mp3 download Marietta Blau was an Austrian physicist who made her most important discovery for nuclear physics, the "stars of disintegration," a few months before the annexation of Austria by the Germans. With the help of Albert Einstein, she found asylum in Mexico, a country where technical and scientific education was just beginning and which was far from the centers of nuclear research. Marietta Blau could not carry on with her scientific work in Mexico but the photographic method for nuclear physics, which she had pioneered, proved to be an invaluable tool for discovering new fundamental particles in the next decades and led to the award of the Nobel Prize to British scientists.
Ariadne Press, a small publishing house in California that specializes in studies of Austrian literature, culture, and thought entered a new field in Spring 2007 by publishing the biography of this great Austrian scientist.
The book Marietta Blau, Stars of Disintegration: Biography of a Pioneer of Particle Physics by Brigitte Strohmaier and Robert Rosner depicts the life of the Austrian physicist Marietta Blau (1894-1970) and discusses her contributions to nuclear physics. The biographical part of the book discusses her family and social background, her friendships, her personal characteristics, and the political events that shaped her life.
The Internet has had an incredible impact on all aspects of our lives. Only a decade or so has passed since the Internet moved out of the realm of research and was made available for public use, yet almost all of us routinely use it to work, to play, and to learn. There are few aspects of our lives that are not touched in some way by the Internet, and few technological developments have had such broad impact in such a short time.
If we dig a little deeper, however, we encounter some troubling indications that, below the surface, the Internet may be degrading, putting both current and future uses at unacceptable risk.
For example, most of our critical infrastructures, such as the phone system and the air traffic control system, are available roughly 99.999% of the time - so-called, five nines of availability. In contrast, estimates of the Internet's availability are typically on the order of 99.9% or less; thus the Internet's downtime is two orders of magnitude higher than that of our other critical infrastructures. This level of availability has not slowed the Internet's amazing rise to prominence, but it has prevented various critical functions such as 911 emergency calls or critical corporate communication from using the Internet as the primary communication infrastructure. Stated more personally, would you have tele-surgery over today's Internet?
The Institute of Science and Technology Austria: an Interview with Scientific Director Olaf Kübler
bridges vol. 14, July 2007 / Feature Article
The I.S.T Austria Campus
I.S.T. Austria, the acronym for the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, has been launched in Klosterneuburg, which is located on the northwest boundary of Vienna. It is the brainchild of Prof. Anton Zeilinger, the Austrian physicist who received worldwide attention for first achieving quantum teleportation. Prof. Zeilinger first mentioned the idea of establishing a new, outstanding Institute of Basic Research at the 2002 Technology Forum in Alpbach, Austria.
Four years later, in May 2006, the I.S.T. Austria was finally established by an Austrian federal law that defined it as a fully independent institution, governed only by its own Board of Trustees. For the next 10 years, the Austrian Federal Government has committed to €195 million in funding, as well as matching any funds acquired by I.S.T. Austria from secondary sources (limited, however, to a total of €95 million over the 10 years).
In addition to this financial support from the Austrian Federal Government, the Bundesland (equivalent to a US state) of Lower Austria, where I.S.T. Austria is located, agreed to invest €80 million in infrastructure and buildings, and to support facility management with €3 million per year.
bridges spoke with Prof. Olaf Kübler, the chairman of the Scientific Board of I.S.T. Austria.
Science Impact: Rethinking the Impact of Basic Research on Society and the Economy
An international conference on science impact, Vienna, May 10 and 11, 2007
bridges vol. 14, July 2007 / Feature Article
by Roland Schneider
The Austrian Research Fund and the European Science Foundation (ESF) organized an international conference on "Science Impact" held May 10-11, 2007 in Vienna. The conference was attended by 270 participants who, with outstanding scholars in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies from both sides of the Atlantic and senior officials from major research organizations, engaged in lively discussions concerning the changing conceptual models of how research evolves into innovation, and the methods for evaluating the impact of basic research on science and society.
Although little doubt exists, among scientists and politicians alike, about the positive impact of basic research on the economy, the exact link between those two is often hard to prove. Overall, science funding has increased considerably over recent years: for example, Austria increased from a meager research quota of 1.4% in 1993 to over 2.5% of the GDP in 2007 – and the trend is still upward. Yet the funding of basic research is being challenged more than ever. This challenge arises from various sides, from narrow budget constraints, to growing skepticism in public opinion about the prospects of science, to the general perception that funding of applied research is much more output efficient. “The discussion about the relevance of basic research is pandemic and anything but trivial,” as Christoph Kratky, president of the Austrian Science Fund, summed up this development. It is in this context that the conference is “very timely, because there is more and more need to justify further spending for basic research,” said Wolfgang Polt, head of the Institute of Regional and Technology Policy at Joanneum Research.
We celebrate world-class superstars like Mozart, Beethoven, and Einstein with festivals and T-shirts. So why not do the same for the most prolific mathematician of all time, the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, whose 300th birthday we celebrated April 15?
Euler's work is at the root of almost every equation, formula, theorem, or other relationship used in mathematics, from the simplest to the most complex. And though Beethoven is famous for having composed some of his best works when he was deaf, it is not so well known that Euler produced almost half of his works (about 430 books and articles) after he became blind at age 59. (He died in 1783 at age 76.)
On June 27, Dr. Roger A. Pielke, Jr. came all the way from Oxford, Great Britain, to the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC, ready to usher in the "bridges Lecture Series." Pielke, director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research in Boulder, CO, is currently spending a one-year sabbatical in Great Britain. Landing at Dulles International Airport a few hours before the event, the long-time bridges columnist made his first visit to the embassy, where the empty seats filled within minutes of his arrival with over 160 guests who had come to hear him speak.
Pielke's talk marked the kickoff for a sequence of talks on science and technology policy that will showcase some of bridges' most renowned guest contributors, bringing them for at least one evening from the virtual world of an online magazine to a "real world" audience.
bridges columnist Roger Pielke (left) and former OST director Philipp Steger (right)
While the event symbolized a new beginning for bridges, it also marked an end. " ... We feel that tonight offers the perfect opportunity to show that even if a person's time at an institution is coming to an end ... his legacy will last," said Caroline Adenberger, editor-in-chief of bridges, who introduced the event. She was referring to the departing director of the OST, Dr. Philipp Steger, and added, "It will last because of what Philipp [Steger] has envisioned and what he has created over the last years at the OST," pointing out that without Steger's vision and leadership neither the OST nor bridges would be in existence today.
