By Christopher Moore
The recipients of the 2004 Nobel prize in physics have been announced. Read the AP report here.
Americans David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczeck won the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their exploration of the force that binds particles inside the atomic nucleus.
So what did these guys do? Well they described a nucleus’ color! In english, the made theoretical discoveries concerning the strong force, which physicists call the “color force”.
The strong force is the dominant force inside the nucleus that acts between the quarks inside the proton and the neutron.
Protons and neutrons are made up of tiny little bits called quarks. In order to make a proton or a neutron I have to stick three quarks together. The strong force is the glue that binds these quarks. The model that explains this “glue” force is called the theory of quantum chromodynamics, or QCD.
Richard Feynmann recieved a Nobel prize in the 80’s for his work on quantum eletrodynamics, or QED. QED looks at what makes the electrons stick to the atom.
I just finished reading an article in this months Physics Today written by Frank Wilczek. Its an excellent article that touches on the concept of “force”. What is a force? You can read it here.
By Christopher Moore
I’m having quite a bit of fun with PHP. I’ve written a new feature into the forum script. Just like the old forum, you can upload an image and paste it into your posts. I also added an instant message feature. So now the forum has all of the features the old site had, but takes a LOT less space, bandwidth and CPU.
I’ve imported about 70 users from the old database. Only a few hundred left! As for the old forum posts, well … that will be a little more difficult. I’ve moved from a flat file database (just text files) to a SQL database for the forums. The text format is completely different from the new SQL format, so adding the old posts into the system would take a LOT of time. Each post would have to be hand entered into the database! So I will probably only re-post the most read and commented threads.
Tommorrow night I’ll try to get the community section up so that you can start signing up for free websites.
By Christopher Moore
I believe I have figured out how to import the old user database and forum posts. Please be patient, since it will take a little while to get everything running smoothly. I will have some time tonight to try and get at least the user database imported.
By Christopher Moore
Cornell News reports carbon nanotube oscillators have been built that can weight an atom.
Using a carbon nanotube, Cornell University researchers have produced a tiny electromechanical oscillator that might be capable of weighing a single atom. The device, perhaps the smallest of its kind ever produced, can be tuned across a wide range of radio frequencies, and one day might replace bulky power-hungry elements in electronic circuits
For more, see here.
