PASADENA, Calif. — We’ve all heard the predictions: e-commerce is going to be the death of traditional commerce; online shopping spells the end of the neighborhood brick-and-mortar store.
While it’s true that online commerce has had an impact on …
PASADENA, Calif. — Flies follow horizontal edges to regulate altitude, says a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). This finding contradicts a previous model, which posited that insects adjust their height…
In an advance that holds promise for integrating previously disparate functions on a chip, applied physicists at the California Institute of Technology have created a disk smaller than the diameter of a human hair that can store light energy at extremely high efficiency. The disk, called a “microtoroid” because of its doughnut shape, can be integrated into microchips for a number of potential applications. Reporting in the February 27, 2003, issue of the journal Nature, the Caltech team describes the optical resonator, which has a “Q factor,” or quality factor, more than 10,000 times better than any previous chip-based device of similar function. Q is a figure-of-merit used to characterize resonators, approximately the number of oscillations of light within the storage time of the device.
Caltech?s top chess players will compete in their first intercollegiate match of the year when they face MIT?s chess team on Sunday, March 2. The match will be held on the Internet Chess Club, the world?s largest online chess community, and will represent the first Internet chess match ever to take place between Caltech and MIT.