The Houston Chronicle, September 30, 2009, Wednesday

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The Houston Chronicle

September 30, 2009, Wednesday

HEADLINE: Texas A&M lures another Nobel winner

He will get $2 million to fund his research in low-temperature physics NOBEL: Mitchell aids expansion

BYLINE: By ERIC BERGER, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

BODY:

For the second time in four years, Texas A&M University has hired a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Later this week the university will announce the hiring of David M. Lee, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in physics. Lee, 78, will move his laboratory from Cornell University to College Station.

"Change is good," Lee said of the move from Cornell, where he has worked for half a century. "You have new col-leagues and new ideas. It's very stimulating."

The addition of Lee means A&M now has two Nobel Prize winners on its faculty. It hired the other, 77-year-old physics laureate Dudley Herschbach, in 2005.

(A&M claims three Nobel laureates; the third, agricultural economist Bruce McCarl, was one of 2,500 Intergov-ernmental Panel on Climate Change members who were cited for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.)

The university will provide Lee with $2 million in funds to expand his research efforts in the field of low-temperature physics, in which scientists study the behavior of materials very near absolute zero.

Lee said he was attracted by the opportunity to expand his research at a time when the economic crunch has limited funding for physics research at other institutions.

"This is a bright shining light compared to what's happening to physics around the country," he said.

Texas A&M's physics department has undergone a significant expansion during the last decade largely because businessman George Mitchell, an Aggie alumnus interested in the cosmos, has donated about $50 million.

Physics department head Edward Fry says his faculty has grown from 41 in 2002 to 68 today.

"That's pretty dramatic growth, and George is the one who's been responsible for facilitating a lot of it," Fry said.

Lee will move his lab into the George P. Mitchell physics building, which is nearing completion, and his hiring will be funded by A&M University's new Academic Master Plan and the A&M System's Academic Scholars Enhancement Program.

"Dr. Lee will play a significant role in the growing research community here in the state of Texas and will join our extraordinary community of scholars who constantly seek to extend and communicate our knowledge of the universe," said R. Bowen Loftin, A&M's interim president and 1970 physics graduate of Texas A&M.

Lee won the 1996 Nobel along with Douglas Osheroff and Robert Richardson for their work with a rare form of helium at very low temperatures.

The trio cooled helium-3 down to a few thousandths of a degree above absolute zero, or minus 459 degrees Fahr-enheit. At that point the liquid helium became what scientists call a superfluid, meaning it moved without friction and no longer behaved normally and exhibited behavior consistent with quantum mechanics.

The experimental work by Lee and the other scientists has helped theoretical physicists refine their understanding of quantum mechanics and the behavior of matter at sub-macroscopic scales.

It also had some practical benefits. To observe the behavior of helium, Lee said he and his colleagues used a rather crude form of magnetic resonance imaging, which he says helped spur chemist Paul Lauterbur in his development of MRI as a medical scanning technology.

Although most people might consider retirement in their 70s, Lee says he is eager to get to work.

A low-temperature physicist at Rice University, Randy Hulet, said he is looking forward to working with Lee.

"Dave is one of the giants of low-temperature physics and will be a wonderful colleague," Hulet said.

There are other benefits to bringing Nobel laureates onto a campus, of course.

One of the leading higher education labor economists in the country, Ronald Ehrenberg of Cornell, said distinguished senior scientists can provide leadership for younger colleagues and mentor them, as well as add prestige to a university.

"The opportunity to be associated with a Nobel Prize winner can serve to attract younger faculty to the university and give credibility to a department," Ehrenberg said.
eric.berger@chron.com

LOAD-DATE: September 30, 2009