Symmetry factor

2006 Nobel Prize in physics will be awarded on Oct. 3 — just in a couple of days. Of course, there is already an active discussion in blogosphere about who should get it. In fact , Thompson Scientific (yes, publisher of our algebra-based General Physics textbook) has a poll with the following results:

49% - Desurvire, Nakazawa, Payne (condensed matter: fiber optics)
32% - Fert, Gruenberg (condensed matter: giant magnetoresistance)
20% - Guth, Linde, Steinhardt (cosmology: inflation)

Although I think that this year it’ll go to someone more “applied” (which would make contestant number 2 above the most likely candidate), I can suggest a couple of candidates in particle/nuclear physics:

• Makoto Kobayashi, Toshihide Maskawa, and maybe Nicola Cabibbo for mechanism of CP-violation in the Standard Model;

• Yoishiro Nambu and Jeffrey Goldstone for mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking;

• James Bjorken for scaling in QCD

Any other ideas?

As I mentioned in my previous post, this is a prime season for job hunting. It is not surprizing that it is harder for smaller research groups to convince funding agencies to provide money to hire a postdoctoral research associate.

Well, I have a job for you! This year, between my DOE grant, NSF CAREER award and with some help from the Department, I’d be able to hire a postdoc once again). Of course, whoever applies should have a number of qualifications described here (opens pdf file). And your research interests should overlap with mine…

It’s almost October, the prime time of the year for job announcements (it’s so nice to have tenure :-)). So many physics departments do just that, they post job ads. A quick look through various databases collected on my old website reveals that, once again, many jobs would go to biophysicists… Our department here is not an exception.

I recall that at the 2000 Meeting of Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society (or simply DPF 2000), held at Columbus (Ohio), Joe Lykken, particle theorist from Fermilab, gave a talk where he outlined 10 reasons why particle physics is cooler than biology. Here they are:

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Top 10 reasons why particle physics is cooler than biology

  10. Compare jargon:
     - quarks, neutrinos, gluons, charm, …
     - deoxyribonucleic acid, N-acetyl-D-glucosamine, …

 9. Most famous Particle Physics spinoff: World Wide Web.
    Most famous Molecular Biology spinoff: cloned sheep.

 8. Einstein: hair to spare.
     Darwin: bald.

 7. Particle Physicists hold conferences in exotic places like
     Columbus, Ohio.

 6. Compare Hot Topics:
     - warped extra dimensions of space,
     - new strains of E. coli.

 5. Particle physicists used to be smarter and more arrogant
      than Biologists. Now they are just smarter.

 4. Nuclear weapons: cheap, safe, reliable.
     Biological weaapons: banned by Geneva Convention.

 3. Particle Physics promises:
     - superstrings, supersymmetry, supercolliders.
    Biology promises:
     - supermice, supertomatoes.

 2. Richard Feynman: played bongos, chased girls.
    James D. Watson: bird watcher.

 1. No rats.

DPF 2000, Joseph Lykken.

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Can you think of others? My colleague here added that zero Kelvin always beats zero Celsius…