Meeting with a Nobel Prize laureate

[lwymarie]

If you are going to meet a professor and you've got to ask him one question, what will you ask?
I am going to write abt 50 words about physics for selection purpose. He is a condensed matter physicist. His area of investigation is the quantum Hall effect. He has made a breakthrough which leads to a better understanding of how electrons in the semiconductor behave. In a two-dimensional semiconductor system, for example, a semiconductor heterojunction, the resistance was found to be quantized.

So what am I going to write? please give me some ideas. thx

 

[marlon]

Who is it you are meeting ? Is it Klaus von Klitzing ?

regards
marlon

 

[ZapperZ]

If you are going to meet a professor and you've got to ask him one question, what will you ask?
I am going to write abt 50 words about physics for selection purpose. He is a condensed matter physicist. His area of investigation is the quantum Hall effect. He has made a breakthrough which leads to a better understanding of how electrons in the semiconductor behave. In a two-dimensional semiconductor system, for example, a semiconductor heterojunction, the resistance was found to be quantized.
So what am I going to write? please give me some ideas. thx

Yeah, you should tell us who you're meeting.

From your description, especially the 2D semiconductor junction, I'm guessing it's either the two experimentalists who discovered the fractional quantum Hall effect (Horst Stormer or Dan Tsui), or if you're lucky, you'll meet the theorist who got the description right, Bob Laughlin.

Zz.

 

[lwymarie]

Daniel Tsui..what should I ask him?

 

[lwymarie]

so what should i ask him/what should i say to him?
i needa hand in 50 words about physics for selection purpose, help me please><

 

[berkeman]

so what should i ask him/what should i say to him?
i needa hand in 50 words about physics for selection purpose, help me please><

If it were me, I'd ask something like, Where do you get your best creative ideas and inspirations from? Do you seem to come up with your best and most productive ideas during the periods of intense work, or in the quiet relaxing times in between the intense work periods? Do you use a lot of mental visualization, or is it true that visualization is less helpful in QM?

 

[lwymarie]

Thanks. How about how to write 50 words about physics for selection purpose? I think I couldn't say 'Physics is very interesting...'
Perhaps I can say 'Physics is the fundamental of science'? What else can I say :S

Help me please, quite urgent:)

 

[berkeman]

Thanks. How about how to write 50 words about physics for selection purpose? I think I couldn't say 'Physics is very interesting...'
Perhaps I can say 'Physics is the fundamental of science'? What else can I say :S

Help me please, quite urgent:)

If you post the exact wording of the call for submissions, that would help us help you.

 

[lwymarie]

I've got accepted to meet him :)
But I have nth to ask him about:S

 

[erickalle]

I've got accepted to meet him :)
But I have nth to ask him about:S

If you dare, tell him that you’ve read this reply in PF. (It’s about 50 words)
I do believe that every resistance is build up from basic quantum resistance unit h/2e^2 where h and e are the usual constants.
All resistances are made up with a combination of parallel and series circuits of this basic unit. As usual resistances in parallel will decrease the overall resistance and series resistances add up.
As far as I know this is a new idea. Can you let me know his reaction? Most likely he’s going to say that there’s no evidence for that at all. ZapperZ will say the same.
eric

 

[inha]

Resistance is pretty much all about electron scattering from phonons (at room temp) so your speculation is pointless. I wouldn't bother presenting an alternative speculative view of a well known phenomenom to a nobel laureate.

 

[ZapperZ]

If you dare, tell him that you’ve read this reply in PF. (It’s about 50 words)
I do believe that every resistance is build up from basic quantum resistance unit h/2e^2 where h and e are the usual constants.
All resistances are made up with a combination of parallel and series circuits of this basic unit. As usual resistances in parallel will decrease the overall resistance and series resistances add up.
As far as I know this is a new idea. Can you let me know his reaction? Most likely he’s going to say that there’s no evidence for that at all. ZapperZ will say the same.
eric

And you are also forgetting that I would also say that you need to re-read the PF guideline that you have explicitly agreed to. If you are going to be making a speculative theory and think that you can circumvent the rules this way, you should think again. Send your speculative idea to the IR forum, not here.

Zz.

 

[erickalle]

And you are also forgetting that I would also say that you need to re-read the PF guideline that you have explicitly agreed to. If you are going to be making a speculative theory and think that you can circumvent the rules this way, you should think again. Send your speculative idea to the IR forum, not here.
Zz.

Sorry ZapperZ. So far I’ve not had a look at the IR forum, I will in the future.

 

[Claude Bile]

A researchers work is available to anybody. What will be uniquely available to you will be an oppourtunity to inquire about the other facets of research, the person behind the research, the thought processes that lead to successful theories, significant moments in his career. Don't just focus on his successes, ask about his failures as well and what he finds difficult about his work.

The most valuable thing you can gain from meeting him is a rare insight into the mind of a top physicist, glimpsing the sources of their passion and inspiration, passion and inspiration that is often highly contagious, not a piece of information anybody can dig out of a journal.

Good luck.

Claude.

 

[erickalle]

Claude could you do me a huge favour and tell me where I can find such articles / websites? I am genuinely interested and not being sarcastic.
Thanks.

 

[Claude Bile]

There are a host of scientific journals available. Your best bet would be to find some references to his work - references will cite exactly what journal, volume, page number etc. the article can be found.

This is assuming of course you have access to such journals. If you are a university student, you can access these journals through the university account. Alternatively you can request a paper through the library of your institution. (In Australia at least, it may be slightly different overseas).

Google is always a good place to start, you can usually find a couple of references at least. You can also check out these websites;

Wiley InterScience - http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/home
Elsevier - http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/homepage.cws_home

These are two of the biggest publishers of scientific journals. Other popular journals include;

Nature - This is the most read and most cited journal out there - http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html

Science - Another high-profile journal - http://www.sciencemag.org/archive/

Claude.

 

[erickalle]

Thanks, much appreciated. It will take some time to plod through this.
Anybody else knows a shortcut?
Regards,
eric

 

[Mk]

http://scholar.google.com/
For searching for specific articles.

 

[erickalle]

Yes, very good. Long live Google!

 

[Claude Bile]

I wouldn't recommend wading through entire journals, find a reference using google and then just look up that reference.

Claude.

 

[Plastic Photon]

Ask him what he eats. Maybe he has a high protein diet which accounts for his ablities.