Nobel Prize for Giants
The Nobel Prize for Physics was announced today! From the Nobel Prize site:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2007 jointly to Albert Fert (Unité Mixte de Physique CNRS/THALES, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France) and Peter Grünberg (Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany) for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance.
“Giant Magnetoresistance” sounds like something from a pulp science fiction novel or Star Trek episode, right? That may well be, but it is worth noting that this effect is what is responsible for your ipod (or other device using those remarkably compact hard drives for storage – like your laptop) being so small! (It is called “giant” because it is a much more powerful version of the magnetoresistance that was already known about. Magnetoresistance is a material’s ability to change its electrical resistance in response to an applied magnetic field**.) There’s a nice conversation about it with Richard Harris on NPR this morning (click here to read transcripts and also link to audio), and here’s the excellent summary from the Noble Prize site itself:
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