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Nobel Prize has a rare run-in with idiocy
NOTE: This is a bit lengthy, but I encourage you to read it because I'm serving up first-hand proof that we can't always trust what comes out of the mouths of experts. Also it's worth reading if you want to see me own two scientists who keep company with the Nobel Prize committee... on the subject of science. (!)
Anyway, the story begins with the Nobel Prize for physics being awarded earlier today:
| Physics Nobel goes to German, Frenchman By MATT MOORE and KARL RITTER 22 minutes ago Two European scientists won the 2007 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for a discovery that lets computers, iPods and other digital devices store reams of data on ever-shrinking hard disks. France's Albert Fert and German Peter Gruenberg independently discovered a physical effect in 1988 that has led to sensitive tools for reading the information stored on hard disks. That sensitivity lets the electronics industry use smaller and smaller disks. "The MP3 and iPod industry would not have existed without this discovery," Borje Johansson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences told The Associated Press. "You would not have an iPod without this effect." The two scientists discovered a phenomenon called giant magnetoresistance. In this effect, very weak changes in magnetism generate larger changes in electrical resistance. This is how information stored magnetically on a hard disk can be converted to electrical signals that the computer reads. Smaller disks mean fainter magnetic signals, so the ability to detect them is key to shrinking hard disks. The first disk-reading device based on the effect was launched in 1997 "and this soon became the standard technology," the Nobel committee said. Phil Schewe, a physicist and spokesman for the American Institute of Physics, said the prize honored "a terrific combination of great physics and huge practical application. "I can hardly think of an application that has a bigger bang than the magnetic hard drive industry. Every one of us probably owns three or four or five devices, probably more, that depend on billions of bits of information stored on something the size of a dime." [click here for complete article] |
That's pretty cool. Being a nearly life long computer nerd, I owe Fert and Gruenberg a debt of gratitude for their discovery. Hats off to you, gentlemen.
...however, hold on a sec, let's have a look at the quotes from their colleagues:
| "The MP3 and iPod industry would not have existed without this discovery," Borje Johansson, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences told The Associated Press. "You would not have an iPod without this effect." |
First things first. The MP3 industry. Uhhhh, whachoo talkin bout, Willis? MP3 is a computer file format that employs a free algorithm rooted in research that predates the discovery that won the Nobel Prize today. Aside from the fact that the chronology stated by the esteemed Swedish gentleman is retarded, there's two key words here: "free" and "algorithm". The algorithm is used to compress audio files which has nothing to do with the physics of magnetics! So right there this discovery has nothing to do with MP3s. Secondly, if something is free -- like the MP3 format is -- then you can't make money off of it and thus it can't be an industry. That is to say, sites like iTunes are in the business of selling music, not a file format. End of story.
Now, secondly... ::ahem::
OH MY GOD WILL YOU STOP MASTURBATING OVER THE GODDAMN IPOD ALREADY.
Sorry, that was necessary. But stay with me here, it all comes together in a sec.
Here's the thing folks, this discovery has no more to do with the iPod than it does with any number of devices we use today. We also wouldn't have modern desktop computers, laptops, high end cell phones like Motorola RAZRs, PDAs like the Palm Tungsten, combo PDA/cells like the Blackberry, DVRs like TiVo, PVRs, game consoles like Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, most of the portable gaming consoles like Nintnedo DS and PSP, all the flash memory products like CompactFlash (CF) and SanDisk Secure Digital (SD), all the USB drives (aka "thumb" or "keychain" drives) not to mention all the other portable MP3 players like the Creative ZEN and Microsoft Zune.
I just came up with that list off the top of my head people. EVERY product from recent years that has a hard drive directly employs technology based on what these two scientists discovered back in the 1990s. Any small, portable device that carries a significant amount of data. Any device that deals with huge amounts of data. For example, computers used to work with rich multimedia or to play high end games. Anything with a hard drive beyond the old "limit" of about six gigabytes or so.
So, whether it's people ripping DVDs with their computer or gamers playing Halo 3 or avid photographers using digital cameras or, yes, people taking their MP3 collection on the go, they're all using high capacity storage devices that would not work without this discovery. And that's a fuckton more people than those who own iPods. Yes, the iPod is a successful product. No, it is not a revolution. Enough already.
Then there's the quote from Phil Schewe of the American Institute of Physics:
| "I can hardly think of an application that has a bigger bang than the magnetic hard drive industry. Every one of us probably owns three or four or five devices, probably more, that depend on billions of bits of information stored on something the size of a dime." |
Okay, the first sentence doesn't even make sense. I think what he meant to say was that the he "can hardly think of an application that has had a bigger bang on the magnetic hard drive industry." Because the industry itself is not an application and, even if it was, the magnetic hard drive industry has been around for roughly 50 years now.
Secondly, we may all own devices with drives the size of a dime (e.g. cell phones), but the size of the drive is not what's important here. The Nobel Prize winners didn't invent miniature (solid state) hard drives, they invented something that could be applied to those drives -- and all hard drives. The 3.5" and 2.5" platter hard drives that we have in our desktop and laptop computers have also benefited from this discovery and have led to 100, 200 and now even 500 gigabyte drives crammed onto the same size platters that've been in use in desktop computers since the 1980s. And there's just as many -- if not more -- of those drives around as the tiny dime-sized drives.
Now, the reason why this pisses me off is that you have two guys who are, respectively, members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and American Institute of Physics and the former is spewing pop culture hype bullshit and the latter sounds as if he's getting his tech news from People magazine. What is the world coming to when the world's best and brightest are susceptible to having their head go up their ass as the result of advertising hype and sheep mentality?
...
...I'll tell you what it's coming to: ARMAGEDDON.
The crazy Baptist doomsdayers I worked with last year were right, the End is nigh. There's war in the Holy Land, the world has begun to unleash great disasters like the 2004 Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, the man leading the world's most powerful nation may be the Antichrist, Jim Carrey has show us the horrors of the number twenty-three, Paris Hilton is still breathing, and reality television reigns supreme! And now scientists don't know their shit about science! What more proof do you need?
</sarcasm>
| emotional coordinates | | |  pissed off |
| tunes brewing | | | The Dead Milkmen - Bitchin' Camaro |
| Tags | | | advertising, awareness, computers, i'm a geek, news, pop culture crap, rant, science, stfu, technology, wtf |
