This talk centered on Hamming's observations and research on the
question "Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and
so many are forgotten in the long run?" From his more than forty years
of experience, thirty of which were at Bell Laboratories, he has made
a number of direct observations, asked very pointed questions of
scientists about what, how, and why they did things, studied the
lives of great scientists and great contributions, and has done introspection
and studied theories of creativity. The talk is about what he has
learned in terms of the properties of the individual scientists, their
abilities, traits, working habits, attitudes, and philosophy.
aborgg on 17 Sep 15Waves of electrons have been bent backward in a sheet of graphene, allowing physicists to focus electrons the way a lens focuses light. Electrons coursing through a sheet of carbon atoms exhibited negative refraction, bending at angles not seen in nature. By exploiting this unusual bending, the researchers created a lenslike device to focus the electrons to a tiny point. The new technique could help physicists learn how to manipulate electrons in the tight confines of miniaturized electronic devices, where the particles often behave like waves.
