*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
Doug Osheroff, professor of physics at Stanford University and a Nobel Laureate in Physics, will present a lecture on "How Advances in Science Are Made."
ABSTRACT:
How advances in science are made and how they may come to benefit mankind at large are complex issues. The discoveries that most influence the way we think about nature seldom can be anticipated, and frequently the applications for new technologies developed to probe a specific characteristic of nature are also seldom clear, even to the inventors of these technologies. One thing is clear: Seldom are such advances made by individuals alone. Rather, they result from the progress of the scientific community asking questions, developing new technologies to answer those questions and sharing their results and their ideas with others. However, there are indeed research strategies that can substantially increase the probability of one's making a discovery. Osheroff will illustrate some of these strategies in the context of a number of well-known discoveries, including the work he did as a graduate student, for which he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1996.
