Kimberly W. Land
(757) 864-9885

For Release: April 27, 2000

RELEASE NO. 00-020

Tuesday, May 2
A "Quantum Leap:" From Magnets to "Floating Frogs"

     Magnetism has been a fascination since lodestones were discovered thousands of years ago. Magnets and magnetism are a central aspect of many of today's technologies such as motors and generators, medical diagnostic tools, and data storage. According to physicist, Dr. Jack Crow, magnets may be the way of the future for high-speed trains.

     Crow is director of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) and professor of physics at Florida State University. Crow will present "Magnet Science and Technology: From Quantum Wells to Floating Frogs" at a colloquium at 2 p.m. Tuesday, May 2, at NASA Langley's H.J.E. Reid Conference Center.

Media Briefing:
     A media briefing will be held at 1:15 p.m. in the Wythe Room of the Reid Conference Center, 14 Langley Blvd. at NASA Langley. Media who wish to attend the briefing should contact Kimberly W. Land at (757) 864-9885.

     Crow will present the history of magnetism with a focus on its application to science and technology. He believes magnets can be used to float biological materials, such as a frog, in a weightless state on earth. Crow's research on quantum wells, highly conductive "electron gas" regions, in a magnetic field has produced new states of matter, resulting in two Nobel prizes.

     In 1967, Crow received his doctorate in physics from the University of Rochester. Crow is a member of the U.S. Department of Energy's Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee and is on the board of editors for Superconductivity Review.

     The public is invited to the Sigma Series lecture at the Virginia Air and Space Center that evening, at 7:30 p.m.

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