Tuesday, October 05, 2010

All right, this is cool

I hate to "blog," that is, to post clips and useless comments instead of trying to write something, but just one more thing before the boss catches me here...

Andre Geim has won the Nobel prize in Physics for his work with graphene. [Graphene? It's interesting stuff to be sure, and I don't doubt the worthiness of the research, but on the other hand, we've known the structure and properties of graphite (stacked graphene layers) since forever, and didn't Smalley just get the Nobel 15 years ago for fullerenes?]

What's awesome about this (if you follow the link) is that Geim had previously won the Ig Nobel prize in 2000 for performing one of the coolest experiments ever: diamagnetically levitating a frog. I believe he is the only person to move from the Annals of Improbable Research to the Nobel Lectures, at least outside of the Peace Prize.

5 comments:

bright said...

Looks like a frog exaggerator to me.

Keifus said...

Sure, okay, it's a small frog.

Superconductors exhibit more spectacular diamagnetism. You've seen the pictures little permanent magnets floating over them, it's basically the same deal. Here's a sumo wrestler standing on one.

Boringly, they also do this with trains.

Keifus said...

Oh crap, I get it now. I bow to your superior knowledge of Simpsonsana!

bright said...

Yes, and I meant to say that the levitating frog thing is way cool.

(apparently switters is still with us.)

Ahmad Fahrurozi said...

Thank you for nice information