Celebrating Asian American, Native Hawai'ian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Samuel Ting, first Asian-American recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics

Samuel Chao Chung Ting, born January 27, 1936 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is the first U.S.-born Asian American to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1976.  Ting, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared the prize with Burton Ricther of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center for the discover of the J/psi nuclear particle. 

In 1995, Ting proposed the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a cosmic ray detector and has been working on its development ever since. A prototype was flown on Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-91) in 1998.  The main mission was scrubbed after the Columbia disaster in 2003.  Dr. Ting successfully lobbied the US Congress to secure a space shuttle flight to carry the AMS-02.  It was launched on Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134) and installed on the International Space Station in May 2011.

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Luis Alvarez, awarded Novel Prize in Physics

Luis Alvarez, born June 13, 1911 in San Francisco, California, was an inventor, professor and a physicist, who won the Novel Prize in Physics in 1968.  He worked on the Manhattan Project with Robert Oppenheimer in Los Alamos on the atomic bomb.

With his son Walter in the 1980s, Alvarez developed the theory that a huge comet is what made the dinosaurs extinct. 

Alvarez passed away in September 1988 from complications from esophageal cancer.

Happy birthday, Space Shuttle astronaut Kathryn Thornton!

Kathryn Thornton, born August 17, 1952 in Montgomery, Alabama is a veteran of four space shuttle flights.  She obtained her PhD in physics from the University of Virginia in 1979.

Her first flight was aboard Discovery (STS-33) as mission specialist in November 1989.  It carried a classified payload from the Department of Defense into space.

Her second flight was aboard Endeavour (STS-49) as mission specialist in May 1992.  It was the maiden voyage of the Endeavour.  She performed an EVA with fellow astronaut Thomas Akers which lasted 7 hours 44 minutes.

Her third flight was back on Endeavour (STS-61) as mission specialist in December 1993.  She and Akers performed two EVAs lasting over 13 hours total.

Her fourth and final mission was aboard Columbia (STS-73) as mission specialist in October-November 1995.  It was the second mission of the US Microgravity Laboratory which studied the effects of the microgravity environment in space.

Marie Curie awarded second Nobel Prize 1911

For over a century, the Nobel Prize committee has not only fallen for the greatest hoax of all time, science, but has continued to promulgate the lies and deceit from the evilest of evil people, scientists!  Just look at not one, but TWO incidents that happened on this day in history.  First of all, in 1911, Marie Curie was awarded her second(!) Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry.  A woman!  She is the only person, male or female, to win two prizes in different categories.  She won the first one with her husband in 1903 for Physics (but I'm sure he did most of the work). Don’t they know women don’t like or are not interested in math and science?  And just think of the dangers of radiation.  It would have been better if she had just left all that stuff alone.  If she had, we wouldn't be bothered with Godzilla or Spiderman!

Eleven years later, Neils Bohr was giving his acceptance speech for his Nobel Prize in Physics (just as liberal as chemistry, but at least it was a man this time!), when two of his contemporaries announced they had discovered the element hafnium.  What a stupid name. Supposedly it is the “Roman” name for Copenhagen.  Why couldn’t they have stayed with good ol' English name and called it Copenhagenium or Denmarkium? I have never even seen a hafnium?  Have you?

It’s all a conspiracy by the ultra-mega-platinum left-wing liberals to undermine our own education system with facts!  Conservatives don’t need no facts!

Marie Curie, 2 x Nobel prize winner, born 1867

Marie Curie, born November 7, 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, is still the first woman to win a Nobel prize, the first person (and only woman) to win TWO Nobel prizes and the ONLY person to win a Nobel prize in two different categories!

Although she studied and worked in France, she remained loyal to her home country of Poland and named the first chemical element she discovered 'polonium' after it.

She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre for their work in radiation research. 

Her husband died in a tragic road accident in 1906, which devastated her, but the University of Paris where Pierre taught decided to offer his chair to Marie.  She accepted and became the first woman to teach at the university.

In 1911, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work in discovering and isolating the elements polonium and radium.

Due to her long exposure to radiation, Marie Curie contracted leukemia and passed away in 1934.