Articles by Robert Crease

PRINCETON, NJ.—Drop a certain name in conversation with a fusion scientist or a Department of Energy official and you’re likely to observe an unusual reaction. Rolling eyes and sighs are common responses; mild cases of apoplexy are not unknown. Usually composed researchers become animated, others simply nod their heads knowingly. Rarely does the name pass without comment. The name is Bogdan Maglich, and the man who owns it claims he’s just a scientist with a relatively mo

UPTON, N.Y.—In the middle of Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, Long Island, is a building whose gleaming white curves, bay windows, and identifying sign on the front lawn cause it to stand out from the barracks architecture prevailing at the rest of the site. The building is the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), and the composition of the scientists who work in its intenor is as unusual as the exterior. Scientists from AT&T Bell Laboratories examining the surface structure

Pericles, the fifth-century B.C. Athenian statesman, was once given a ram that had been born with one horn instead of two. A soothsayer concluded that the single horn was an omen indicating that Pericles would triumph over his rival, Thucydides, in a coming struggle. The philosopher and scientist Anaxagoras, however, dissected the skull and was able to demonstrate that the single horn had a natural cause. People were much impressed by Anaxagoras’ debunking of the soothsayer’s cla

Spend money on optical computers? That would be like spending it on fusion-powered desk lamps. Even if the technology problems could be solved--which they can't--the final product won't do the job any better than what we've already got. For two decades this has been the prevailing attitude of research strategists at industrial corporations toward optical computing. But all that may begin to change next week at an Optical Society of America meeting in Salt Lake City. For almost 20 years, comput

Some call him a genius, others a charlatan; but even his critics agree that Huang's optical computers are unsurpassed HOLMDEL, N.J.--Absent was the cautious reserve usually adopted by scientists in formal presentations. In its place was Alan Huang's characteristic approach to the scientific briefing: machine-gun bursts of excited speech, highly animated hand gestures, all in support of the virtues of Huang's passion - optical computers, whose circuits run on light rather than electricity. Hu

Technical problems plague Stanford’s Linear Collider, threatening its ability to produce breakthroughs in particle physics Expectations were running high. For months, the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), an innovative particle accelerator nearing completion at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Facility (SLAC) in Palo Alto, Calif. had been preparing for its debut. This was the machine that would mint a million Z0 particles a year. Close study of the Z0—it’s mass, for example̵

Nobelist Sam Ting says his CERN experiment is like the United Nations—‘except we get something done.’ Here’s why GENEVA--"I don’t know what your rules are,” the particle physicist Sam Ting tells. the officials from the Soviet Union as they drink coffee in his Geneva office. “I don’t even care. What I am saying is this: When the announcement of a discovery is made, the people on the podium are the people who get the. credit. If you want your sci

After years of passivity, the astronomy community is protesting telescope closings, cramped quarters, and scanty maintenance Like some ill solar wind, word is radiating through the galaxy of United States astronomers that they’ll have to shut down more of their small telescopes before plans to build a new one are approved. For many, this is the final straw. Throughout the past decade, U.S. astronomers suffered in silence as the National Science Foundation retargeted money to areas of s

The Proton Refuses To Decay, But Physicists’Funds Are Fading Fast Two thousand feet under the shores of Lake Erie, in a six-story salt cavern, one of the most sophisticated light detectors ever constructed is waiting. Every second, several particles speed through the instrument’s enormous pool of water and collide with atoms in it, setting off flashes of light to be detected and recorded. But these events are merely physics’ flotsam and jetsam—things to be identified, c