Chalkboard discussions usually arise spontaneously, with one person explaining something to a small group standing nearby. Scratchings on the board tend to represent fragments of a conversation rather than a complete train of thought.
Peter Fisher was in the audience when Marin Soljacic, a fellow physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gave a lunchtime talk about a technology that could transform consumer electronics.
When objects weighing thousands of pounds have to be moved, the call goes out to riggers— specialized teams that work with hoists and cranes. They’re required to wear proper safety gear; and at some point, the riggers at SLAC decided to make a statement with their helmets.
The problem: How to get short-lived radioactive drugs from the nuclear physics lab that makes them to a hospital 2.5 kilometers away, on the far side of a busy campus, in two minutes flat.
A dozen years after it first appeared on the world stage, the top quark is still one of the hottest topics in particle physics. Why is it so much heavier than any other particle? And what can it tell us about the origin of mass and other quantum mysteries?
Theorists cant help it: When asked to explain something, they reach for a piece of chalk. The language of math and physics seems to require a writing implement and a large vertical surface.
