Word: ting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...researchers will be awfully disappointed if all they succeed in doing is to fill out the known family tree of particles. Too much predictability can make science dull. Says Samuel Ting, an M.I.T. physicist and one of the head researchers at CERN: "I will only consider our experiment a success if we discover something really surprising -- new types of quarks, for example -- that would explode the standard theory...
Anyone able to take particle physics beyond the Standard Model will automatically win prizes, prestige and added power in the profession. The quest has attracted some of the most driven personalities in science. The leaders, including Ting, CERN director Carlo Rubbia and Stanford's Burton Richter, are known for their relentless ambition, feisty competitiveness and monumental egos. All have already won Nobel Prizes, but that seems only to have increased their desire for greater achievements. In the rush to get results, they push their staffs mercilessly and are furious -- at least in private -- whenever they come in second...
Richter has already made his share of breakthroughs. In 1974 he found and named the psi particle, which gave physicists conclusive evidence that quarks really exist. For spotting the psi, Richter shared the Nobel with Ting, who found the same particle at the same time and called it the J. The particle now bears both names, but, says Richter, "when you're talking to Ting, you'd better call it the J/psi. When you're talking to me, call it the psi/J...
...jobs even if the SSC construction were to stop suddenly, the lure of the giant collider is irresistible. In fact, the leaders of the 500-scientist teams that will eventually run the SSC's enormous detector experiments are already beginning to organize. One such collaboration is being formed by Ting. Politically shrewd, he has wooed physicists from a number of weapons laboratories and Southeastern universities, which until now have not been powers in the field of particle physics. Observers expect he will run the experiment in the strictly hierarchical fashion he has displayed at CERN. At the same time, physicists...
Furthermore, despite the uncertainty as to where the student demonstrations may lead, there is no evidence that the movement is running amuck. Yang Ting (not his real name), a 20-year-old Red Guard in 1966 and now an interpreter, recalls with a shudder the killing and widespread looting during those years. "From the very outset this time, the movement was well organized and the students did not harbor any intention to tear apart the Communist Party." Another positive sign, he says, is that the "students' demands conformed with the wishes and will of the broad masses, especially the calls...