Chu's Final Breakthrough Before Taking Office

w1z4rd

w1z4rd

Karmic Sangoma
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"While preparing for the job of US Secretary of Energy in the incoming Obama administration (and being director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Nobel Prize winner to boot), Steven Chu has somehow found time to make a major breakthrough in the world of atom interferometry. One measure of an interferometer's sensitivity is the area that its arms enclose. Chu and colleagues have found a way to increase this area by a factor of 2,500 by canceling out the noise introduced by lasers, which work as beam splitters sending atoms down different arms (abstract). One thing this makes possible is the use of different types of atoms in the same interferometer, allowing a new generation of tests of the equivalence principle. (This is the assumption that the m in F=ma and the m's in F= Gm1.m2/r^2 are the same thing). Let's hope he's got equally impressive breakthroughs planned for his encore as US Secretary of Energy."
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http://arxivblog.com/?p=1101

Its ganna be strange to have someone with experience in that field.. and not a Republican former oil company CEO.
 
He was director of a major science institute (LBNL), he has more than enough experience in dealing with politics and fragile egos.
 
Geriatrix said:
The question is whether a scientist of this calliber will be able to dish out the politicing necesarry to survive in that cesspool called government.
He got nominated for the job so maybe he will.
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Well ... all the people in the past were failures in my mind. Things like the EV1 got scrapped for financial gains.

Big oil closed down the right research, so perhaps someone less involved in politics is a good thing. It would be refreshing to have someone actually qualified and experienced in the field there.

To put it in a SA analogy.. it would be like having RPM as the Minister of Communications instead of Stupid Ivy.
 
w1z4rd said:
Well ... all the people in the past were failures in my mind. Things like the EV1 got scrapped for financial gains.

Big oil closed down the right research, so perhaps someone less involved in politics is a good thing. It would be refreshing to have someone actually qualified and experienced in the field there.

To put it in a SA analogy.. it would be like having RPM as the Minister of Communications instead of Stupid Ivy.
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Hell! I'd settle for functional literates in our government portfolios (Trever excepted of course)
 
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