Nobel Prize in physics

Scaiming probe microscopies have become the most conspicuous surface analysis tecimiques since their invention in the mid-1980s and the awarding of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics [71, 72]- The basic idea behind these tecimiques is to move an extremely fine tip close to a surface and to monitor a signal as a fiinction of the tip s position above the surface. The tip is moved with the use of piezoelectric materials, which can control the position of a tip to a sub-Angstrom accuracy, while a signal is measured that is indicative of the surface topography. These tecimiques are described in detail in section BI.20. 

The principles of operation of quadnipole mass spectrometers were first described in the late 1950s by Wolfgang Paul who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics for this development. The equations governing the motion of an ion in a quadnipole field are quite complex and it is not the scope of the present article to provide the reader with a complete treatment. Rather, the basic principles of operation will be described, the reader being referred to several excellent sources for more complete infonnation [13, H and 15]. 

Nuclear magnetic resonance of protons was first detected in 1946 by Edward Purcell (Harvard) and by Felix Bloch (Stanford) Purcell and Bloch shared the 1952 Nobel Prize in physics... 

Laboratory, particularly to study ferrimagnetic materials. In 1994, a Nobel Prize in physics was (belatedly) awarded for this work, which is mentioned again in the next chapter, in Section 7.3. A range of achievements in neutron crystallography are reviewed by Willis (1998). 

Modern" physics dates from Planck s proposal that energy is quantized, which set the stage for the development of quantum mechanics. Planck received the 1918 Nobel Prize in physics. 

Hertz s last piece of experimental work was done when his health was deteriorating and he was devoting most of his research time to intensive theoretical work on the logical foundations of mechanics. In 1892 in his laboratoi-y in Bonn, he discovered that cathode rays could pass through thin metallic foils. He published a short paper on the subject, but did not pursue the matter further. Instead he handed his apparatus and his ideas over to Philipp Lenard (1862—1947), his assistant in Bonn. Lenard pushed Hertz s suggested research so far that Lenard received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1905 for his work on cathode rays. ... 

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1913. 

Based on the strong recommendations of her German physics colleagues, Meitner received a research position in the Stockholm laboratory of Manne Siegbahn, the Swedish physicist who had received the 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics for his precision measurements on X-ray spectra. Siegbahn provided laboratory space for Meitner, but no suitable equipment for her to continue the research she had started in Berlin, and little encouragement for her work. 

When the question of the award of a Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of nuclear fission arose at the end of World War II, it was complicated by the fact that both Hahn and Strassmann were chemists. Another complication was that the Nobel Prize Committee had always considered radioactivity and radioactive atoms the responsibility of their chem-istiy committee—despite the fact that the discovery of fission had been interdisciplinai y from beginning to end. The Swedish Academy of Science was divided on whether the Chemistry Prize should be given jointly to Hahn and Meitner, or to Hahn alone. Finally they decided by a close vote to give the 1945 chemistry prize solely to Otto Hahn. 

J.J., as Thomson was commonly called, received the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations of the conduction of electricity by gases . He was knighted in 1908, received the Order of Merit in 1912 and was successively President of the Physical Society, the Royal Society and the Institute of Physics. 

Townes s academic life continued. He served as provost of MIT from 1961 to 1966. In 1964, Townes received the Nobel Prize in physics for work in quantum electronics leading to construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle. He was named university professor at the University of California-Berkeley in 1967. There he worked for more than 20 years in astrophysics. Ironically, this field is one of many that were transformed by die laser, and Townes often tised lasers in his subsequent research. 

The hydrogen atom, containing a single electron, has played a major role in the development of models of electronic structure. In 1913 Niels Bohr (1885-1962), a Danish physicist, offered a theoretical explanation of the atomic spectrum of hydrogen. His model was based largely on classical mechanics. In 1922 this model earned him the Nobel Prize in physics. By that time, Bohr had become director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Copenhagen. There he helped develop the new discipline of quantum mechanics, used by other scientists to construct a more sophisticated model for the hydrogen atom. 

In 1903, the Curies received the Nobel Prize in physics (with Becquerel) for the discovery of radioactivity. Three years later, Pierre Curie died at the age of 46, the victim of a tragic accident. Fie stepped from behind a carriage in a busy Paris street and was run down by a horse-driven truck. That same year, Marie became the first woman instructor at the Sorbonne. In 1911, she won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of radium and polonium, thereby becoming the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. 

Irene Curie and Frederic Joliot received the Nobel Prize in physics. The award came too late for Irene s mother, who had died of leukemia in 1934. Twenty-two years later. Irene Curie-Joliot died of the same disease. Both women acquired leukemia through prolonged exposure to radiation. 

Laser Cooling The 1997 Nobel Prize in physics was shared by Steven Chu of Stanford University, William D. Phillips of the National Institute of Science and Technology, and Claude N. Cohen-Tannoudje of the College de France for their development and theoretical explanation of laser cooling, a process that can lower the temperature of a gas to a very low value. 

De Broglie received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1929, only two years after experiments confirmed his theory. Davisson, a student of Nobel laureate Robert Millikan, and Thomson, the son and student of J. J. Thomson (who won the Nobel prize for discovering the electron), shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1937. 

Low-temperature research requires hard work and imagination, but successful advances are richly rewarded. Seven Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry have been awarded for low-temperature research. The first, in 1913, went to the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who discovered how to cool He gas to 4.2 K and convert it into a liquid. The American William Giauque received the 1949 prize in chemistry and the Russian Pyotr Kapitsa won the 1978 prize in physics. Each was honored for a variety of discoveries resulting from low-temperature research, and each developed a new technique for achieving low temperature. 

The 1996 Nobel Prize in physics went to three researchers who studied liquid helium at a temperature of 0.002 K, discovering superfluid helium. A superfluid behaves completely unlike conventional liquids. Liquids normally are viscous because their molecules interact with one another to reduce fluid motion. Superfluid helium has zero viscosity, because all of its atoms move together like a single superatom. This collective behavior also causes superfluid liquid helium to conduct heat perfectly, so heating a sample at one particular spot results in an immediate and equal increase in temperature throughout the entire volume. A superfluid also flows extremely easily, so it can form a fountain, shown in the photo, in apparent defiance of gravity. 

Superfluidity is just one of the surprising new properties discovered through low-temperature research. Another example is superconductivity, described in our Chemistry and Technology Box in Chapter JT. The 2003 Nobel Prize in physics went to three theoreticians who developed theories explaining these phenomena. 

One of the first to show up was Werner Heisenberg, who later won a Nobel Prize. Soon afterward came George Gamow, the fun-loving Russian physicist who sorted out the nuclear reactions that power the stars. Erwin Schrodinger, who also won a Nobel Prize in physics, stopped by to lecture on his new wave theory. Wolfgang Pauli, who would also win a Nobel Prize for his contributions to quantum mechanics, was there, too. 

One curious observation, however, was that pure U actually had a lower radioactivity than natural U compounds. To investigate this. Curie synthesized one of these compounds from pure reagents and found that the synthetic compound had a lower radioactivity than the identical natural example. This led her to believe that there was an impurity in the natural compound which was more radioactive than U (Curie 1898). Since she had already tested all the other elements, this impurity seemed to be a new element. In fact, it turned out to be two new elements—polonium and radium— which the Curies were successfully able to isolate from pitchblende (Curie and Curie 1898 Curie et al. 1898). For radium, the presence of a new element was confirmed by the observation of new spectral lines not attributable to any other element. This caused a considerable stir and the curious new elements, together with their discoverers, achieved rapid public fame. The Curies were duly awarded the 1903 Nobel prize in Physics for studies into radiation phenomena, along with Becquerel for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity. Marie Curie would, in 1911, also be awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry for her part in the discovery of Ra and Po. 

Most practitioners of the precise art and subtle science of mass spectrometry acknowledge the field to have originated with the work of J.J. Thomson (Fig. 19.1) and associates, [6] published in 1910-1912, using the parabola mass spectrograph. Seminal discoveries that he and his coworkers made include the fact that the elements could be polyisotopic, by discovering the isotopes of neon. Thomson was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics of 19062 for his work on investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases. ... 

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