Top Physics Stories of 2006! I beg to differ!

December 29th, 2006

A lot of people have Dark Matter measurements as their pick for the Top Physics story of 2006. e.g., AIP Physicsbuzz. I beg to differ. I know its a clean experiment and the dark matter distribution is interesting to see; but I think to call it first “direct” observation of dark matter is going a little too far. We have always known that the gravitational lensing can’t fully be explained by the baryonic matter. This is no more direct than any of those experiments.

Others have argued that the sharpest needle made of tungsten, which is only one atom at the end is one of the top story of the physics. Or that rediscovery of element 118 is one of the top stories.

The story of the sharpest needle reminds me of the joke in which Russians make the sharpest possible needle and then Americans drill an eye in it and then Japanese print “made in Japan” on it! I am sorry, but the sharpest needle has to be much sharper than one tungsten atom.

I guess my filter is different. To me, they are the stories that told me things that I didn’t know before. The discovery of 118 doesn’t surprise me a bit; there is an island of stability that we will continue to discover for a long long time. The discovery of the heaviest baryon didn’t make an impression on me either.

Don’t even get me started on the cloaking thing.

Here are the stories that I found interesting.

The microwave measurements from WMAP. The clustering and anisotropy is interesting. Wished I understood the error bars on the measurements better but it is interesting to see the structure at 200 micro calvin level.

The chemistry of matter+antimatter was expected but was delightful to see. And e-/e+/e- state was in the same league.

The evidence of liquid flow on Mars in last five years was completely unexpected.

The most engaging story was the demotion of Pluto. My daughter, who is 7, was fully immersed in it. I personally wanted the Pluto to be included in the planets. I am perfectly happy to make a distinction between the popular culture and expert level exchanges.

Demotion of Pluto was right down to the wire - it wasn’t clear which way the society will vote. Here is a sea change in the definition of the planet which will require all the text books to be changed and it doesn’t even make it in most lists of the top stories.

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