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08/01/2012

Physicist Wins $3 Million Physics Prize

Katie Neith

Alexei Kitaev, professor of theoretical physics, computer science, and mathematics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has been named an inaugural winner of the Fundamental Physics Prize—a $3 million award that represents the largest academic prize given to an individual in the history of science.

07/24/2012

White House Honors Caltech and JPL Scientists and Engineers

Brian Bell

Chiara Daraio, professor of aeronautics and applied physics, and Christopher Hirata, professor of astrophysics, both at Caltech, and Ian Clark of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)—which is managed by Caltech—are winners of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. This is the highest award given by the United States government to science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

07/24/2012

Caltech Physicists are Awarded New Funding from the Simons Foundation

Katie Neith

For nearly 20 years, the Simons Foundation has worked to advance mathematics and the physical sciences through grants and educational programs. Now the organization is taking its support of research one step further by naming 21 scientists as the first-ever Simons Investigators. Caltech physicists Chris Hirata and Hirosi Ooguri are among this inaugural group of recipients, each of whom are eligible to receive more than $1.3 million over the next ten years to fund innovative research.

07/22/2012

Caltech-led Team Reverse Engineers a Jellyfish

Katie Neith

When one observes a colorful jellyfish pulsating through the ocean, Greek mythology probably doesn't immediately come to mind. But the animal once was known as the medusa, after the snake-haired mythological creature its tentacles resemble. The mythological Medusa's gaze turned people into stone, and now, thanks to recent advances in bio-inspired engineering, a team led by researchers at Caltech and Harvard University have flipped that fable on its head: turning a solid element and muscle cells into a freely swimming "jellyfish."

07/19/2012

An Earthquake in a Maze

Kimm Fesenmaier

The powerful magnitude-8.6 earthquake that shook Sumatra on April 11, 2012, was a seismic standout for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was larger than scientists thought an earthquake of its type could ever be. Now, Caltech researchers report on their findings from the first high-resolution observations of the underwater temblor.

07/13/2012

A New Kind of Amplifier

Marcus Woo

Researchers at Caltech and JPL have developed a new type of amplifier for boosting electrical signals. The device can be used for everything from studying stars, galaxies, and black holes to exploring the quantum world and developing quantum computers.

07/12/2012

Peering Into the Heart of a Supernova

Kimm Fesenmaier

Using computer simulations, Caltech researchers have determined that if the interior of a dying star is spinning rapidly just before it explodes in a magnificent supernova, two different types of signals emanating from that stellar core will oscillate together at the same frequency.

07/04/2012

Physicists Discover a New Particle that May Be the Higgs Boson

Marcus Woo

Physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland, have discovered a new particle that may be the long-sought Higgs boson, the fundamental particle that is thought to endow elementary particles with mass.

07/04/2012

Caltech at the LHC

Marcus Woo

Maria Spiropulu and Harvey Newman, both professors of physics at Caltech, lead the Caltech team of 40 physicists, students, and engineers that is part of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland.

06/29/2012

X-ray Telescope Takes First Image

Marcus Woo

NASA's NuSTAR space telescope has taken its first image, snapping a shot of the high-energy X rays from a black hole in the constellation Cygnus. NuSTAR will explore black holes, the dense remnants of dead stars, energetic cosmic explosions, and even our very own sun.

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