prize

$3 million each for 9 theorists from Yuri Milner Foundation Fundamental Physics Prize IAS big winner. Milner Prize: Guth (MIT), Linde (Stanford); Arkani-Hamed, Maldacena, Seiberg and Witten (IAS); Kitaev (Caltech); Kontsevich (IASS); and, Sen (Chandra Institute). String theory, inflation and quantum computing. Heavy on IAS, the Techs and Russian expats. All good choices. Follows hard on the heels of the Simons Foundation Investigator awards. Aleiner (Columbia); Brenner (Harvard); Glotzer (Michigan); Hastings (Duke); Hirata (Caltech); Kane (UPenn); Ooguri (Caltech); Pretorius (Princeton);…
"Art has never been a popularity contest." -James Levine Sometimes, you might feel like you've heard it all, seen it all, and that nothing's original anymore. But I beg to differ. Just because great things have come before doesn't mean that there aren't great things happening right now. While it might "only" be a cover of a Kanye West song (which itself heavily samples a Ray Charles song, at one time featured here), I encourage you to listen to the Automatic's brilliant version of Gold Digger. And while the stories of the Universe I tell you about here don't tend to be my personal, original…
It is no secret that 3 Quarks Daily is one of my favorite blogs. It's the first blog I told my boyfriend to put on his Google Reader (he'd already added BioE, but still). Which is why I'm overjoyed to announce that 3QD has created its own prize for blogging. It's called a Quark. Oh, how I covet the Quark - especially the Strange Quark. And the finalists are to be judged by the 3QD editors and their guest judge . . . Stephen Pinker! w00t! Any blog post on a natural or social science topic published since May 24, 2008 is eligible. The catch? Nominations are only open until midnight on June 1.…