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The 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics
azatht writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2004 "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" jointly to
David J. Gross,
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA,
H. David Politzer
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USThe 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, and
Frank Wilczek
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA."
Asymptotic freedom in the theory of the Strong Interaction
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
BBC Article
This discovery cemented the theory of quantum chromodynamics, which describes the interactions of quarks and other subatomic particles inside the atomic nucleus.
It also filled a critical remaining gap in what physicists refer to as the Standard Model, the theory that governs physics at the microscopic scale. It accounts for the behavior of three out of nature's four fundamental forces - electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak force, which governs radioactive decay. Which brings us a few step forwards towards the answer of 42.
Is it some 100% theoretical stuff or will it have technical repercussions in the short term ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
It just seems to me,with what little I know of research and physics, that these things are now such large scale enterprises that the awards should actually go to the institions and not the people.
http://www.geocities.com/sethseekstruth/great_out
It always amazes me how little I know when I look at what these folks do. http://web.mit.edu/physics/facultyandstaff/faculty /frank_wilczek.html/
Interesting reading.
Umm, mods... That one wasn't coralized...
a tes/2004/press.html
Try this instead:
http://nobelprize.org.nyud.net:8090/physics/laure
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
If you want a good description of what Superstrings is all about, read Brian Greene's book "The Elegant Universe". It's about superstrings, hidden dimensions, and the quest for the ultimate theory. His book was also made into a PBS special a few months ago. Brian Greene is a master at making these complex issues understandable. And he's fun to watch too. I'm not sure how much pure research he does anymore, but he's probably one of the best things that's ever happened to science because he helps people like me understand what people like him do - and tells us why we should care!
It is long waited prize in the the High Energy Physics comunity. It wasn't awarded before because some dispute about the original idea claimed by Gerard T'Hooft but never published. Only after T'Hooft got the nobel prize in 1999 the path to the "QCD nobel prize" was really open.
... I'm glad to see freedom is alive SOMEWHERE.
Although this is slightly offtopic, I recommend spending three hours behind your computer to watch Greene's NOVA program The Elegant Universe
The full history is here: Gerardus 't Hooft - Autobiography:
"At CERN, I became interested in the quark confinement problem. I could not understand why none of the expert theoreticians would embrace quantum field theories for quarks. When I asked them, why not just a pure Yang-Mills theory?, they said that field theories were inconsistent with what J.D. Bjorken had found out about scaling in the strong interactions. This puzzled me, because when I computed the scaling properties of Yang-Mills fields, they seemed to be just what one needs. I simply could not believe that no-one besides me knew how Yang-Mills theories scale. I mentioned my result verbally at a small conference at Marseille, in 1972. The only person who listened to what I said was Kurt Symanzik. He urged me to publish my result about scaling. 1f you don't, someone else will", he warned. I ignored his sensible advice. I had also made a remark about scaling in my 1971 paper on massive Yang-Mills fields. No-one had taken notice.
Veltman told me that my theory would be worthless if I could not explain why quarks cannot be isolated. He attached more importance to another project we had embarked upon: we had started a lengthy calculation concerning the renormalizability of quantum gravity models. Although complete renormalization would never be possible, it was still worth-while to study these theories at the one-loop level, and there were some important things to be learned. Our work would be continued by Stanley Deser and a fellow PhD student of Veltman's, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen, who discovered patterns in the renormalization counter terms that would lead to the discovery of supergravity theories.
But I also continued to think of gauge theories for the strong interaction. Quark confinement was indeed a problem, and I started to work on it. It was this question that led me to discover the magnetic monopole solutions in Higgs theories, the large N behaviour for theories with N colours (instead of 3, the physical number), and later the very important effects due to instantons. In the mean time, the scaling properties were rediscovered by H. David Politzer and by David Gross and Frank Wilczek in 1973, who now realized that this invalidated the age-old objections against simple, pure Yang-Mills theories for the strong interactions. The pure Yang-Mills theory with gauge group SU (3) was finally being accepted as the most likely explanation for the strong interactions, and it received the beautiful name "Quantum Chromodynamics" (QCD). "
I hadn't realised that the Nobel Prize actually had a cash prize. Considering these guys were just doing there job, the payout is not bad. 10M swedish krona (763K GBP or 1.36M USD).
"for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" It's her way of saying you can approach freedom, but you will never quite get there. - not as long as I'm around.
Hey! One of these guys (Politzer) was my Phys 1 prof when I was a frosh at Caltech *cough* 27 years ago, and I actually _remember_ his explanation of asymptotic freedom to us (even though I am a only a biology guy)! I also remember Feynman's guest lecture on numerical methods for "solving" otherwise impossible problems in Quantum Mechanics (which he demonstrated with a hand calculator!). We (the undergrads) were for the most part cocky know-it-alls with no clue what a privilege it was to have these folks (and many others of their caliber) teaching us up close and personal. Now, I look back with amazement at being able to discuss/joke/plead with these folks like it was no big deal. Seriously, if there are any gung-ho Slashlings out there looking for an intense science education, Caltech is hard to beat. Of course, if hazy memory serves in this matter, more than half the class flunked that first Phys1 midterm, so this is not for the faint of heart...
I realise I may be feeding a troll, but too many people have that serious opinion. Let me jsut layout some coutner arguements:
Relativity is not 'useless' satalite communication would not be work if we didn't make relitivistic corrections. So unless you consider cellphones "worthless", then the theory is worthwhile. Not only does cellphone technology rely on satalites, but also on the precise atomic clocks contained with in them. And those atomic clocks rely on our quantum mechanical understanding of atoms. Thats not to say that this particular research directly led to our widespread cellphone usage, but its just an example of how much basic research affects our daily lives.
Now, every now and then pure mathematicians will come up with an obscure field that they will decalre as being unaplicable to anything ever ( see group theory). Then a few years later a group of physicsists will discover that it has a real application in physics. Then they will speculate wildly about the potential applications in an attempt to gain greater funding, while privately thinking that it has no possible use. Then some crazy engineer will discover some such use ( usually one the physicists never thought of) and whoila it has a real world benifit to all of mankind. The more tools we have to solve problems, the easier the problems become. The tools have a trickle down effect. More mathematical tools lead to more physics tools which lead to more engineering tools which lead to more solutions to our everyday problems.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
In fact, the original name (and one that is still used by many physicists) for the top and bottom quarks were Truth and Beauty. Now, of course, joykillers like you say that's not technical enough and that it can't be serious. As if Top and Bottom meant something more....If you want to do any anything technical, they should be called 1,2,3,4,5, and 6. Otherwise, give any name you want, they're just names.
If anyone deserves to be a little whimsical from time to time, it's the guys who sit around and figure out why the Universe is the way it is. I wasn't saying that the names aren't technical or serious enough, there's enough complexity in the name Quantum Chromodynamics to make most undergrads head's spin, they don't need the names of the elementry particles to be alpha, beta, gamma, etc.
I just find it funny that in trying to discover a theory of everything, we use a phrase from Finnegan's Wake
This is where we pretend we care about the nobel prize in physics for a day.
Now back to Linux.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The closer the quarks are, the more free they reign.
:-)
The farther apart the more force is exerted on them.
They describe it as an elastic band. It sound more like the 'proximity' provides some kind of countering effect, which is removed when they drift apart, or indeed, merely they reach the boundary of thier movement (this is me know knows nothing about all this stuff)
But it does say that we know nothing about gravity, where it comes form, what its favourite colour is, or, perhaps topically, who it will vote for.
It says something about humanity, they don't see something until it falls on thier head (literally).
I used to think that gravity shouldn't be explained, but bouyancy. If you know why things float, you know why things fall.
c'mon I was like 4 years old. The only rubber sheet I had heard of was my matress. Yes, I wet the bed. *hands head in shame*
I stopped well before my 22nd birthday though
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Two of the winners are in their mid 50's. But the work they won the prize for was done over 30 years ago. That means they were in their early to mid 20's at the time!
-"It seems like you're trying to exploit a security hole. Would you like help?"
Back when I was at CalTech in the early 80's (studying physics myself), a friend named Scott Lewicki, and his friend Doug Priest got David Politzer to record a rap song called The Simple Harmonic Oscillator Rap.
Google doesn't find me an MP3 of it, but the lyrics are in this PDF document. Search in the text of the document for "Politzer" and you'll find the lyrics.
You can purchase it on a CD called Physics Pholk Songs for $15.00.
Here's the first verse:
Enjoy!Request your free CD of my piano music.
The physics person sees...
...(uuuhhh words, words, words, uh... blah).
azatht writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2004 "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction" jointly to David J. Gross, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, H. David Politzer California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, USThe 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics, and Frank Wilczek Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA."
The others see...
azatht writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.