woman. Anything that makes science more viable for all individuals sense of identity is positive, and clearly benefits science.
It's called a logic gate. Look it up in a book on basic logic theory. Duh.
Basically, entropy boils down to probabilities - if you flip a fair coin a gazillion times, you'd expect 50% heads and 50% tails. These folks, in effect, were working at a level where they could detect some of the runs of 100 heads in a row. It's an impressive series of measurements, but won't require a rethink of thermodynamics at all.
Top ten list- Check.
12 Items- Check.
20% margin of error- Check.
The editor must be a experimental physicist.
1 tequila 2 tequila 3 tequila floor
If we only see ~5% of the Universe (and probably only understand about 0.00000001% of that), could it be that we really cannot see most of what is right in front of us? Has anyone postulated that the rest of it is all around us, not just "out there somewhere"? Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.
It's not particularly important per se, but the increasing numbers are an indicator that the sciences may be becoming more gender-blind. Unless you believe that there's a gender-inherent reason women don't become physicists, in a truly just world we should see an equal number of male and female physicists; maybe we're (slowly) getting there.
One big problem is that a random coincidence between four neutrons from unrelated events could masquerade as a tetraneutron. The paper says they have the random-coincidence rate all figured out, but it's the kind of thing that is notoriously hard to be sure about.
With any other exotic nuclear species, you can catch it in a metal foil, and then find out stuff about it, e.g., what particles it emits when it decays. The tetraneutron, if it exists, can only be detected by destroying it, which makes it hard to measure any of its properties. If you can't measure any of its properties, it's pretty hard to be sure it's real.
Find free books.