I just read the news that Deborah Jin, someone who I consider to be a leading candidate to win the Nobel Prize, has passed away on Sept. 15 after a battle with cancer. Her work on the ultra-cold Fermionic gasses was groundbreaking, and she should have been awarded the Nobel Prize a long time ago!
Nearly two decades ago, Jin and her then PhD student Brian DeMarco were the first researchers to observe quantum degeneracy in a sufficiently cooled gas of fermionic atoms. They were the first to demonstrate the creation and control of such an ultracold "Fermi gas", which has since provided us with new insights into superconductivity and other electronic effects in materials. You can read this 2002 feature written by Jin on "A Fermi gas of atoms"
CRAP! We have lost another good one, and well before her time! Deepest condolences to her family and friends.
Edit: Here's the press release from JILA about this.
Zz.
No comments:
Post a Comment