
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990                   TAG: 9004250146
SECTION: FOUNDERS DAY '90                    PAGE: VT13   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

PHYSICS PROFESSOR WINS RESEARCH AWARD

Dr. Richard Arndt, professor of physics, is one of the recipients of the 1990 Alumni Award for Research Excellence. Started in 1975 to promote research, the $1000 award and plaque go each year to two researchers judged to have reached a significant level of achievement within the university.

Arndt's achievements in the area of high energy physics have helped make Virginia Tech a "world center" for scattering analyses data bases according to Dr. David Roper, head of Arndt's nominating committee.

It is necessary to analyze scattering data for protons and neutrons in order to understand more about the forces that bind the nuclei of atoms together. In his 22 years at Tech, Arndt has developed an interactive computer code package which contains such analyzed solutions from accelerators around the world.

In the early 1960s, Arndt worked for Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (LRL) in Livermore, Calif. where he was the programmer for the initial efforts at using large computers in scattering analyses.

When he came to Tech in 1967, Arndt brought the extensive computer codes he had developed at LRL and began expanding them.

The 1970s saw the beginnings of a dial-in service for researchers who wanted to use computer graphics to view the large data bases, the Virginia Tech analyses of the data bases, or the analyses of other researchers. In the early 1980s Arndt added color graphics capabilities to the data bases, one of the first applications of color graphics at Virginia Tech and in particle physics.

Finally, the computer codes have been put into a package (called SAID - Scattering Analysis Interactive Dial-in) for access by dialing a Virginia Tech computer, and for distribution to other institutions as well. Currently more than 200 copies of the package are in use at research institutions around the world. Arndt describes the information in the databases as "basic to understanding nuclear interactions."

"[Arndt's] results are used by theorists all over the world. He's really put VPI on the map by making it the world center for this kind of work," Roper said. And he added he felt confident in nominating Arndt because he is a "constant performer."

Arndt plans to donate the $1000 award to the Leinhardt Scholarship Fund, a fund for undergraduate students in physics.

by CNB