Physics
- January 14 - Physicists from Pennsylvania State University produce the first solid Bose–Einstein condensate.
- January - A team from the JILA laboratory in Boulder, Colorado announce the creation of a fermionic condensate, the first such condensate made from atoms rather than molecules.
- February 3 - Russian and American physicists produce results that indicate the discovery of elements 113 and 115.
- March 22 - A team from Australia, Russia and Greece announce a new material, made from a nano-foam of carbon that has the lowest density ever reported for a solid.
- April 20 - NASA launches Gravity Probe B in an effort to test Einstein's general theory of relativity.
- May 19 - A team of European scientists produces the first Tonks-Girardeau gas.
- September 24 - Physicists from the Université Joseph Fourier and the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France announce the discovery of a solution (a-cyclodextrine, water, and 4-methylpyridine) that changes from liquid to solid when heated, and melts again when cooled down.
Read more about this topic: 2004 In Science
Famous quotes containing the word physics:
“The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“The fundamental laws of physics do not describe true facts about reality. Rendered as descriptions of facts, they are false; amended to be true, they lose their explanatory force.”
—Nancy Cartwright (b. 1945)
“But this invites the occult mind,
Cancels our physics with a sneer,
And spatters all we knew of denouement
Across the expedient and wicked stones.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)