How are the heaviest elements created?
Dr. Filomena Nunes, associate professor of physics at Michigan State University, studies the origins of the universe. As stars burn, nuclear fusion creates elements. Conventional stars cannot create elements heavier than iron, yet such elements exist in nature. The National Academy of Science calls the question of how elements heavier than iron were formed one of the top 11 unanswered questions in physics. Scientists at Michigan State University’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory use the accelerator to try to reproduce nuclei from iron to uranium. Dr. Nunes calls herself a “reaction theorist.” She doesn’t actually run the experiments, but she studies the data gathered by others. Dr. Nunes uses MSU’s High Performance Computing Center (HPCC) to analyze the massive amounts of data generated. Previously she used a desktop computer to do the analysis, but she found that her needs quickly outstripped the capacity of even today’s PCs. She says “The HPCC at MSU really has allowed
