Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures." -- Daniel Webster
Tuesday, October 05, 2010 :::
One of the two new physics Nobel laureates is only two years older than I am.
I was a little bit surprised that I have some understanding of what he and his co-author did. I usually expect the medicine prize to be for something kind of understandable - I can't make a test tube baby, and I'll bet you can't, either, but we understand the general idea - but graphene is not too obscure. Perhaps it has some features I'm not aware of; as I understand what it means to enable in vitro fertilization, I understand what it means to have produced graphene for the first time. But I understood why Dr. Test Tube Baby would merit recognition; I hadn't realize graphene was all that interesting. Perhaps my brother can fill me (us?) in.
The first prize went to a scholar at Cambridge and the next to two at Manchester; I don't know what the odds are that England will sweep the hard sciences, but Derek Lowe is hosting speculation on the chemistry prize to be announced tomorrow morning.
