University of Colorado Boulder faculty and students are part
of international science teams that made two of the top 10 breakthroughs in
physics in 2012 as judged by Physics World magazine.
A team involving CU-Boulder was cited for making the first
direct observations of a phenomenon known as “time reversal violation” by
measuring the rate atomic particles known as B mesons changed quantum states.
The measurements essentially confirm that elementary reactions do not run the
same forwards as backwards, at least for B mesons. The CU-Boulder team members included physics
department faculty members William Ford, Uriel Nauenberg, Jim Smith and Steve
Wagner, as well as postdoctoral researcher Alessandro Gaz.