Word: rubbia
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...inside look at particle physics, a field increasingly dependent on huge and expensive machines -- and on scientists who are as adept at fund raising and politicking as they are at probing the subatomic world. Author Gary Taubes provides that view while chronicling the research that won Italian Physicist Carlo Rubbia a share of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering the W and Z particles, which transmit the so- called weak nuclear force...
Taubes acknowledges Rubbia's brilliance. But he argues that the physicist's distinguished career has been marred by manipulation, bullying and corner cutting. Taubes told TIME that in his opinion Rubbia "has made more mistakes than any major physicist of his era. He has a history of distorting and exaggerating his experimental results." Says Nobel Laureate Sheldon Glashow, a Harvard colleague of Rubbia's: "The book is a fair picture. I would make it required reading for anyone who wants to go into this field...
There are some outstanding exceptions. Nobel Physicist Carlo Rubbia takes on freshmen in a seminar program. Nuclear Expert and Political Scientist Joseph Nye dines informally with undergrads and hosts small discussion groups. Alan Brinkley, son of TV Commentator David, teaches an oversubscribed course on the Viet Nam War and a lecture series in American history. He does so with such fine basic organization that students claim their notes write themselves. Physics Professor Gerald Holton has punctuated his lecture on dynamics and energy by strapping on a helmet, jumping into a go-cart powered by a fire extinguisher and jetting...
...academic symposia, which were planned more than a year ago, have suffered a handful of other cancellations. Carlo Rubbia, Nobel prize-winning professor of physics at Harvard, has a scheduling conflict and will not attend Saturday's symposium entitled "Ultimate Physical Theories," according to James Quitslund '63, who oversees the 350th symposia sponsored by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences...
Those traces have helped physicists to track down more and more members of the large and seemingly limitless bestiary of subatomic particles. Last year, for example, Rubbia shared a Nobel Prize for having discovered, using the CERN super proton-antiproton synchrotron accelerator (SPPS), the W and Z particles. His finding provided proof for a theory that united two of the fundamental forces, electromagnetism and the weak force...