physics

Michael K. Moe

Michael K. Moe is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Michael K. Moe rather than just read about it. In short: Michael K. Moe (born 17 November 1937 in Milwaukee) is an American experimental physicist, specializing in particle physics and nuclear physics.

Key takeaways

Michael K. Moe belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Michael K. Moe to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Michael K. Moe from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Michael K. Moe (born 17 November 1937 in Milwaukee) is an American experimental physicist, specializing in particle physics and nuclear physics. He is known his role in 1987 in the direct detection of two neutrino double beta decay in 82Se. (Indirect detection of two neutrino double beta decay had been done in the 1960s.)

Education and career Moe received in 1959 his bachelor's degree from Stanford University and in 1965 his Ph.D. under Frederick Reines from Case Western Reserve University.

He spent a year as a post-doc at Caltech, doing cloud-chamber studies of high-energy cosmic-ray interactions. In 1966 he moved to the University of California at Irvine, where a preprint sent by C. S. Wu sparked his interest in double beta decay. From his experience at Caltech he recognized that a cloud chamber would mitigate a troublesome 214Bi background encountered by Wu. His cloud chamber indeed tagged the bismuth events, but accumulated data too slowly. David Nygren’s new concept of a time projection chamber suggested a way to improve sensitivity. Moe designed a TPC for double beta decay, and developed it with Steve Elliott and Alan Hahn to finally see the first solid evidence of two-neutrino decay in 82Se in 1987. His group went on to measure this rare decay in 48Ca, 100Mo, and 150Nd. Moe became at the University of California, Irvine in 1966 an assistant research physicist, in 1968 an assistant professor, in 1973 a research physicist, and retiring in 1997. He was also involved in the search for the extremely rare (and perhaps nonexistent) neutrino-less double beta decay, for which he published a proposal in 1991; in the 2000s he participated in the search for such decay pursued by SLAC's Enriched Xenon Observatory (EXO). In 2013 Moe received the Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Michael K. Moe

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Michael K. Moe claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Michael K. Moe before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Michael K. Moe ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Michael K. Moe

In research: Michael K. Moe appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Michael K. Moe in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Michael K. Moe is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1937 births, 21st-century American physicists, American nuclear physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Michael K. Moe outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Michael K. Moe in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Michael K. Moe means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Michael K. Moe out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Michael K. Moe in simple terms?

Michael K. Moe (born 17 November 1937 in Milwaukee) is an American experimental physicist, specializing in particle physics and nuclear physics.

Why does Michael K. Moe matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Michael K. Moe?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Michael K. Moe.