By Christopher Moore
John Mather of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and George Smoot of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California were awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics for depicting the universe as it was 380,000 years after its birth in the Big Bang.
Mather and Smoot were the architects of NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which measured remnants of light from the Big Bang. The results of these measurements provide compelling evidence in favor of Big Bang Theory, and give a glimpse of what the universe looked like shortly after its inception.
More from MSNBC.com:
The measurements also revealed tiny ripples in the light’s intensity, representing “lumps” no more than 0.001 percent richer in matter than the space around them. From those humble origins arose massive galaxies and galactic superclusters hundreds of millions of light-years across.
Although there is still debate about what caused these ripples, Mather’s and Smoot’s data confirm that the origin of everything we know, including ourselves, is founded on the slightest irregularities in the primordial radiation.
Why where they awarded the prize? Our universe’s (and our own) origins are important, but more important is that for decades cosmologists have speculated as to the origin and growth of the universe with little to no experimental support. Mather and Smoot injected experimental data into the discussion, confirming a hotly contested theory and expanding our knowledge of the make-up of the universe. For this they will split $1.4 million dollars, receive a gold medal and a diploma, and be able to add one hell of a line to their resumes.
By Christopher Moore
A research team based out of the physics department here at Virginia Commonwealth University (where I call home) has discovered clusters of Aluminum atoms that have chemical properties similar to single atoms of metallic and nonmetallic elements when they react with iodine. This is the first indication of what is being called “Superatom Chemistry.” Rather than combining single atoms to form complex molecules, new forms of atomic clusters (single element atoms clustered together) can now be reacted with other elements or clusters to produce never-before-seen compounds with distictive features.
The article has just been published in the journal Science. A press-release issued by VCU can be found here:
The results of the research, headed jointly by Shiv N. Khanna, professor of physics at Virginia Commonwealth University and A. Welford Castleman Jr., the Evan Pugh Professor of Chemistry and Physics and the Eberly Family Distinguished Chair in Science at Penn State University, will be reported in the 14 January 2005 issue of the journal Science.
“Depending on the number of aluminum atoms in the cluster, we have demonstrated ’superatoms’ exhibiting the properties of either halogens or alkaline earth metals,” says Castleman. “This result suggests the intriguing potential of this chemistry in nanoscale synthesis.” The discovery could have practical applications in the fields of medicine, food production and photography.
A cluster of 13 aluminum atoms behaves like a single iodine atom, while a cluster of 14 aluminum atoms behaves like an alkaline earth atom. An entire “new” periodic table can be assembled for just Al clusters.
“The discovery of these new iodine compounds, which include aluminum clusters, is critical because it reveals a new form of ’superatom’ chemistry,” said Khanna. “In the future, we may apply this chemistry, building on our previous knowledge, to create new materials for energy applications and even medical devices.”
Not a bad accomplishment for the guys down the hall.
By Christopher Moore
This week I’m attending the American Vacuum Society’s (AVS) annual conference. More about what that is tommorrow. I just got off the plane. Normally, I would write an interesting article about flight and the Bernoulli Principle, but I’m too tired. Maybe another day. The high point of the flight: on the plane, I sat next to Kirk Cameron of “Growing Pains” fame. He’s not quite the star he used to be (neither of us was in first class) but hell, I grew up on that show, so it was pretty exciting for me.
That’s all for today.
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.
