Members in the Media

“If we can just damage that part selectively–without hurting the brain or another part of the body to get there–that’s a big deal.”
Gabe Spaulding, Illinois Wesleyan University, on his work developing cancer treatments, The San Francisco Chronicle, September 23, 2012.

“The idea of creating a crystal with dimensions higher than that of conventional 3D crystals is an important conceptual breakthrough in physics, and it is very exciting for us to be the first to devise a way to realize a space-time crystal.”
Tongcang Li, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, on using a four-dimensional crystal as the basis of an eternal clock, FoxNews.com, September 25, 2012.

“There had been bombs dropped on cities. There had been firestorms, and so forth. I believe people nowadays don’t realize that in war your objective is to beat the enemy. And unfortunately, mostly that involves killing a lot of the enemy to do that. So war is a very bloody thing… I felt then that although this was a terrible event, it probably saved many, many more Japanese lives. They probably would have lost millions if they had had to defend themselves against an invasion.”
Robert Christy, Caltech, from a 1994 interview reflecting on his work during the Manhattan Project, The Chicago Sun-Times, October 5, 2012.

“The potential immediate benefit for cancer detection greatly outweighed the potential for cancer from the radiation that would occur many, many years down the road.”
Robert Ochs, University of Toledo, on the safety of mammograms, The Washington Post, October 8, 2012.

“There are ways to stretch the rules, but evidently the relevant decision-makers felt that there was not sufficient reason to do so in this case.”
Frank Wilczek, MIT, on why he thought the Nobel Committee didn't award the Physics prize to the researchers who postulated the Higgs Boson, NBC.com, October 10, 2012.

“What physicists don’t know is that they are studying Picasso’s paint.”
Volker Rose, Argonne National Laboratory, on how the same zinc oxide Pablo Picasso used in his paints is now being studied for technological applications, The Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2012.

“Dave is universally acknowledged to be one of the true nice guys in physics, which is not something that can always be said about Nobel laureates… His unassuming and humble style are entirely unique.”
Christopher Monroe, University of Maryland, on Nobel laureate David Wineland, The Washington Post, October 10, 2012.

“I attribute essentially all my success to the very large amount of chocolate that I consume… Personally I feel that milk chocolate makes you stupid… Now dark chocolate is the way to go. It’s one thing if you want like a medicine or chemistry Nobel Prize, OK, but if you want a physics Nobel Prize it pretty much has got to be dark chocolate.”
Eric Cornell, University of Colorado, The Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2012.

“At this point, I wouldn’t recommend anyone buy stock in a quantum computing company… but we’re optimistic that as the technology improves over the years, this quantum computer will bring unique capabilities to computing.”
David Wineland, NIST, on the future of quantum computing, commenting on winning a share of the Nobel Prize, The Denver Post, October 10, 2012.

“We’re both scared… Kenny’s probably scared ‘cause he could die… I’m just scared that I’ll embarrass myself.”
Adam Riess, Johns Hopkins University, at a symposium on exploration comparing his kind of exploration to Kenny Broad, an underwater cave spelunker, NationalGeographic.com, October 12, 2012.

“Quantum physics is one of the hardest things to understand intuitively, because essentially the whole point is that our classical picture is wrong… The world is not made up of particles and waves and beams of light with a definite existence. Instead, the world works in a much more exploratory way. It is aware of all the possibilities at once and trying them out all the time. That is a hard thing to picture.”
Neil Turok, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, The Globe and Mail, October 12, 2012.