Ignatius J. Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 As I walked into the office of my mentor at UCLA, I heard the news of the latest nobel pize in physics. The prize was won by David Gross, Frank Wilczek and David Politzer for thier work on QCD, specifically asymptotic freedom. (I'd be happy to answer any questions people have on this if they care) Anyway, the interesting thing was that my mentor, Per Kraus was Wilczek's student, and another member of the UCLA faculty here, Eric D'Hoker, was a student of Gross. So I now have a decent academic pedigree, If I can only figure out exactly what I want to study. (By the way Politzer vanished into the abyss after publishing this paper, so although he is faculty at caltech, I'm not sure he's EVER had any students) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpillian Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 Very cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenmdixon Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 Originally posted by Ignatius J. As I walked into the office of my mentor at UCLA, I heard the news of the latest nobel pize in physics. The prize was won by David Gross, Frank Wilczek and David Politzer for thier work on QCD, specifically asymptotic freedom. (I'd be happy to answer any questions people have on this if they care) Anyway, the interesting thing was that my mentor, Per Kraus was Wilczek's student, and another member of the UCLA faculty here, Eric D'Hoker, was a student of Gross. So I now have a decent academic pedigree, If I can only figure out exactly what I want to study. (By the way Politzer vanished into the abyss after publishing this paper, so although he is faculty at caltech, I'm not sure he's EVER had any students) Pretty awesome connections, Ignatius. As for the question-and-answer part, is there a place where you can send me that can explain some background to this? I'm afraid that I do know know much of anything about physics, but it sure sounds interesting... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ignatius J. Posted October 6, 2004 Author Share Posted October 6, 2004 hmmm. I've always loved the books by richard feynman. Six Easy Pieces and then six not so easy pieces are both excellent reads for people without a serious background in physics. You can also look at books like Weinberg's "Dreams of a final theory." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dchogs Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 feynman was amazing. when i taught physics last year, i showed my class a video on him. the way that he taught was amazing... making the complex (understatement) relatively simple, such enthusiasm. i wish i could have audited a class of his. congrats J on the lineage. knowing the right people never hurts. jen, the elegant universe (both book and video) does a fairly good job of dissecting quantum physics. it is very theoretical and difficult to comprehend (compared to say newtonian physics, which we all experience everyday), but it is very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DjTj Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 Politzer teaches freshman Physics, which is something Feynman could certainly appreciate. ...Maybe I should've taken Ph1c prac track - although I was never a big fan of the soldering iron... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zen-like Todd Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 Feynman is hilarious. His matter of fact retellings of his days hanging out in Vegas with the girls who "worked" there are laugh out loud funny, when put in context with his accomplishments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ignatius J. Posted October 7, 2004 Author Share Posted October 7, 2004 I had forgotten that ted. Did you take it from him? (that would certainly explain why I didn't know him.) Do you know if he's had any graduate students? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DjTj Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 Originally posted by Ignatius J. I had forgotten that ted. Did you take it from him? (that would certainly explain why I didn't know him.) Do you know if he's had any graduate students? I don't know about grad students, but all the engineers and biologists in our class took Physics from Politzer. Good old practical physics with soldering irons and multimeters. The Physics and Math majors had Andrew Lange. I don't really have much of an impression of Politzer either - I'm just trying to remember where he would sit at the Ath... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 979guy Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 Not exactly familty, yet still make me proud :respect: : Israelis, American Win Nobel for Chemistry By MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writer STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Two Israelis and an American won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for showing how cells can give a "kiss of death" to destroy unwanted proteins, a finding that could help scientists find new medicines for cancer and other diseases. The award marks the first time an Israeli has won a Nobel science prize. Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko, and American Irwin Rose were cited for revealing a process that gives doomed proteins a chemical label and then chops them up. That process in turn governs such key tasks as cell division, DNA repair and quality control of newly produced proteins, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science said in awarding the prize. If it goes wrong, diseases like cervical cancer can result, the academy said. Ciechanover, 56, is the director of the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in Medical Sciences at the Technion, in Haifa, Israel, while Hershko, 70, originally from Hungary, is a professor there. The 78-year-old Rose is a professor emeritus at the University of California-Irvine. All three will share the $1.3 million cash prize for their work, done in the 1980s. At a news conference in Hershko's apartment in the Israeli port city of Haifa, the two Israelis said they hope their work will lead to new advances in the treatment of cancer. One such drug, Velcade, is on the United States market, Ciechanover noted, and "there are many more in the pipeline." Added Hershko: "It does not mean that a miracle drug to beat cancer is on the way. But I do believe there will be advances in the treatment of cancer based on our work. This I truly believe in." The protein-destroying process the scientists discovered was completely unexpected, because scientists had thought such destruction was not regulated, said Lars Thelander, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. Thelander said researches now hope they will be able to manipulate the protein degradation system in two different ways — either to prevent it from destroying proteins that boost the immune system, or to get rid of proteins that help cause diseases. "And we hope also that by knowing this system in detail we will be able to make new medicines," he said. The chemistry prize is the first Nobel science prize to be awarded to an Israeli — but not the first Nobel Prize. In 1978, Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In 1994, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (news - web sites) shared the peace prize with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites). In 1966, Shmuel Yosef Agnon of Israel shared the 1966 literature prize with Swedish writer Nelly Sachs. Hershko and Ciechanover said they were proud to be the first Israelis to win Nobel prizes for science. "We're a small country ... so we don't have all the infrastructure that big laboratories have in the U.S. or in other places," said Hershko. The prize is "identified 100 percent with Israeli scientists that ... have worked and lived in the country and will continue to live and to work in this country," added Ciechanover. This year's award announcements began Monday with the Nobel Prize in medicine going to Americans Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck. Axel and Buck were selected by a committee at Stockholm's Karolinska Institutet for their work on the sense of smell. On Tuesday, Americans David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek won the physics prize for their explanation of the force that binds particles inside the atomic nucleus. The winner of the literature prize will be announced Thursday. The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel will be announced next Monday. The winner of the coveted peace prize — the only one not awarded in Sweden — will be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway. The prizes, which include a $1.3 million check, a gold medal and a diploma, are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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