Members in the Media

"It's relatively unlikely that bin Laden actually acquired a crude nuclear weapon, or even significant amounts of weapons- grade fissile material, but that is not a set of circumstances that engenders either confidence or complacency."

-Roger Hagengruber, Sandia National Laboratories, National Journal, December 15, 2001

Two quotes from National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation/Science Friday with Ira Flatow, December 14, 2001:

"We're in the midst of a scientific revolution, a major paradigm shift that corresponds to a transition from an age of reductionism -that is, that one can really find a simple description of everything-to an age of emergence."

-David Pines, Los Alamos

"We believe in the importance and the value of reductionism. It's led to many insights over the years, and we have many questions that we're trying to answer right now."

-Chris Quigg, FermiLab

"It came as a surprise to me that this was even possible. Even leaving aside the many possible side-applications, the physics and engineering here are a very important achievement."

-Atac Imamoglu, University of California, Santa Barbara, on devices that use single photons to transmit information, UPI, December 13, 2001

"We're about 85 to 90 percent water. So what happens is when you try to freeze a biological organism, all that water turns into ice, and since ice is 10 percent less dense than water, everything expands by 10 percent and you essentially kill the organism. But if you can make glassy water, glassy water has the same density as liquid water. You have a chance of preserving an organism without this big density change that destroys it."

-Dennis D. Klug, National Research Council of Canada, on new results about when supercooled water becomes glassy, UPI, December 13, 2001

"I'm totally confused. Either we're supposed to compete naked with all the other people who are dressed - that is, have their infrastructure and their salaries supported - or we're not."

-Irwin Shapiro, Harvard Smithsonian Observatory, on the implications of the Bush Administration's plan to shift funding of the observatory to the NSF, New York Times, December 11, 2001

".a radical and imprudent departure from the current rule . . . and inconsistent with Congress's mandate."

-Victor Gilinsky, former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, on the Department of Energy's proposed new rules for long-term storage of nuclear waste, New York Times, December 11, 2001

"We don't have the full story of large-scale gravity. It's imperative that we poke with every stick we have into the details of the gravitational interaction."

-Thomas W. Murphy, University of Washington, on plans to measure the earth-moon distance to 1/25 inch, AP, December 10, 2001

"It's not spooky, it's just counterintuitive. It's difficult to conceptualize because it's so rare that you ever interact in everyday life with these kinds of quantum effects."

-David Awschalom, University of California, Santa Barbara, on progress toward building a quantum computer, San Francisco Chronicle, December 10, 2001

"It's definitely the strangest experimental finding since I've been in physics.It's an extremely uncomfortable result."

-Edward Witten, Institute for Advanced Study, on the fact of an accelerating universe, New York Times, January 2, 2002

"I would say I'm responsible for the mistake. My collaborator did most of the work, but I am equally guilty of making mistakes."

-Toichiro Kinoshita, Cornell University, on a sign mistake in a calculation of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon, National Public Radio's All Things Considered, January 1, 2002

"UConn has made major, major damage to my career and has stigmatized me as a bully and as someone who threatens people. The last two years have been hell."

-Moshe Gai, University of Connecticut, on why he is suing UConn to prevent his dismissal from the faculty, New Haven Register, January 8, 2002