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Nobel Prize for Physics Announced
what_the_frell writes "According to this Fox News article, two Americans and a Russian won the 2003 Nobel Prize for Physics for research in the field of quantum physics. The trio conducted research in superconductivity and superfluidity, detailed in this official Nobel article."
Two American citizens and a Russian won the 2003 Nobel Prize (search) in physics for their work in the bizarre field of quantum physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said
It's interesting that the RSAS thinks that quantum physics is bizarre. Thanks Fox.
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
Congrats go to the winners of such a nobel prize! I am wondering why they dont tell you want the prize actually is though.
Quantum physics is good.
Not that it really matters, but it's actually two Russians and a Brit (although two of them do hold dual citizenship with the US).
Point is, if you're going to bother mentioning it in the story, then get it right. Otherwise (maybe better) don't mention it as it doesn't really matter...
The technology of supraconductors is interrestingly enough used in the magnetic camera that gave the medical prize.
Just yesterday: Nobel Prize for medicine awarded for MRI technology.
Today, from the article:
Superconducting material is used, as an example, to produce powerful magnetic fields for the standard body scanning technique called magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI.
Is this a theme this year?
The winners will continue their research into superfluidity this evening, at the bar.
Well GWB has been nominated for the Peace Nobel Prize 2003!
What does this mean in light of this article?
Amazing magic tricks
MRI is a great application but how much it is due to the actual theory? Incidently, the inventors of MRI already got their prize this year.
I think this prize was given out too early anyway. The jury is still out when it comes to the widespread applicability of high temperature superconductors.
** BEGIN RANT **
On a completely another note, I must confess that it often feels like that the term Physics has come to mean - at least in the layman's mind - a theoretician scribbling away on a blackboard or crunching numbers. I keep running into 3rd-4th year Physics majors who think that you're not doing real Physics unless you write and solve equations. As an experimentalist this annoys me to no end. Maths is only a language and the most elegant Physics papers are those in which the experimental results themselves speak for themselves. What is the added-value in complicated calculations in such studies? Yet, if you submit good purely experimental papers to respected journals the reviewers will bitch at you for not doing any theoretical calculations "to gain a holistic view". That's total bullshit. When did Physics change from an empirical science into a theoretical one?
** END RANT **
BOO! TERRO
Directly [clipped] from the article:
Alexei A. Abrikosov
Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA... born 1928 (75 years) in Moscow
Vitaly L. Ginzburg
P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia... born 1916 (87 years) in Moscow
Anthony J. Leggett
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA... born 1938 (65 years) in London
So, yes, 2 Russians and a Brit... But also 2 Americans and a Russian. Don't be so picky. I was born in Erie Pennsylvania, but I tell everyone I'm from Cleveland Ohio because that's where I live and work now.
Karma: NaN
as most of US know, poor ayn had her head held up her pourtoll, for most of her 'career'.
no matter. not understanding/ignoring things does not stop them from happening. neither does pretending.
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. no work of fiction there. maybe friction.
Which is REALLY strange since the only draft these people have to worry about is the kind that comes from a tap.
What's also astonishing is that one university (Dept of Physics and the Beckman Institute at University of Illinois at Urbana) can claim TWO nobel prizes this year -- Paul Lauterbur (Medicine, for MRI) and Tony Leggett (Physics). Quite impressing.
... got the subject wrong, they are from the same university...
Many college students are very concerned about being drafted* - in fact it's the main goal they're trying to accomplish in college.
*by the NBA, NFL, MLB, etc.
Huh? I thought any remark on superfluidity would be redundant. Well, here I am...
Pure zero resistance would prevent electric fields from entering a block of superconductor (the change in magnetic fields will induce eddy currents) to counter any change in the local magnetic field) and this effect is called perfect diamagnetism.
The Meissner effect is different: it's a phase change effect -- it takes energy to expel the magnetic field. If the magnetic field is strong enough, the material may never superconduct. In any case, the transition temperature T_c is actually a function of the local magnetic field.
Furthermore, if you boost the field enough, you can quench the superconductivity and initiate resistance heating -- it can get nasty with high currents. Is the magnetic expulsion perfect? Sometimes it is, and sometimes not, because of flux pinning.
Since we often want to use superconductors to either make high magnetic fields (like in magnetic resonance imagers) or to carry large currents (that induce high magnetic fields) the Meissner Effect, and the magnetic dependence of the transition temperature are important considerations for practical superconductors.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
What could you use this for?
I thought modern Americans attend college only to learn about racial diversity and take up some Women Studies courses.
/. editors.
Basically, you're right. The "two Americans" were not educated in the USA, nor did they do their prizewinning research in the USA, nor were they US citizens when they did it. In other words, the original posting was up to the usual standard of
.. but I'm not sure why you included the other link. Just because buddy finds some of modern physics incomprehensible doesn't mean it's wrong.
Have a look at actual physics research over the last 30 years and you'll be reassured by its practicality, empirical backup and reasonability. Spend too much time reading pop science summaries (which are written to be entertaining, often by people with incomplete understanding) and you'll be convinced physicists are nutjobs.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
On your other note: Personally, I only know Leggett (from my time at the UIUC). In my view, he represents what one can admire in a theoretician; in some sense, he is above this world: shy with other people and bold in developing new theories (and very british). Pure experimentalists may be useful, but without theoretical grasp they are no great physicists. As a physics PhD in condensed matter theory I am not impartial, of course.
Their work paved the way for superconducting magnets. Are you claiming that superconducting magnets don't exist?
Although I'm a bit upset. I thought SCO would win for their great leaps in temproal (god I hope I spelled that right) time travel.
Well, not that surprising - Leggett joined in 1983, by which time he'd already done the work for which he has now been awarded the Nobel Prize. So if you're congratulating institutions, congratulate the University of Sussex, where he did the work.
The winners of the Physics prize are all old men, the youngest being 65 and the oldest 87. They did their groundbreaking research during the Cold War environment, when governments invested heavily in basic science research. One wonders if the same caliber of science research is being conducted today that are worthy of future Nobels. Physics research was dealt a heavy blow when Congress decided to kill the Superconducting Supercollider Project in 1990, which still remains, unfinished and abandoned, in Texas, as a kind of a modern-day Stonehenge. Many of the famous institutions, such as Bell Labs, are a shell of their former selves. Private industry labs, such as those of IBM, which used to support basic science research without qualms, are now hesitant to fund research that does not bear any immediate commercial benefits. The federal goverment does not have any well-stated policy for insuring the scientific leadership of the nation. The young people of today do not aspire to become scientists or engineers, having been brain-damaged by an MTV culture. The current state of research itself has become ridiculous. Whereas, in the past, people were interested in lasers, superconductors, and fusion, now, serious science has been reduced to the level of how to bake a better cookie from the oven.
-- I hereby announce, on behalf of my great ancester Oog, a retroactive patent on THE WHEEL.
You might also notice that both Andrew Leggett and Paul C. Lauterbur are both from the University of Illinois. It's kind of exciting to see, not one, but two Nobels going to people at my university. It brings pride to a University whose only other claim to fame is a plot of corn, and the Mosiac browser.
Allan Niemerg
Physics undergrad & Future Nobel winner?
Slightly offtopic, but did you hear who won the Nobel Literature Prize this year? I was listening to the radio and heard the announcer say this man's name over and over again, and could have sworn he was saying something else... something much more sinister and horrifying.
The winner? Mr. Coetzee. I'm not making this up.
Now that's one body of work I'd think twice about perusing.
I can't wait to eat that monkey...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3170688. stm
strange how diffrent sites distort the info
maja
If I only had mod points...
I don't know if anyone cares on bit, but I would just like to say that I go to the same high school that Anthony J. Leggett, attended, in Sidney, Ohio. Actually, there are 2 schools, the public and private one. I go to the private one...same thing ;)
Intelligent, rational thinking geeks refer to an article in Fox News? FOX NEWS? Hm I guess after seeing the trolls in here, maybe this site is in fact not only for the intelligent ones. Fox... hahahahaha... good heavens :(
I think this prize was given out too early anyway. The jury is still out when it comes to the widespread applicability of high temperature superconductors.
So you want two things: 1) for the discovery to be a fundamental theory, and 2) for there to be applications available. But applications doesn't mean something you buy off the shelves. There are a NUMBER of situations where the phenomena involved for the award have been used for products or other research.
Fundamental research doesn't usually end up with an off-the-shelf product in one step.
As an experimentalist this annoys me to no end. Maths is only a language and the most elegant Physics papers are those in which the experimental results themselves speak for themselves. What is the added-value in complicated calculations in such studies?
Because if you don't understand what's going on, you're not doing science. This doesn't mean you need an endless string of differential equations, but unless you arrange your data in some fashion that it obeys some underlying theory or rule, then you aren't a scientist, you're a technician.
Yet, if you submit good purely experimental papers to respected journals the reviewers will bitch at you for not doing any theoretical calculations "to gain a holistic view". That's total bullshit. When did Physics change from an empirical science into a theoretical one?
It didn't. I don't know of any time in the last 50 years where you could submit a bunch of data and experimental descriptions without an understanding of what happened and get published. Now that's not to say that doing theory without data is a good idea either (what would be the point)?
Ultimately, science is the (1) formulation of a theory that fits data, then the testing of that theory, and if the new data doesn't fit the theory, GOTO (1).
Also, if you're trying to publish something, and you keep getting the same response from a number of different reviewers, that might tell you something, no offense. If you like, post a link to whatever you are trying to publish, and hell, I'll look at it.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Isn't the only way to lose US citizenship (except perhaps death) through the Patriot Act II, where you can be stripped of it?
And the other university that can claim two Nobels this year is the University is Nottingham. Having already celebrated Sir Peter Mansfield's Nobel Prize in Medicine, can now celebrate one of their graduates and ex employees (worked there until nine years ago) being awarded the Economics prize.