The List

Last Updated on Tuesday, 26 May 2015 01:22 Written by Albert Greenhut Tuesday, 30 December 2014 09:41

The end of the year is always marked by all sorts of lists and countdowns. I enjoy the symbolism of ending one chapter and beginning of another, and there is no more natural time than now to do this.

My favorite list this year is PhysicsWorld.com’s Physics Breakthroughs of 2014. This list named the Philae module landing on a comet as its top choice. I think it is the right choice. This module was launched in 2004, traveled billions of miles to eventually land on the surface of a comet traveling at tens of thousands miles per hour. The calculations involved getting something into space are hard enough, but landing this probe was truly a work of genius and deserves recognition.

Laser fusion, monograms storing data, and tractor beams also made the list. Such breakthroughs have the capacity to change the way we live and deserve acknowledgement. The Intercept Technology was an innovation that came out of the Statue of Liberty Project, and everyone who works with it is proud of the technology’s roots. We constantly try new things, be it applying what we know in new ways or building brand new products. We wanted to take this time to wish you a happy new year and to celebrate the continual innovation that is going on around us.