The Sounds of Science

Have you ever wondered how it's possible to fit 80 GB worth of tunes and/or data onto a device as small as an iPod?

For most people, the answer to that question is going to be "No". They don't care how it works, just that it does. Push the button and it plays music, that's the important thing.

But if you ever were curious, here's a brief description. It involves a scientific phenomenon called giant magnetoresistance (GMR). It works something like this. Microscopic areas on a hard drive can be given almost immeasurably different magnetic charges. But these small differences in charge cause much larger changes in electrical resistance, which the device can detect and interpret as digital data. By measuring the effects of magnetic charges rather than the charges themselves, the sensitivity of the instrument is increased and it becomes possible to store much more data in the same physical space.

How do I know all of this? Because I just read an article about the discoverers of this process:

Nobel prize for men who made iPod possible

You may have seen the old bumper sticker that says, "If you can read this, thank a teacher." So, if you can hear your iPod, thank a scientist. Two, actually: Albert Fert, a Frenchman, and Peter Grünberg, a German, are this year's recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics for their 1988 discovery of GMR.

Oh, and they've just announced the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, too.

German wins Nobel Prize in chemistry

Gerhard Ertl gets the Prize for his work in surface chemistry. His work helps to explain how certain reactions take place on surfaces (as opposed to, say, floating around in the air or in a solution). This is something I've actually studied a bit. Surface chemistry, for example, is what allows the catalytic converter in your car's exhaust system to reduce toxic emissions. It's also one of the few ways to add hydrogen to unsaturated hydrocarbons.

Let's hear it for better living through science!

I love reading about this kind of thing and having a pretty good idea what they're talking about. It makes all those years in college seem a little more worthwhile.