Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
Поделиться:
ПОЛНАЯ ИСТОРИЯ
Тэватрон также сузил возможные параметры для бозона Хиггса, который считается массивной
частицей, которая объясняет, почему одни элементарные частицы имеют массу, а другие
нет. Эксперименты на Тэватроне завершат свой анализ Хиггса в ближайшие пару лет, а поиск
бозона Хиггса будет продолжен на Большом адронном коллайдере (LHC), расположенном недалеко
от Женевы, Швейцария.Около 2000 ученых из США работают над экспериментами на LHC. В то же
время ученые обращают свои взоры и инструменты на новые эксперименты и открытия в
Фермилабе.
Источник истории:
Share:
FULL STORY
Today, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) will shut down its
Tevatron particle accelerator after nearly 30 years in operation. Named one of the
top engineering achievements of the past 100 years, the Tevatron accelerated
particles to almost the speed of light along its 4-mile ring, smashed them together,
and studied the resulting particle showers in order to understand fundamental facts
about elementary particles and forces.
The Tevatron made many discoveries in its 28-year run. For instance, it found the top quark as well as five
baryons, which helped to test and refine the Standard Model of particle physics and shape our
understanding of matter, energy, space and time.
The Tevatron also narrowed the possible parameters for the Higgs boson, believed to be a massive
particle that would explain why some elementary particles have mass and others don't. The Tevatron
experiments will finalize their Higgs analyses in the next couple of years while the search for the Higgs
boson will continue at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located near Geneva Switzerland. Approximately
2,000 scientists from the United States are working on the LHC experiments. At the same time, scientists
are turning their eyes and instruments toward new experiments and discoveries at Fermilab.
The closure of the Tevatron is less an ending than a new beginning in scientific exploration. Fermilab will
upgrade and continue to operate the rest of its accelerator complex and plans to focus its resources on
neutrino and muon physics. Several neutrino experiments already exist, including the Main Injector
Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) experiment, and its successor experiment, the NOvA experiment,
which is currently under construction. Interest in neutrino physics increased significantly last week, when a
group of scientists running the OPERA experiment found indications that -- contrary to more than 100
years of physics -- neutrinos might be able to exceed the speed of light. Fermilab's MINOS experiment will
be deeply involved with testing those claims, and it is likely to open our eyes to other extraordinary
possibilities in the realm of physics.
The Tevatron is closing. The future has begun. Fermilab remains the nation's dedicated laboratory for
particle physics on behalf of the DOE Office of Science.
For more information on the Tevatron and its history, please visit Tevatron milestones
at:http://www.fnal.gov/pub/tevatron/milestones/interactive-timeline.html
For more information on the MINOS experiment, please visit The MINOS Experiment and NuMI Beamline
website at: http://www-numi.fnal.gov/index.html
Story Source:
Materials provided by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science. Original written by Nancy Peck,
contributing writer, and Charles Rousseaux, senior writer in the Department of Energy's Office of
Science. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Поделиться:
ПОЛНАЯ ИСТОРИЯ
С помощью этой техники они смогли наблюдать отдельные дефекты в кубическом карбиде
кремния, материале, который находит широкое применение в электронных устройствах.Пан и его
коллеги были знакомы с тем, как дефекты в карбиде кремния проявляются как дефекты упаковки, и
теоретическая работа описала термоэлектрические воздействия, но теперь команда произвела
прямые экспериментальные данные для характеристики взаимодействия фононов с отдельными
дефектами.
«Наш метод открывает возможность изучения локальных форм колебаний при собственных и
неискусственных дефектах материалов», - сказал Пан, который также является директором IMRI и
Центра сложных и активных материалов UCI, финансируемого Национальным научным
фондом. «Мы ожидаем, что он найдет важные приложения во многих различных областях, начиная
от исследования межфазных фононов, вызывающих термическое сопротивление, до дефектных
структур, спроектированных для оптимизации тепловых свойств материала».
Источник истории:
Share:
FULL STORY
Often admired for their flawless appearance to the naked eye, crystals can have
defects at the nanometer scale, and these imperfections may affect the thermal
and heat transport properties of crystalline materials used in a variety of high-
technology devices.
Employing newly developed electron microscopy techniques, researchers at the University of California,
Irvine and other institutions have, for the first time, measured the spectra of phonons -- quantum
mechanical vibrations in a lattice -- at individual crystalline faults, and they discovered the propagation of
phonons near the flaws. The team's findings are the subject of a study published recently in Nature.
"Point defects, dislocations, stacking faults and grain boundaries are often found in crystalline materials,
and these defects can have a significant impact on a substance's thermal conductivity and thermoelectric
performance," said senior co-author Xiaoqing Pan, UCI's Henry Samueli Endowed Chair in Engineering,
as well as a professor of materials science and engineering and physics & astronomy.
He said that there are ample theories to explain the interactions between crystal imperfections and
phonons but little experimental validation due to the inability of earlier methods to view the phenomena at
high enough space and momentum resolution. Pan and his collaborators approached the problem through
the novel development of space- and momentum-resolved vibrational spectroscopy in a transmission
electron microscope at UCI's Irvine Materials Research Institute.
With this technique, they were able to observe individual defects in cubic silicon carbide, a material with a
wide range of applications in electronic devices. Pan and his colleagues were familiar with how
imperfections in silicon carbide are manifested as stacking faults, and theoretical work has described the
thermoelectric impacts, but now the team has produced direct experimental data to characterize phonon
interactions with the individual defects.
"Our method opens up the possibility of studying the local vibrational modes at intrinsic and non-intrinsic
defects in materials," said Pan, who is also director of IMRI and UCI's Center for Complex and Active
Materials, funded by the National Science Foundation. "We expect it to find important applications in many
different areas, ranging from the study of thermal resistance-inducing interfacial phonons to defect
structures engineered to optimize a material's thermal properties."
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of California - Irvine. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
New technique could streamline design of intricate fusion
device
Date:
August 21, 2019
Source:
DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Summary:
Stellarators, twisty machines that house fusion reactions, rely on complex magnetic coils that are
challenging to design and build. Now, a physicist has developed a mathematical technique to help
simplify the design of the coils.
Share:
FULL STORY
"Our main result is that we came up with a new method of identifying the irregular magnetic fields
produced by stellarator coils," said physicist Caoxiang Zhu, lead author of a paper reporting the results
in Nuclear Fusion. "This technique can let you know in advance which coil shapes and placements could
harm the plasma's magnetic confinement, promising a shorter construction time and reduced costs."
Fusion, the power that drives the sun and stars, is the fusing of light elements in the form of plasma -- the
hot, charged state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei -- that generates massive
amounts of energy. Twisty, cruller-shaped stellarators are an alternative to doughnut-shaped tokamaks
that are more commonly used by scientists seeking to replicate fusion on Earth for a virtually inexhaustible
supply of power to generate electricity.
A key benefit of stellarators is their production of highly stable plasmas that are less liable to the damaging
disruptions that tokamaks can incur. But the complexity of stellarator coils has been a factor holding back
development of such facilities.
The coils of a stellarator must be constructed and arranged around the vacuum chamber very precisely,
since deviations from the best coil arrangement create bumps and wiggles in the magnetic field that
degrade the magnetic confinement and allow the plasma to escape. These problematic magnetic fields
can easily be caused by misplacement of the magnetic coils, so engineers stipulate strict tolerances for
these components.
"The big challenge of building stellarators is figuring out how to make them simply and economically," said
PPPL Chief Scientist Michael Zarnstorff. "Zhu's research is important because he is trying to look more
carefully and quantitatively at some of the drivers of the cost. His results suggest that we can simplify the
construction of stellarators and thereby make them easier and less expensive to build, by not insisting on
tight tolerances for things that don't matter."
In the past, scientists have used computer simulations to determine which coil placements would be best,
checking the plasma's reactions to all possible magnetic configurations before the stellarator was built. But
because there are many ways for the coils to vary, "this approach requires massive computation resources
and man-hours," said Zhu. "In this paper, we propose a new mathematical method to rapidly identify
dangerous coil deviations that could appear during fabrication and assembly."
The method relies on a Hessian matrix, a mathematical tool that allows researchers to determine which
variations of the magnetic coils can make the plasma change its properties. "The idea is to figure out which
perturbations you really have to control or avoid, and which you can ignore," Zhu said.
The team recently confirmed the accuracy of the new method by using it to analyze coil placements for a
configuration similar to the Columbia Non-Neutral Torus, a small fusion facility operated by Columbia
University. They compared the results to those produced by past studies relying on conventional methods
and found that they agreed. The team is now collaborating with researchers in China to use the method to
optimize coil placement on the Chinese First Quasi-axisymmetric Stellarator (CFQS), currently under
construction.
The new technique could help scientists design better stellarators, Zhu said. It could make possible ways
to identify an optimal coil arrangement that no one had considered before.
Included on the research team were scientists from China's Southwest Jiaotong University and Japan's
National Institute for Fusion Science. The research was supported by the DOE's Office of Science and the
Max Planck Princeton Center for Plasma Physics.
Story Source:
Share:
FULL STORY
Brown University biomedical engineers can now grow and assemble living
microtissues into complex three-dimensional structures in a way that will advance
the field of tissue engineering and may eventually reduce the need for certain kinds
of animal research.
The team, led by Brown professor Jeffrey Morgan, successfully used clusters of cells grown in a 3-D Petri
dish also invented by the group, in order to build microtissues of more complex shapes.
Such a finding, detailed in the March 1 issue of Biotechnology and Bioengineering and posted at the end
of January on the journal’s Web site, has enormous implications for basic cell biology, drug discovery and
tissue research, Morgan said.
Because the tissues Morgan’s team created in the lab are more like natural tissue, they can be
constructed to have complex lace-like patterns similar to a vasculature, the arrangement of blood vessels
in the body or in an organ. Morgan said that added complexity could eventually reduce the need to use
animals in certain kinds of research. The National Science Foundation and the International Foundation for
Ethical Research funded the study, with the latter group’s mission focused in part on reducing the use of
animals in research.
“There is a need for … tissue models that more closely mimic natural tissue already inside the body in
terms of function and architecture,” said Morgan, a Brown professor of medical science and engineering.
“This shows we can control the size, shape and position of cells within these 3-D structures.”
But Morgan said the finding also makes an important contribution to the field of tissue engineering and
regenerative medicine.
“We think this is one step toward using building blocks to build complex-shaped tissues that might one day
be transplanted,” he said.
The new finding builds on earlier work by Morgan and a team of Brown students, which appeared in
September 2007 in the journal Tissue Engineering. The earlier study highlighted the invention of a 3-D
Petri dish about the size of a peanut-butter cup and made of agarose, a complex carbohydrate derived
from seaweed with the consistency of Jell-O. Morgan and students in his lab developed the dish, creating
a product where cells do not stick to the surface. Instead, the cells self-assemble naturally and form
“microtissues.”
For the new research, Morgan, with students including Adam Rago and Dylan Dean, made 3-D
microtissues in one 3-D Petri dish, harvested these living building blocks and then added them to more
complex 3-D molds shaped either like a honeycomb, with holes, or a donut with a hole in the middle.
Those skin cells fused with liver cells in the more complex molds and formed even larger microstructures.
Researchers found that the molds helped control the shape of the final microtissue.
They also found that they could control the rate of fusion of the cells by aging them for a longer or shorter
time before they were harvested. The longer the wait, Morgan found, the slower the process.
Rago has since graduated from Brown, and Dean, an M.D.-Ph.D. student, has moved on from the Morgan
lab to pursue his surgical rotations.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Brown University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
The building blocks of learning, literally
Строительные блоки обучения, буквально
Date:
September 27, 2013
Source:
University of Delaware
Summary:
Simple toys like blocks feed into kids' spatial skill and offer a foundation for learning subjects like
math and science, according to a new study.
Share:
FULL STORY
With the advent of tablet apps for children, parents may be tempted to forgo
purchasing those blocks and puzzles that have been staples in children's toy
chests for centuries. A study by researchers at the University of Delaware and
Temple University, published in Child Development, suggests that would be a big
mistake.
Playing with blocks may be crucial for helping preschoolers to develop "spatial thinking," or envisioning
where blocks go in relation to each other as they build. Deciding whether a block goes over or under
another block, or whether it is aligned or perpendicular to it, are just the kinds of skills that support later
learning in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), according to the research team of Roberta
Michnick Golinkoff and Brian N. Verdine at the University of Delaware and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek and Nora
Newcombe at Temple University.
"What this study tells us is that parents and caregivers should make sure their kids have experiences that
feed into their spatial skill. Simple toys like blocks and puzzles offer kids a foundation for learning subjects
like math and science," said Golinkoff, who is a professor of linguistics, cognitive science and psychology,
and the Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Chair in the School of Education at UD.
In the study, 3-year-olds of various socioeconomic levels were asked to reproduce six block
structures. Children were given a block structure and separated blocks and asked to copy the structure.
While this may look like a simple task, 3-year-olds have difficulty with it. Notice that the pips on the block in
the image invoke counting and measurement skills and judgments about the orientation of the blocks.
Children's burgeoning mathematical skills also were tested using a measure developed for 3-year-olds that
focused on a wide range of skills, from simple counting to complex operations like adding and subtracting.
The researchers wanted to know whether there would be a link between the ability to copy block structures
and early mathematics. Much prior research has shown strong links between spatial and mathematical
reasoning in older children, but not in children prior to starting school.
Block skill did indeed predict mathematical skill: Children who were better at copying block structures were
also better at early math. The study also found that by age 3, children from lower-income families were
already falling behind in spatial skills, likely as a result of more limited experience with blocks and other
toys that require children to engage in spatial and mathematical thinking.
Lower-income children may also lack some of the words in their vocabulary that would help them reflect on
these block structures. While the children themselves were not tested for which spatial terms they knew,
parents of low-income preschoolers reported using significantly fewer spatial words (such as "above" and
"below") with their children.
Blocks are affordable and enjoyable, and they're easily used in preschool settings. And for low-income
preschoolers, who lag in spatial skills, such play may be especially important. "Research in the science of
learning has shown that experiences like block building and puzzle play can improve children's spatial
skills and that these skills support complex mathematical problem-solving in middle and high school. Just
think about how we use diagrams -- grounded in space -- to understand all sorts of school subjects,"
explained Verdine, a postdoctoral fellow at UD. "This is the first research to demonstrate a similar
relationship in preschoolers."
The study was funded by grants to Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek from the National Institutes of Health and
from the National Science Foundation via the Spatial Intelligence Learning Center (SILC) at Temple
University.
Golinkoff and Hirsh-Pasek have led several studies that underscore the importance of simple toys and play
in the way kids learn. The research team has been a driving force behind the "Ultimate Block Party,"
engaging tens of thousands of children and parents in playful learning in New York City, Toronto, Canada,
and Baltimore. Golinkoff says a possible 2014 event is now under discussion.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Delaware. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Строительные блоки обучения, буквально
Свидание:
27 сентября 2013 г.
Источник:
Университет Делавэра
Резюме:
Согласно новому исследованию, простые игрушки, такие как кубики, развивают у детей
пространственные навыки и создают основу для изучения таких предметов, как математика
и естественные науки.
Поделиться:
ПОЛНАЯ ИСТОРИЯ
Игра с кубиками может иметь решающее значение для помощи дошкольникам в развитии
«пространственного мышления» или в представлении, где блоки идут по отношению друг к другу в
процессе их построения. По мнению исследовательской группы Роберты, решение о том,
переходит ли блок над другим блоком или под ним, выровнен ли он или перпендикулярно ему, - это
всего лишь виды навыков, которые поддерживают дальнейшее обучение в области науки,
технологий, инженерии и математики (STEM). Мичник Голинкофф и Брайан Н. Вердин из
Университета Делавэра и Кэти Хирш-Пасек и Нора Ньюкомб из Университета Темпл.
«Это исследование говорит нам о том, что родители и опекуны должны убедиться, что у их детей
есть опыт, который способствует их пространственным навыкам. Простые игрушки, такие как кубики
и головоломки, предлагают детям основу для изучения таких предметов, как математика и
естественные науки», - сказал Голинкофф, профессор лингвистики, когнитивных наук и психологии
и кафедра Unidel H. Rodney Sharp в педагогической школе UD.
Детям с низкими доходами также может не хватать некоторых слов в их словарном запасе, которые
помогли бы им задуматься об этих блочных структурах. Хотя сами дети не тестировались на то,
какие пространственные термины они знали, родители дошкольников с низким доходом сообщили,
что они использовали значительно меньше пространственных слов (таких как «выше» и «ниже») со
своими детьми.
Источник истории:
Share:
FULL STORY
To measure very small magnetic fields, researchers often use superconducting quantum interference
devices, or SQUIDs. In medicine, their uses include monitoring brain or heart activity, for example, while in
the earth sciences researchers use SQUIDs to characterize the composition of rocks or detect
groundwater flows. The devices also have a broad range of uses in other applied fields and basic
research.
The team led by Professor Christian Schönenberger of the University of Basel's Department of Physics
and the Swiss Nanoscience Institute has now succeeded in creating one of the smallest SQUIDs ever
built. The researchers described their achievement in the scientific journal Nano Letters.
A typical SQUID consists of a superconducting ring interrupted at two points by an extremely thin film with
normal conducting or insulating properties. These points, known as weak links, must be so thin that the
electron pairs responsible for superconductivity are able to tunnel through them. Researchers recently also
began using nanomaterials such as nanotubes, nanowires or graphene to fashion the weak links
connecting the two superconductors.
As a result of their configuration, SQUIDs have a critical current threshold above which the resistance-free
superconductor becomes a conductor with ordinary resistance. This critical threshold is determined by the
magnetic flux passing through the ring. By measuring this critical current precisely, the researchers can
draw conclusions about the strength of the magnetic field.
"Our novel SQUID consists of a complex, six-layer stack of individual two-dimensional materials," explains
lead author David Indolese. Inside it are two graphene monolayers separated by a very thin layer of
insulating boron nitride. "If two superconducting contacts are connected to this sandwich, it behaves like a
SQUID -- meaning it can be used to detect extremely weak magnetic fields."
In this setup, the graphene layers are the weak links, although in contrast to a regular SQUID they are not
positioned next to each other, but one on top of the other, aligned horizontally. "As a result, our SQUID has
a very small surface area, limited only by the constraints of nanofabrication technology," explains Dr.
Paritosh Karnatak from Schönenberger's team.
The tiny device for measuring magnetic fields is only around 10 nanometers high -- roughly a thousandth
of the thickness of a human hair. The instrument can trigger supercurrents that flow in minuscule spaces.
Moreover, its sensitivity can be adjusted by changing the distance between the graphene layers. With the
help of electrical fields, the researchers are also able to increase the signal strength, further enhancing the
measurement accuracy.
The Basel research team's primary goal in developing the novel SQUIDs was to analyze the edge currents
of topological insulators. Topological insulators are currently a focus of countless research groups all over
the world. On the inside, they behave like insulators, while on the outside -- or along the edges -- they
conduct current almost losslessly, making them possible candidates for a broad range of applications in
the field of electronics.
"With the new SQUID, we can determine whether these lossless supercurrents are due to a material's
topological properties, and thereby tell them apart from non-topological materials. This is very important for
the study of topological insulators," remarked Schönenberger of the project. In future, SQUIDs could also
be used as low-noise amplifiers for high-frequency electrical signals, or for instance to detect local
brainwaves (magnetoencephalography), as their compact design means a large number of the devices
can be connected in series.
The paper is the outcome of close collaboration among groups at the University of Basel, the University of
Budapest and the National Institute for Material Science in Tsukuba (Japan).
Story Source:
Поделиться:
ПОЛНАЯ ИСТОРИЯ
Физики Базельского университета разработали миниатюрный прибор,
способный обнаруживать очень слабые магнитные поля. В основе
сверхпроводящего устройства квантовой интерференции лежат два атомно
тонких слоя графена, которые исследователи объединили с нитридом
бора. Инструменты, подобные этому, используются не только для
исследования новых материалов, но и в таких областях, как медицина.
Для измерения очень малых магнитных полей исследователи часто используют сверхпроводящие
устройства квантовой интерференции или СКВИДы. В медицине они используются, например, для
мониторинга мозговой или сердечной деятельности, в то время как в науках о Земле
исследователи используют SQUID для определения состава горных пород или обнаружения
потоков подземных вод. Эти устройства также имеют широкий спектр применения в других
прикладных областях и фундаментальных исследованиях.
В результате своей конфигурации СКВИДы имеют порог критического тока, выше которого
безомный сверхпроводник становится проводником с обычным сопротивлением. Этот критический
порог определяется магнитным потоком, проходящим через кольцо. Точно измерив этот
критический ток, исследователи могут сделать выводы о силе магнитного поля.
В этой установке слои графена являются слабыми звеньями, хотя, в отличие от обычного сквида,
они не расположены рядом друг с другом, а расположены один над другим, выровнены по
горизонтали. «В результате наш SQUID имеет очень небольшую площадь поверхности,
ограниченную только ограничениями технологии нанопроизводства», - объясняет доктор Паритош
Карнатак из команды Шененбергера.
Крошечный прибор для измерения магнитных полей имеет высоту всего около 10 нанометров -
примерно одну тысячную толщины человеческого волоса. Инструмент может вызывать сверхтоки,
которые текут в крошечных пространствах. Более того, его чувствительность можно регулировать,
изменяя расстояние между слоями графена. С помощью электрических полей исследователи также
могут увеличить мощность сигнала, что еще больше повысит точность измерения.
«С новым СКВИДом мы можем определить, вызваны ли эти сверхтоки без потерь топологическими
свойствами материала, и тем самым отличить их от нетопологических материалов. Это очень
важно для изучения топологических изоляторов», - отмечает Шененбергер из проекта. В будущем
SQUID могут также использоваться в качестве малошумящих усилителей для высокочастотных
электрических сигналов или, например, для обнаружения локальных мозговых волн
(магнитоэнцефалография), поскольку их компактная конструкция означает, что большое количество
устройств может быть подключено последовательно.
Источник истории:
Ссылка на журнал :
1. Дэвид И. Индолезе, Паритош Карнатак, Артем Кононов, Рафаэль Делагранж, Рой Халлер,
Луджун Ван, Петер Макк, Кенджи Ватанабе, Такаши Танигучи, Кристиан Шененбергер. Компактный
СКВИД, реализованный в двухслойной гетероструктуре графена . Нано-буквы ,
2020; DOI: 10.1021 / acs.nanolett.0c02412
Site of radiocarbon dating discovery named historic landmark
Date:
October 6, 2016
Source:
University of Chicago
Summary:
It was while working in the Kent Laboratory building in the 1940s that researchers developed
radiocarbon dating—an innovative method to measure the age of organic materials. Scientists
soon used the technique on materials ranging from the dung of a giant sloth from a Nevada cave;
seaweed and algae from Monte Verde, Chile, the oldest archaeological site in the Western
Hemisphere; the Shroud of Turin; and the meteorite that created the Henbury Craters in northern
Australia.
Share:
FULL STORY
It was while working in the Kent Laboratory building in the 1940s that Prof. Willard
Libby and his UChicago associates developed radiocarbon dating -- an innovative
method to measure the age of organic materials. Scientists soon used the
technique on materials ranging from the dung of a giant sloth from a Nevada cave;
seaweed and algae from Monte Verde, Chile, the oldest archaeological site in the
Western Hemisphere; the Shroud of Turin; and the meteorite that created the
Henbury Craters in northern Australia.
Now the American Chemical Society has designated the discovery of radiocarbon dating as a National
Historic Chemical Landmark. The society will officially recognize the achievement at 4 p.m. Oct. 10, with
the unveiling of a plaque in the foyer of the Kent Chemical Laboratory building at 1020 E. 58th St.
This year marks the 70th anniversary of Libby's first publication on radiocarbon dating, which appeared in
the June 1, 1946 issue of Physical Review. The work earned Libby the 1960 Nobel Prize in chemistry "for
determinations in archaeology, geology, geophysics and other branches of science."
The technique, which measures materials' content of carbon-14, quickly made an impact on archaeology
and geology. Archaeologists testing the ages of artifacts from multiple sites across the Eastern and
Western hemispheres found that civilization originated simultaneously around the world rather than in
Europe. And Libby himself, when he analyzed wood samples from trees once buried beneath glacial ice,
documented that North America's last Ice Age ended approximately 11,000 years ago -- not 25,000 years
ago as previously believed.
"This radiocarbon dating method was a transformative advance to archaeology and historical studies,
allowing the determination of the age of archeological sites and objects without reliance on a knowledge of
local customs and history," said Viresh Rawal, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry.
Transformative research
The designation of UChicago as a National Historic Chemical Landmark joins the University's 2006
designation by the American Physical Society as an historic physics site to commemorate the work of
Robert Millikan, who received the 1923 Nobel Prize in physics for experiments conducted at the Ryerson
Physical Laboratory building, 1100 E. 58th St. A plaque commemorating that work hangs in the first-floor
lobby of the Kersten Physics Teaching Center, 5720 S. Ellis Ave.
Two scientists working at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley discovered carbon-
14 in 1940. The only previously known radioactive carbon isotope at the time was carbon-11, which had a
half-life of only 21 minutes (half the isotope's radioactivity will decay in that time).
Radiocarbon dating depended upon the discovery cosmic rays, which constantly bombard Earth and turn
some carbon atoms in living tissue into radioactive isotope carbon-14. The isotope has a half-life of
approximately 5,600 years, which means that during this period, half the number of radioactive carbon
atoms in any once-living substance will convert to nitrogen. By this means, scientists may date objects as
much as 50,000 years old.
With his first graduate student, Ernest Anderson, and others, Libby determined that the expected minute
level of radioactivity in organic material actually existed. This work enabled Libby and postdoctoral
associate James Arnold to publish a carbon-14 atomic calendar in the Dec. 23, 1949 issue of the
journal Science. They documented the viability of the technique with this article, which compared the ages
of samples of known age with the ages as determined by their radiocarbon content.
The University announced Libby's results in a news release issued in connection with the Science article.
Libby collaborated extensively with Oriental Institute archaeologist Robert Braidwood in conducting C-14
tests on artifacts of known age from Mesopotamia and Western Asia, including wood from an Egyptian
mummy's casket.
Other tested samples included part of the deck of a funeral ship placed in the tomb of Sesostris III of
Egypt, the heartwood of one of the largest redwood trees ever cut, and the linen wrapping one of the Dead
Sea Scrolls. The second edition of Libby'sRadiocarbon Dating, published by the University of Chicago
Press in 1955, lists 27 pages of objects for which he had obtained radiocarbon dates before the fall of
1954.
"Libby's method remained the only way to measure carbon-14 in samples for several decades and was
long considered the most accurate means of dating by carbon decay," said David Mazziotti, a UChicago
chemistry professor who submitted the formal nomination of the site as a historic chemical landmark to the
American Chemical Society. "Within 10 years of Libby's 1949Science paper, there were 20 radiocarbon
dating laboratories around the world."
Story Source:
Поделиться:
ПОЛНАЯ ИСТОРИЯ
Этот метод, который измеряет содержание углерода-14 в материалах, быстро оказал влияние на
археологию и геологию. Археологи, проверив возраст артефактов из множества мест в Восточном и
Западном полушариях, обнаружили, что цивилизация зародилась одновременно во всем мире, а не
в Европе. И сам Либби, когда он проанализировал образцы древесины с деревьев, когда-то
погребенных под ледниковым льдом, задокументировал, что последний ледниковый период в
Северной Америке закончился примерно 11000 лет назад, а не 25000 лет назад, как считалось
ранее.
Преобразующие исследования
Обозначение Университета Чикаго Национальным историческим химическим памятником
присоединяется к названию Университета в 2006 году Американским физическим обществом в
качестве исторического места в области физики в ознаменование работы Роберта Милликена,
получившего Нобелевскую премию по физике 1923 года за эксперименты, проводимые в здании
физической лаборатории Райерсона , 1100 E. 58th St. Мемориальная доска, посвященная этой
работе, висит в вестибюле первого этажа Учебного центра физики Керстена, 5720 S. Ellis Ave.
Со своим первым аспирантом Эрнестом Андерсоном и другими Либби определил, что ожидаемый
минимальный уровень радиоактивности в органическом материале действительно существует. Эта
работа позволила Либби и докторанту Джеймсу Арнольду опубликовать атомный календарь
углерода-14 в выпуске журнала Science от 23 декабря 1949 года . Они задокументировали
жизнеспособность этого метода в этой статье, в которой сравнивали возраст образцов известного
возраста с возрастом, определенным по содержанию в них радиоуглерода.
Источник истории:
Материалы предоставлены Чикагским университетом .Оригинал написан Стивом
Коппесом. Примечание. Содержимое можно редактировать по стилю и длине.
,
Share:
FULL STORY
What are the defining discoveries and great developments that are shaping the
way we use materials and technologies today? Elsevier's Materials Today
magazine has compiled a list of the top ten most significant advances in materials
science over the last 50 years.
The top ten includes advances that have altered all our daily lives. Some have completely changed the
research arena, and others have opened up new possibilities and capabilities. They are:
Surprisingly, top of the list is not a research discovery, but a way of organizing research priorities and
planning R&D. The International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) drives the incredible
progress of the microelectronics industry by setting out goals for innovation and technology needs. A
mixture of science, technology, and economics, it is hard to see how the ITRS could do better in driving
forward advances in this area.
"I believe it is an appropriate first choice in our list," says Jonathan Wood, editor of Materials Today. "Not
only is electronics critical to our modern world, progress in semiconductor processing and advances in
materials science have gone hand-in-hand for the last 50 years."
Materials science studies what makes up our world -- the metals, semiconductors, plastics we use to make
all our devices, products, and technologies. It can be how to make smaller, faster transistors to give more
powerful computers; understanding the electrical properties of polymers to produce cheap displays for cell
phones; or analyzing how tissues in the body bond to medical implants.
"I want this list to be a celebration of the achievements of materials science," says Wood. "Too often, this
diverse, dynamic field gets squeezed out by the big boys of chemistry and physics. Yet it is crucial to so
much of today's world."
Story Source:
Materials provided by Elsevier. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Поделиться:
ПОЛНАЯ ИСТОРИЯ
В первую десятку вошли достижения, которые изменили всю нашу повседневную жизнь. Некоторые
полностью изменили сферу исследований, а другие открыли новые возможности и
возможности. Они есть:
«Я считаю, что это подходящий вариант в нашем списке», - говорит Джонатан Вуд, редактор
журнала Materials Today.«Не только электроника имеет решающее значение для нашего
современного мира, прогресс в обработке полупроводников и достижения в области
материаловедения идут рука об руку в течение последних 50 лет».
Материаловедение изучает то, что составляет наш мир - металлы, полупроводники, пластмассы,
которые мы используем для изготовления всех наших устройств, продуктов и технологий. Это
может быть как сделать транзисторы меньшего размера и быстрее, чтобы получить более мощные
компьютеры; понимание электрических свойств полимеров для производства дешевых дисплеев
для сотовых телефонов; или анализируя, как ткани тела соединяются с медицинскими
имплантатами.
Источник истории: