Krishnaswami: "If you ask the right question, then finding the answer is often easy."

PHYSICS STUDENT NAMED ONE OF NATION'S TOP RESEARCHERS

Krishnaswami, who earned a double degree in May in math and physics, has received the $5,000 Leroy Apker Award, the American Physical Society's highest honor for undergraduate research.

The University's Department of Physics and Astronomy also has received $5,000, in support of undergraduate research.

The prize, coincidentally, honors the memory of physicist Leroy Apker '37, '41 (PhD), who was himself honored (by Fortune magazine in 1954) as one of the "top 10 young scientists in U.S. industry."

Krishnaswami's nomination was based on research he has been conducting with Professor Sarada Rajeev in exploring the structure of the proton, the subatomic particle found in the nuclei of all elements.

Their studies of the distribution and interaction of quarks has to do with work fundamental to a theory known as quantum chromodynamics, which physicists now turn to in explaining how gluons hold quarks together.

"It's a new ballgame to study this theory, and so it is very exciting," Krishnaswami says. "It's so complex and fundamental that we will not completely understand it for the next 100 years, I'm sure."

In the meantime, he's enjoying the workout it's giving his questioning mind.

"If you ask the right question, then finding the answer is often easy. But to find the right question is not easy at all," he says.

"Sometimes you wind up asking a question that's too hard for you to answer. Or a question that is 200 years ahead of your time.

"It's characteristic of research that you're almost always lost. But then after a period of time, everything suddenly falls into place, and you see how it all is."

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