Investigations
New spin on salt

Chicago scientist Thomas Rosenbaum demonstrates entanglement, a phenomenon that leaves classical physics out in the cold.
Physicist Thomas Rosenbaum has long sensed something strange about a salt called lithium holmium yttrium tetrafluoride (lithium holmium fluoride for short). His lab has been experimenting with the rose-hued crystals for 15 years, and no matter how low the researchers drop the temperature—even to within a few thousandths of a degree of absolute zero, or –459°F, theoretically the temperature at which all molecular motion ceases—the salt won’t freeze. “That’s a very peculiar behavior. There must be some hidden variable to explain it,” says Rosenbaum, the John T. Wilson distinguished service professor in physics, the James Franck Institute, and the College—and also the University’s vice president for research and for Argonne National Laboratory. Now his team has finally solved the mystery: the material’s atoms are “entangled,” he and Sayantani Ghosh, SM’01, PhD’03, reported in the September 2003 Nature.
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The business of spreading gossip
Quality work and behavior may seem like the most logical ways to earn professional prestige, but it’s gossip that builds business reputations, says Ronald S. Burt, PhD’77, the Hobart W. Williams professor of sociology and strategy in the Graduate School of Business.
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Medieval music unmasked
He has celebrity status in his southern Italian birthplace, Oppido Lucano. Since 1970 a street in the town has been known by his name. This past spring an international conference convened in his honor, an ensemble performed his music, and the local newspapers provided in-depth coverage. Not bad for a once-forgotten medieval convert.
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