APS News

June 2009 (Volume 18, Number 6)

Members in the Media

“It’s a good way to get grant money to study something. But it’s still a pipe dream. … I think it’s one of those trendy things that won’t lead to anywhere.”
Emanuel Derman, Columbia University, on why he thinks that using neuroscience to model the stock market won’t work, The Wall Street Journal, April 16, 2009.

“I no longer own a car. Let me just say that in most of my jobs, I mostly rode my bicycle. [Now] My security detail didn’t want me to be riding my bicycle or even taking the Metro. I have a security detail that drives me.”
Steven Chu, Department of Energy, The New York Times Magazine, April 16, 2009.

“In the lab, we only look at one type of molecule at a time. But when we look in space, all the molecules are there at the same time. That’s the difficulty,”
Eric Herbst, Ohio State University, explaining the difficulty detecting complex molecules in distant galaxies using radio telescopes, MSNBC.com, April 21, 2009.

“I’d like to do research that has practical applications, that is useful in everyday life,”
Eric Eason, University of Colorado, after winning the prestigious Hertz Fellowship at age 17, The Denver Post, April 22, 2009.

“My expectation is that NASA will be given marching orders and that they won’t be the same as that of the Bush administration…They are still working on the old plan, and the clock is ticking.”
Neal Lane, Rice University, voicing concern over NASA’s lack of direction without a head administrator, The Associated Press, April 22, 2009.

“The Rydberg electron resembles a sheepdog that keeps its flock together by roaming speedily to the outermost periphery of the flock, and nudging back towards the center any member that might begin to drift away,”
Chris Greene, University of Colorado at Boulder, on the creation of the first Rydberg molecule, BBC News, April 23, 2009.

“Somehow they have managed to get thousands of gigantic magnets, get them arranged so that they’re within a few microns of where they’re supposed to be, and then cool it down to a couple degrees above absolute zero,”
Joseph Lykken, Fermilab, describing some of the incredible engineering that went into building the Large Hadron Collider, CNN International, April 28, 2009.

“Bright spots reflect their assigned wavelength but dark ones don’t…When the 2-D rainbow reflects from the object, the image is copied onto the color spectrum of the pulse.”
Bahram Jalali, UCLA, explaining the operation of his team’s new, 6-million frames per second camera, BBC News, April, 29, 2009.

“Like interacting with an expert, it will understand what you’re talking about, do the computation, and then present you with the results,”
Stephen Wolfram, Wolfram Research Inc, promoting his newly developed web tool that can interpret simple questions and answer them directly, BBC News, April 30, 2009.

“Essentially, we are transforming a straight line of light into a curved line around the cloak, so you don’t perceive any change in its pathway,”
Xiang Zhang, Berkeley, on how new metamaterials are being used towards the creation of an “invisibility cloak,” BBC News, April, 30, 2009.

“A great thing about the physics of beer is the bubbles,”
Stephen Morris, University of Toronto, getting ready for Toronto’s “Sipping Science” day, Globe and Mail, May 2, 2009.

“The fun in ‘Star Trek’ didn’t come from copying science, but from having science copy it. My job wasn’t to put real science into ‘Star Trek,’ but to imagine new ideas that hadn’t yet been thought of.”
Leonard Mlodinow, describing how as a writer for the Star Trek franchise he is able to both incorporate and inspire real science, Newsweek, May 4, 2009.

“It’s awesome–we called it, ‘Black holes in a bathtub’. ”
Norman Yao, Harvard, describing his undergrad work on how black holes behave like fluids, The New Jersey Star-Ledger, May 10, 2009.

©1995 - 2024, AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY
APS encourages the redistribution of the materials included in this newspaper provided that attribution to the source is noted and the materials are not truncated or changed.

Editor: Alan Chodos

June 2009 (Volume 18, Number 6)

APS News Home

Issue Table of Contents

APS News Archives

Contact APS News Editor


Articles in this Issue
Kirby Succeeds Franz as APS Executive Officer
Brinkman Nominated to Head DOE Office of Science
Physicists Bring Their Moxie to National Intelligence
APS Launches Free News Service for its Members
Scientists Issue Call for More Public Engagement
Session Explores the Future of Global Physics Projects
Speakers Reflect on Telescopes Old and New
Pulsars Proposed as Direct Gravity Wave Detectors
Letters to the Editor
The Back Page
Members in the Media
This Month in Physics History
Zero Gravity: The Lighter Side of Science
Profiles in Versatility
International News
Washington Dispatch