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12/13/2011

High-Energy Physicists Set Record for Network Data Transfer

Marcus Woo

Researchers have set a new world record for data transfer, helping to usher in the next generation of high-speed network technology. The international team was able to transfer data in opposite directions at a combined rate of 186 gigabits per second (Gbps) in a wide-area network circuit. The rate is equivalent to moving two million gigabytes per day, fast enough to transfer nearly 100,000 full Blu-ray disks—each with a complete movie and all the extras—in a day.

12/06/2011

Snowflake Science

Kimm Fesenmaier

We've all heard that no two snowflakes are alike. Caltech professor of physics Kenneth Libbrecht will tell you that this has to do with the ever-changing conditions in the clouds where snow crystals form. Now Libbrecht, widely known as the snowflake guru, has shed some light on a grand puzzle in snowflake science: why the canonical, six-armed "stellar" snowflakes wind up so thin and flat.

12/05/2011

Voyager I Surveys Outer Reaches of the Solar System

Katie Neith

The Voyager I spacecraft, which was built at JPL and launched in 1977, has reached a previously unexplored region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data collected from this zone indicates very little solar wind, a strong magnetic field, and a possible leak of high-energy particles from our solar system into the interstellar space. The latest findings from the mission were announced today at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco.

12/02/2011

Caltech-Led Team of Astronomers Finds 18 New Planets

Marcus Woo

Discoveries of new planets just keep coming and coming. A team of astronomers led by scientists at Caltech have found 18 Jupiter-like planets in orbit around massive stars.

11/15/2011

Caltech Ranked First in Physical Sciences

Marcus Woo

Caltech's physical-sciences program is number one among world universities in this year's Times Higher Education rankings, sharing the top spot with Princeton.

11/04/2011

An Incredible Shrinking Material

Marcus Woo

They shrink when you heat 'em. Most materials expand when heated, but a few contract. Now engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have figured out how one of these curious materials, scandium trifluoride (ScF3), does the trick—a finding, they say, that will lead to a deeper understanding of all kinds of materials.

10/31/2011

Particles and Pants

Marcus Woo

Two new faculty members have joined the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy. Ryan Patterson, assistant professor of physics, studies the elusive neutrino, a mysterious particle that could hold the clues to some of the universe's biggest questions. Vladimir Markovic, professor of mathematics, is trying to understand the shapes and structures of mathematical spaces called manifolds. In particular, he's worked with a mathematical object that resembles a pair of pants.

10/20/2011

Oceans of Water in a Planet-Forming Disk

Marcus Woo

Astronomers have detected massive quantities of water in a planet-forming gas disk around a young star. The water—which is frozen in the icy outer regions of the disk—could fill Earth's oceans several thousand times over. The discovery could help explain how Earth got its oceans and suggests that our planet may not be the only watery world in the cosmos.

10/18/2011

Thorne Selected to Receive Graduate Education Award

Kimm Fesenmaier

Kip Thorne, Caltech's Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, has been selected to receive the 2012 John David Jackson Excellence in Graduate Physics Education Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT).

10/14/2011

Caltech Awarded $12.6 Million for New Institute for Quantum Information and Matter

Kimm Fesenmaier

Caltech has been awarded $12.6 million in funding over the next five years by the National Science Foundation to create a new Physics Frontiers Center. Dubbed the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter (IQIM), the center will bring physicists and computer scientists together to push theoretical and experimental boundaries in the study of exotic quantum states.

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