Nobel Prize In Physics For Bose-Einstein Condensate

LMCBoy writes "The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics today. The award went to scientists who managed to construct a Bose-Einstein condensate from Rubidium and Sodium atoms. The process involves cooling the atoms to about 20 nanoKelvin. From the press release: 'A laser beam differs from the light from an ordinary light bulb in several ways. In the laser the light particles all have the same energy and oscillate together. To cause matter also to behave in this controlled way has long been a challenge for researchers. This year's Nobel Laureates have succeeded - they have caused atoms to "sing in unison" - thus discovering a new state of matter, the Bose-Einstein condensate.'" This is the same reasearch that Hemos recently posted about.

Ahh yes, masers

[ispq]

They did the research on this several years ago. Nice to see them getting official recoginition.

Grammar nitpick:

[mblase]

This year's Nobel Laureates have succeeded

More like "had succeeded", really -- the condensate was achieved in 1995. Nobel prizes are usually bestowed several years after the achievement itself in order to give plenty of time for independent verification and to demonstrate relevance to the greater body of research and knowledge.

CNN & Science Illiteracy

[InfoVore]

I listened to CNN sporadically today. Several times, I heard the CNN talking heads report on this Nobel award. Each time they only reported the names of the winners and that it was for "research in low temperature gases".

In each case, the 2nd news-reader (don't call these clowns reporters, please) turned to the 1st news-reader and made some lame comment about "boy is THAT way over my head (wink wink giggle)". They didn't mention the term "Bose-Einstein Condensate" nor did they attempt to explain WHY the BEC work would be worthy of a Nobel Prize.

Is it any wonder why the level of science illiteracy in the USA is so high?

IV