Members in the Media

"There are theories that predict that we shouldn't get rays of this high energy on Earth. If they do exist, it's a sign we need some new physics."
 — Patricia Rankin, University of Colorado, on an ultra high energy cosmic ray detector planned for Colorado, Denver Post, June 8, 2005

“If somebody hands you a watch and you want to know how it works, what we do is smash the watch and see what's left on the floor. We don't have a screwdriver to take apart atoms. So that's how we have to look at them."
 — Stephen Pate, New Mexico State University, on the quark-gluon plasma created at RHIC, Albuquerque Tribune, June 13, 2005

"It sounds absolutely crazy. You send it up on a helium balloon the size of a football stadium to a height of 25 miles and it's floating around with the winds. But it's as reliable as launching a satellite and a lot cheaper and faster."
 — Simon Dicker, University of Pennsylvania, on a balloon-based telescope, The Guardian, June 15, 2005

"It has been, let me say, a bad few years."
 — Benn Tannenbaum, AAAS, on radiation detection systems and US border security, The New York Times, June 22, 2005

"His government funding sources told him in effect that 'You have shown that atmospheric carbon dioxide is increasing, now find some other interesting science to do.' He fought to continue his measurement series, with support from many other scientists, and was back taking data in May of 1964."
 — F. Sherwood Rowland, University of California, Irvine, on global warming researcher Charles D. Keeling, who died recently, The New York Times, June 23, 2005

"There isn't a clear task. If you are a researcher you are trying to figure out what the question is as well as what the answer is. You want to find the question that is sufficiently easy that you might be able to answer it, and sufficiently hard that the answer is interesting. You spend a lot of time thinking and you spend a lot of time floundering around."
 — Edward Witten, Institute for Advanced Study, on what he does all day, CNN.com, June 27, 2005

"We have, what? Thunder, the sound of waves, wind? There are dozens of weird sounds in space.”
 — Donald Gurnett, University of Iowa, on sounds in space, Chicago Sun Times, June 29, 2005

''In order to do the experiment, we needed a more powerful radar transmitter. The director of Lincoln Laboratory called the Air Force and got $500,000 for funding simply over the phone. He called it a Christmas present."
 — Irwin Shapiro, Harvard University, on experiments he did in 1966-67 confirming Einstein’s predictions, Boston Globe, June 30, 2005

"NASA is good at fixing the last accident.”
 — Douglas Osheroff, Stanford University, on the space shuttle, Los Angeles Times, July 4, 2005

"By changing we're talking about a millionth of a second per day. But long term slowing is due to the moon. It's about 1.5/1000th of a second slower per century. The day is longer today than it was in 1905."
 — Tom O’Brian, NIST, on the leap-second to be added at the end of 2005, LiveScience.com, July 5, 2005

"It's like Columbus sighting land and then saying, 'Okay, let's go back.'"
 — Stamatios Krimigis, Johns Hopkins University, on the possible canceling of the Voyager mission, Scientific American, July 4, 2005

“Newton easily is the best physicist, and arguably the best mathematician of all time."
 — Sean Carroll, University of Chicago, Chicago Sun-Times, July 3, 2005

"We thought that was so amazing, we held a big party."
 — Robert Goldston, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, on using fusion in 1972 to generate one tenth of a watt of electricity for one hundredth of a second, Newsweek, July 11, 2005