Members in the Media

"It's very unfortunate that missile defense has become a sort of political litmus test. Ballistic missiles are by far the least likely way that the United States would be attacked with a nuclear weapon. It's this politicization of missile defense that has led to what I think is a vast, dramatic misallocation of resources."
— Wolfgang Panofsky, Stanford University, Orlando Sentinel, October 17, 2004

"String theory leads in a remarkably simple way. to a reasonable rough draft of particle physics that requires gravity. But there are uncomfortably many ways to get the rough draft, and it's frustratingly difficult to get the second draft."

— Ed Witten, Institute for Advanced Study, Dallas Morning News, October 25, 2004

"We will never be able to use fundamental theory to calculate the radius of the Earth's orbit, and we may never be able to use fundamental theory to calculate the vacuum energy."
— Steven Weinberg, University of Texas at Austin, Dallas Morning News, October 25, 2004

"The best thing you could hope for is black holes,"
— Harold Ogren, Indiana University, on what the LHC might produce, Dallas Morning News, October 25, 2004

"It combines rational and irrational numbers to get zero. It's bizarre."
— Robert Crease, SUNY Stony Brook, on Euler's equation, The New York Times, October 24, 2004

"I think the general physics community, they're a little bored with the equation. It's risen to the level of icon that people no longer pay attention to."
— Neil deGrasse Tyson, Hayden Planetarium, on E=mc², The New York Times, October 24, 2004

"Just like primitives, people fetishize. They see this stuff worn by tough, powerful people, and think they can take on those powers. Think Uma Thurman in her yellow leather riding suit and helmet in 'Kill Bill 2.' "
— Charles Falco, University of Arizona, on the latest fashions in motorcycle clothing, The New York Times, October 27

"The movie is saying that somehow we can all get together and, with our collective thought processes, we can influence the outcome. But that's two leaps beyond what scientists believe to be true."
— Bruce Schumm, University of California, Santa Cruz, on the movie, "What the bleep do we know?" The Christian Science Monitor, October 14, 2004

"It's just raw, in-your-face paradise,"
— David Gross, UCSB, on the environment of Santa Barbara, Associated Press, October 14, 2004

"Much of the important science of the 21^st century is going to be done in very large facilities like the light source."
— Robert Birgeneau, University of California, Berkeley, on a new synchrotron facility in Saskatoon, Toronto Star, October 21, 2004

"If you were asked to exercise in a room where the level of radioactivity was hundreds of times higher than the allowable doses set by the National Radiation Protection board, I'm sure students would be demanding the facility be shut down. Yet this same situation exists in group exercise settings, the only difference is in the aerobics class the radiation is acoustic energy and the affected organ is very specific, your ear."
— Eugenie V. Mielczarek, George Mason University, on unhealthy sound levels in exercise classes, WAMU radio, October 15, 2004

"There's no seating chart. People will self-organize their tables."
— Julio Ottino, Northwestern University, on plans for a "Complexity Dinner", Chicago Tribune, October 31, 2004.

"Say you had some in a box, and you pulled one out and weighed it and it weighed m1. Then you pulled out an identical one, and it weighed m2. It isn't a situation where a neutrino is m₁ or m₂—it's a situation where the neutrino is 50% one mass and 50% another. This seems surprising, but it's perfectly natural in quantum mechanics."
— Stuart Freedman, UC Berkeley, San Francisco Chronicle, November 1, 2004

"I think there is not enough awareness of science as there should be. People are very aware of the latest comings and goings of celebrities, while sometimes the greatest science discoveries go unnoticed."
— Paul Halpern, University of the Sciences, Philadelphia Inquirer, October 17, 2004