It's Nobel week and,as hard as describing stem cell manipulations was for yesterday's announcement, the hard stuff hit today with physics and continues tomorrow (probably worse as a brain-stretcher) with chemistry. No other week of the year puts as many science journalists through the wringer, which is a metaphor and we're on topics here for which metaphors may be a writer's only hopes. Given the assignment, there is no dodging the requirement to get readers (and oneself) to digest not just the excitement of an early morning phone call from Stockholm, but what more or less exactly it was that somebody did years ago to deserve that precious, life-changing jingle.
The news is that Serge Haroche of the Collège de France and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and David J. Wineland of the National Insitute of Standards and Technology (atomic clock mecca) in Boulder won for finding ways to observe some quantum systems to learn their status without changing them or, in physics language, collapsing their weird-physics quantum probability wave packets into something discrete and different. For those of us who remember elementaryt quantum mechanics and its Schrodinger's cat and its wave-particle dual slit experiments that forced photons and electrons to get serious about their routes, the lesson was that if you peek, the scene is forever changed. Explaining this is not easy even though, as several reporters dwell upon, such work is essential if we're ever to have quantum super-to-the-Nth-power computers. Some reporters won't try other than to say about what I've said so far (now you see it and yet you didn't mess it up). A few might get into superposition and other weirdness.
Here's a roundup, with remarks on aspects that catch the eye.
Stories:
- AP – Karl Ritter, Louise Nordstrom plus tagline credit to Malcolm Ritter, Lori Hinnant, James Anderson, Colleen Slevin: US, French physicists win Nobel for quantum work that could pave way for superfast computers ; That's a slew (slough? I have never learned which it is) of reporters and the story shows it. Decent physics (clocks and computers) along with the necessity, at the wire, of personal asides and vignettes from the suddent departures from the researchers routines.
- Reuters – Sharon Begley, Chris Wickham (good headline award for this one): A Nobel Prize for being in two places at once; This pair, with the steady Ms. Begley, go straight for the physics and do it in a breezy, comfortable, reasonably uncompromising way. Nothin' on the phone calls, narrative excursions that evade tricky science but also drain the story of a sense of the giddiness of such moments as Nobels at sunrise.
- NYTimes – Dennis Overbye: French and U.S. Scientists Win Nobel Physics Prize ; Shortish, to the point, and some grace ("… Dr. Wineland's work has focused on the matter partner in the light-matter dance…")
- BBC – Physics Nobel goes to Serge Horoche and David Wineland ;
- ISNS (Inside Science News Service) – Ben Stein: Groundbreaking experiments on individual particles pave way for exploring and ezploiting strange quantum world. Not only superposition here but "quantum non-demolition experiments." That's a phrase mellifluous to these ears and not, at two glances, to be found in the Nobel Committee's press release science explainer.
- Wall St. Journal – Gautam Naik: Haroche, Wineland Win Nobel Physics Prize ; See also, if you can, the interactive graphic that displays who won when and where he/she is from by institution and nationality. I did not have time to see how it handles people of mixed nationality (born one place, worked in another, carried dual passports etc.) and are claimed by each nation with a piece of the pie.
-
Science News – Alexandra Witze: 2012 physics Nobel recognizes experiments probing quantum world ;
And does not this quote capture, in blunt simple language, the stature that the winners already enjoy among their colleagues? "The two of them together are the total pinnacle of the whole field." Awesome. - LA Times / ScienceNOW – Jon Bardin: American, Frenchman win Nobel Prize for work in quantum physics ; Hmmm. Time was, LATimes covered such things first hand. Jon Bardin, one learns, is a blogger at AAAS's ScienceNOW service. Speaking of ScienceNOW..(next bullet)
- ScienceNow – Adrian Cho: Manipulators of the Quantum Realm Reap Nobel Glory ;
- Houston Chronicle (blog) Kenneth Evans – Nobel Preise for physics: The duo that opened the door to quantum computers ; Another paper that nabbed a story through the side window. The piece is from an intern at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
- LiveScience – Clara Moskowitz: 2012 Nobel Physics Prize Goes to Quantum Optics Pioneers ;
- The Guardian (UK) Alok Jha: Physics Nobel prize awarded for crucial step towards quantum computing ;
- ..with apology to all the writers who also turned mind to wave-particle dualities and eigenfunctional dysphoria but not listed here.
Dept of Nice Tries or .. before the envelope is opened:
- The Guardian – Jon Butterworth: Nobel prize in physics: it's not too soon for a Higgs boson to win it ; True, and it also means that, barring premature expiration of Mr. Higgs, next year won't be too later, either.
Grist for the Mill: Nobel Prize Committee press release ; NB Committee easy science explainer, longer explainer ;
– Charlie Petit
Leave a Reply