Physics@MIT Journal

Issue: Fall 2002

Message from the Department Head 4

New Faculty 6

Faculty Notes 8

In Remembrance 10

News & Events in Physics 16

Student Honors & Awards 19

Alumni/ae Notes 50

Giving to the Department of Physics 61

Donors 63

Noisy Genes
24 Using the physicist's approach of developing theoretical models and running quantitative experiments, Alexander van Oudenaarden and his research group work to understand the biological function of noise in gene expression.
BY ALEXANDER VAN OUDENAARDEN
 
Inflation and the New Era of High-Precision Cosmology
28 Several surprising observations made by astronomers in recent years have led to a new picture of our universe. Renowned cosmologist Alan Guth shows what it may all mean as he describes the predictions of inflationary cosmology.
BY ALAN H. GUTH
 
Bose-Einstein Condensation: A Double Pot of Gold
40 A personal perspective on 20th century atomic physics is illustrated by the story of the discovery of Bose-Einstein condensation. Told by David Pritchard, mentor of two of the three winners of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics.
BY DAVID E. PRITCHARD