FEATURED ON THE BACK PAGE: David Goodstein on A P S N E W S Education JUNE 2000 THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 9, NO. 6 APS News(Try the enhanced APS News-online: http://www.aps.org/apsnews)

Council Statements Focus on Missile Defense, Science Funding t its April meeting, the Council of ploy the NMD is scheduled for the next in the physical sciences. Therefore, the success of important national scientific A the APS approved a statement on few months. The tests that have been con- Council is particularly concerned that the programs. issues relating to the technical feasibility ducted or are planned for the period fall DOE’s science funding remain healthy. The Council urges, therefore, that the DOE and deployment of the proposed National far short of those required to provide confi- The DOE Office of Science is responsible share fully, in FY2001 and in subsequent Missile Defense (NMD) program. dence in the ‘technical feasibility’ called for for the construction and operation of most years, in the funding increases aimed at President Clinton is scheduled to make a in last year’s NMD deployment legislation. major facilities in particle and nuclear maintaining the health of the U.S. scientific decision by this October as to whether to This statement implies no APS position physics, and for many other facilities enterprise. Present concerns regarding man- begin deployment of such a program, with respect to the wisdom of national mis- needed in multidisciplinary research agement and security issues should not although a decision could be made as early sile defense deployment and concerns itself programs relevant to materials sciences, obscure the need for sustaining and enhanc- as August. Some members of Congress, solely with its technical viability.” energy sciences, biology, and medicine. ing the essential DOE-supported science of both parties, have urged the President to Background information relating to the These efforts have been instrumental in the programs.” defer a decision until the next administration. NMD statement can be found on the APS The text of the statement follows. website at http://www.aps.org/ Physics Chairs Meet at APS Headquarters “The United States should not make statements/00.2.html. a deployment decision relative to the Believing that broad-based funding for planned National Missile Defense physics research is critical to preserving (NMD) system unless that system is national competitiveness, the APS Council shown-through analysis and through also approved a statement to that effect intercept tests- to be effective against the at its April meeting, singling out the De- types of offensive countermeasures that partment of Energy (DOE) for particular an attacker could reasonably be ex- support. The statement reads: pected to deploy with its long-range “The Council of the American Physi- missiles. The planned NMD system is cal Society applauds and strongly intended to defend U.S. territory against supports the significant funding in- tens of long-range ballistic missiles car- creases for science contained in the rying biological, chemical or nuclear President’s FY2001 budget. weapons. The ability of the NMD system The nation’s research in physics is to deal with countermeasures is a key broadly supported through several agen- More than 120 physics department chairs spent two days in April at the American Center for factor in determining whether the sys- cies, principally DOE, NSF, NASA, and Physics in College Park. With a conference emphasis on undergraduate physics education, tem will be able to defend against the DOD. The ability of U.S. physics to con- presentations focused on the need for better teaching techniques, curricular issues, careers, threats it is intended to meet. tinue contributing to the nation’s responses to the new engineering accreditation requirements, and ways to improve the A decision on whether or not to de- economic growth and its national secu- physics taught to prospective teachers. Rounding out the program were talks on NSF and DOE funding priorities by Bob Eisenstein, Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical rity depends critically on adequate Sciences (NSF) and Pat Dehmer, Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Science (DOE), funding for all these agencies. and an overview of the Washington science policy scene by Mike Lubell, APS Director of Inside… The DOE provides the majority of the Public Affairs. In the photo above, Steering Committee co-chair Peter Collings of Swarthmore addresses the gathering. The conference was cosponsored by APS and AAPT. NEWS funding for a wide range of basic research March and April 2000 Prizes and Awards Recipients ...... 2 Stunning photos of the winners. Scientific Community Speaks Out on Re- “Creating Copenhagen” at CUNY Symposium Behalf of FY2001 NSF R&D Budget ...... 3 Support grows for the President’s budget. hy did Werner Heisenberg make the American Institute of Physics were co- the meeting ended in acrimony. Nothing Topsy Turvy: Researchers Announce W the risky journey to Copenhagen sponsors of this event. Physicists, historians, is known of why Heisenberg made the First True “Left-Handed” Material ...... 5 Featuring the inverse Doppler effect and in 1941 to visit his former mentor, Niels theater professionals, and members of the visit, or what the two men said to each reverse of Snell’s law. Bohr? What did the two discuss, and why general public alike crowded into the new other, yet it remains a defining moment Satisfaction High for Undergrad did it end their friendship? Was Heisenberg Proshansky Auditorium for the free, day- of the modern nuclear age. Physics Bachelors ...... 5 trying to learn about Allied progress on long series of events, which included Frayn’s play extends the concept of Number receiving bachelor’s in physics has reached stability. the atomic bomb? Was he seeking Bohr’s lectures on the science and history of the quantum uncertainty to the realm of hu- Writing Workshops Teach Basics of input on the ethics of applying physics to so-called “Copenhagen Interpretation” of man motivations through a series of cyclic Communicating with Public ...... 6 construct a weapon of mass destruction? quantum mechanics and the subsequent re-tellings of the same event from differ- Physicists received a crash course in writing for the general interest media at the And should history view Heisenberg as a development of the atomic bomb. ing perspectives, and in Blakemore’s APS March and April meetings. hero for purposely slowing or sabotaging The CUNY symposium was timed to staging the actors move about the stage Career Liaisons Gather for Workshop on the German bomb effort, or an incompe- coincide with the Broadway opening of as if they are particles in a quantum sys- Professional Development ...... 6 tent engineer who failed to understand the “Copenhagen,” an award-winning drama tem. Michael Cumpsty, the actor who Establishing a nation-wide network of liaisons was one objective. key design principles involved? by British playwright Michael Frayn that plays Heisenberg in the Broadway play, These unsolved mysteries provided the won the prestigious Evening Standard was on hand for the symposium, along OPINION thematic framework for a special Award for Best Play in 1998. The play is with actress Blair Brown, who plays That’s It Folks! For the Last Time: symposium in March, sponsored by the inspired by actual events that have in- Margrethe Bohr. A sold-out evening ses- Even More Top Ten Physicists ...... 2 City University of New York Graduate trigued and baffled historians for more than sion featured a panel discussion with Frayn Final round of readers’ thoughts on top ten physicists. Center, entitled “Creating Copenhagen.” 50 years — a 1941 meeting between Bohr and the play’s Broadway director, Michael Letters ...... 4 Both the American Physical Society and and Heisenberg, both brilliant physicists Blakemore. Viewpoint ...... 4 and longtime friends The first session on science offered a Cultural differences: Alan Chodos yearns whose work together technical exploration presenting the ba- for the way it was. had paved the way for sics of quantum mechanics and of the Editorial Cartoon ...... 5 Zero Gravity ...... 5 the atom, but who contributions of Bohr, Heisenberg and oth- Fourth annual Pigasus awards. were now on opposite ers. Speakers discussed specifics of the sides of World War II. Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum DEPARTMENTS Heisenberg, then chief mechanics and of present views of how This Month in Physics History ...... 3 scientist on the Ger- the wave function yields definite states. The Shelter Island Conference: June 2 - 4, 1947. man atom-bomb They included former APS president Eugen Inside the Beltway ...... 3 Michael Lubell anaylzes the budget battles. project, made a covert Merzbacher, Faye Ajzenberg-Selove of the Announcements ...... 7 journey at great per- University of Pennsylvania, Anton Zeilinger Membership news; Apker awards; matching sonal risk to see his (University of Vienna), and Brian Greene, membership program; winner of physics trivia. former Danish mentor a physicist at Columbia University and au- The Back Page ...... 8 and his wife Margrethe thor of The Elegant Universe, a discussion

David Goodstein on where physics education Photo by Gerald Cyrus ought to be headed. Hans Bethe (right) picks up some acting tips from Michael Blakemore. in Copenhagen, but Continued on page 7 APS News June 2000

March 2000 Meeting Prizes and Awards Recipients April 2000 Meeting Prizes and Awards Recipients

(Left to right) Seated: H. Kumar Wickramasinghe, Mildred Dresselhaus, Fay Ajzenberg- (Left to right) Seated: Sidney Coleman, Steve Fetter, Donald Jacobs, Govind Selove, Calvin Quate, Sharon Glotzer. First Row Standing: J. Michael Kosterlitz, Wesley R. Krishnaswami, Raymond Arnold. Standing: Curtis Callan, Jr, Brian Gerke, Mei Burghardt, Paul Hansma, M. Brian Maple, Marc Kastner, Theodore Fulton, Gerald J. Dolan. Bai, Igal Talmi, Martin Breidenbach, Michael Creutz. Absent from photo: John Second Row Standing: Michael Falk, Michael Fayer, Robert Birgeneau, Bertram Battlog. Arrington, Philip Phillips, Jeremiah Sullivan, Maury Tigner Absent from photo: Lewis J. Fetters, Paul L. Richards, Chauncey Starr, David J. Thouless. That’s It Folks! For the Last Time: Even More Top Ten Physicists

About your list of “top ten physicists”: I think that although Heisenberg, Feynman, While the names on the list are certainly among the outstanding physicists in Schrödinger were very important, they are in the list because of either their charisma (Feynman history it seems strange that one name has been left out. A man who discovered not – why not Tomonaga or Schwinger, then ?) or because they summed up the advances of one, not two, but three universal laws, who was as responsible as Maxwell in unify- debates at their times (Heisenberg and Schrödinger : without de Broglie, Born, Planck, I do ing fields, who outgrew his accomplishments in physics and became a statesman, not think they would be there). I suggest to replace them with people like Faraday, Ampère, whose name is familiar among physicists from Seoul to São Paulo, who founded an Coulomb, Gauss, who were more “stand-alone” geniuses, working as well in experimental institution which has benefited tens of thousands of the most under-privileged physi- as theoretical physics. The Curies, Fermi, etc, should also belong in the list, which looks cists, who kept open a channel to the West to physicists from behind the Iron Anglo-German, quantum-mechanical, and XXth century biased to me. Curtain when no one else would have them, certainly belongs on any list of ten Florent Calvayrac outstanding physicists in history. I refer of course to Abdus Salam. Laboratoire de Physique de l’Etat Condense; Universite du Maine-Faculte des Sciences Munawar Karim, Professor Department of Physics, St. John Fisher College The Physics World survey (not only the first 10 physicists) reveals a double bias. First toward modern times and second in favor of theoreticians. Further, while it is in I think it’s an omission not to have Enrico Fermi on the list. He made fundamental order to make a rank-list after a poll, there is no need for that in an individual choice. contributions to both solid state and particle physics. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe Here are my top ten physicists who have contributed to physics the most: that the concepts of fermions and Fermi surfaces (as well as a host of others) are 1. Archimedes (great physicist, engineer, and mathematician), who laid the foun- attributable to the same physicist. It seems to me that he could replace a number of dations of statics and hydrostatics. those on the list: Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, perhaps even Feynman. The an- 2. Isaac Newton (great physicist and mathematician), who laid the foundations of cients are more sacrosanct, and it’s hard to compare their work with that of the dynamics and hydrodynamics, and the theory of gravitation. modern physicists anyway, so I’d leave Newton and Galileo on. 3. Michael Faraday (arguably the greatest experimentalist of all time), who laid Bruce Schumm down the foundations (together with James Clerk Maxwell) of the physics of University of California, Santa Cruz electromagnetism, the cornerstone of modern civilization. 4. James Clerk Maxwell, who by formulating the electromagnetic theory not only More on “Who were the top ten physicists?” Don Lichtenberg (April issue) made made a unification of two formally disparate fields, but introduced the notion of some good points but, like most others, he neglects experimentalists and underes- the physical field, probably the most important concept of modern physics. timates the contributions of prequantum physicists. Was it easier to establish 5. Albert Einstein (arguably the greatest theoretical physicist of all time), who has Coulomb’s law or discover electricity (both circa 1790) than to observe the scatter- revised at the most fundamental level Newton’s concepts of space and time, his ing of alpha rays (1913) or measure the speed of neutrons (~1940)? Was it less dynamics and theory of gravity. significant for Laplace (also the inventor of cosmology) to formulate classical me- 6. Galileo Galilei (great physicist and astronomer), who laid the foundations of chanics in terms of his equations than to derive a Laplacian formulation of quantum modern science, by introducing both mathematical and experimental methods mechanics? What was more astounding: that light could be shown to produce very into science and thus separated it definitely from scholasticism and metaphysics. puzzling shadows indeed when passed through Young’s slits, or that “matter waves” 7. Ludwig Boltzmann (great theoretician and epistemologist), who has laid down also interfered? Inexcusably also, one would get the impression that this most im- foundations of thermodynamics, with Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory, consid- pressive achievement of classical physics, thermodynamics, was not an essential ered the crown of 19-century physics. part of physics. Maybe the problem with thermodynamics is that, like quantum 8. Ernest Rutherford, who has, by elucidating the structure of atomic systems, mechanics, it was a collective sort of achievement. Don Lichtenberg could not opened the door of the microworld, previously inaccessible to our experience. choose between Heisenberg, Schrödinger and Dirac, similarly after hesitating be- 9. Erwin Schrödinger (great theoretician and polymath), who has formulated his tween Carnot, Clausius, Gibbs, etc., I chose Boltzmann! Experimentalists I order equation, with Newton’s one the most important in the history of science and chronologically because the available technologies of their respective times makes contributed decisively to the overall development of quantum mechanics, argu- them uncomparable. ably the greatest theoretical achievement of science in general. Here I go then (after much agonizing)—Top five theorists: Newton, Einstein, 10. Paul Dirac (great theoretician), who laid down the foundations of relativistic Schrödinger, Maxwell, Boltzmann. Top five experimentalists: Galileo, Coulomb, quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, the latter being, as such, the Young, Faraday, Rutherford. most advanced achievement of physics of our time. And how about old Archimedes? Wasn’t he the first of them all? Petar Grujic Bernard Terreault Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia Université du Québec

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2 June 2000 APS News Scientific Community Speaks Out on Behalf of FY2001 NSF R&D Budget arch and April were busy months the future.” The CNSF statement cited the mathematics and engineering. April Congressional hearings before the M for scientists working on behalf of major role federal R&D support has played APS President James Langer also House Subcommittee on VA, HUD and the proposed Presidential science R&D in sustaining U.S. economic growth, along weighed in with his support in a per- Independent Agencies Committee on budget for FY2001, which calls for an with its belief that the NSF is badly in need sonal letter to NSF Director Rita Colwell Appropriations. His testimony was part increase of 17.3% for the National Science of a generous increase. on April 19th, assuring her of the Society’s of a collaborative presentation with Foundation. The Presidential request also For instance, throughout the 1990s, active commitment to convincing Con- representatives from the American calls for balancing the increase between the NSF’s basic research budget grew at gress of the need for such a generous Chemical Society, the American focused research initiatives in an annual rate of between 1.9% and increase to ensure the nation’s contin- Mathematical Society, and the Federation nanoscience, information technology, 3.2%-less than the 5.1% (in constant ued economic health. “There is little of American Societies for Experimental biocomplexity and science education, on dollars) annual growth rate enjoyed by doubt that nanoscience and information Biology, and echoed many of the same the one hand, and the core research the agency during the 1970s. “It is clear technology will be at the cutting edge sentiments as the CNSF statement and programs in the traditional disciplines on that many of the technology innovations of future research, and we therefore Langer’s letter, particularly on the other. The scientific community has enjoyed today are based upon research strongly support the new initiatives iden- multidisciplinary research. “The been quick to speak out in favor of the done 20-30 years ago, and that tified in the President’s request,” he wrote. boundaries between the traditional proposed NSF increase, as evidenced by innovations 20-30 years in the future will “At the same time, we are much encour- disciplines have become increasingly a three-pronged effort this spring. be based upon present-day research.” aged by your goal of using half of the blurred, and the advances in the different In March, the APS Executive Board Along with a recognition of the cross- NSF increase for the improved funding disciplines have become increasingly agreed to co-sign a statement supporting disciplinary nature of much of of core research. Only by maintaining a interdependent,” he told subcommittee the FY2001 proposed NSF budget gener- present-day frontier scientific research, wide base of scientific knowledge can members. “The scientific frontier no ated by the Coalition for National Science the statement also spoke of the we prepare ourselves to tackle the new longer seems to fit conveniently into one Funding (CNSF), which maintains that such importance of maintaining the frontiers, wherever they may appear.” discipline or another. For this reason, we an increase “is imperative to expanding “knowledge continuum,” expressing Finally, Robert Richardson of Cornell, strongly support initiatives that cut across the opportunities for more successful sci- concern at the declining number of U.S. Chair of the APS Physics Policy disciplines, such as those the President ence and technological breakthroughs in students opting to study science, Committee, represented the APS during identified this year.”

This Month in Physics History The Shelter Island Conference • June 2 - 4, 1947 INSIDE THE BELTWAY A Washington Analysis n 1947, physics in America was just I getting back to normal after the disruption of World War II. Duncan Crunch Time MacInnes, a physical chemist at the By Michael S. Lubell, APS Director of Public Affairs Rockefeller Institute, Karl K. Darrow, the permanent secretary of the lame-duck presidency is like Joe years have demonstrated, when deal- American Physical Society, and others A Six Pack: a few ripples still making time comes, this White House conceived the idea of organizing a defining the triceps but little more than wins. series of small conferences to address flab showing in the gut. As the Clinton For the Republicans, getting through

Shelter Island II the most important research questions Administration nears the end of its the final negotiations without humilia- of the day. The Shelter Island Conference tenure, the big question in Washington tion will be difficult. But getting from was the first of these, and the main topic is whether this president, who only a June to October without committing was the status of quantum Reprinted from year ago suffered the ignominy of political suicide will be their biggest electrodynamics (QED), the theory that Discussing physics informally (left to right): R. Feynman, H. Feshbach, J. Schwinger impeachment, will break the challenge. describes the interaction of electrons with conventional mold. As they enter the appropriations photons, and therefore underlies all of Oppenheimer, together with the Intelligence sources in both parties arena, the Republican leadership has left chemistry, atomic physics, and optics. emerging stars of the next generation, think he will. Democrats, who loyally itself little wiggle room. In February, Presi- The rules of QED had been known like Feynman and Schwinger. Among stood by him last year, see his staying dent Clinton proposed a discretionary since the early days of quantum mechan- the most interesting news was the re- power as ironic. Republicans, who budget amounting to $622 billion. The ics, having been formulated by Fermi, port by Willis Lamb of his recent work gunned him down, view it as insult- Budget Resolution that made it through Dirac and others. But it was also known at Columbia in which he had measured ing. But privately, they all acknowledge both houses of Congress puts the spend- that as soon as one went beyond the a tiny difference in energy between that the White House is a master per- ing at just over $600 billion. lowest order of perturbation theory, the the 2S and 2P levels of hydrogen. The former in the political arena. In addition, Senate Majority Leader predictions ceased to make sense, seem- Dirac equation predicts an exact de- What will the presidential scorecard Trent Lott (R-MS), at the prodding of ingly giving divergent answers for generacy; it was known that QED look like when crunch time comes Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) nixed the physical quantities. Physicists had wrestled gave a correction to this, but it was, of next fall? In the loss column: the Com- presidential request for Fiscal Year with these issues during the thirties, and course, infinite. However, stimulated prehensive Test Ban Treaty and the 2000 supplemental spending for for- had largely put them aside during the by this report, on the train ride back Kyoto (global warming) Protocols. In eign and domestic emergencies. In wartime period. At the Shelter Island from the conference Bethe was able, the win column: the federal budget. fairness to the GOP leadership, it Conference, 24 scientists, most of them with the aid of a few ad hoc assump- Here’s why. should be noted that by the time the theoretical physicists, gathered to take tions, to perform a calculation in For every member of Congress, get- request was about to reach the Senate serious stock of the situation. agreement with Lamb’s result. Within ting out of town early to campaign for floor, the $5 billion or so request from The trip to the conference site was a year or two, the work of Schwinger, reelection is highest on the list of pri- the White House reportedly had grown not uneventful. The meeting was to take Feynman, Dyson, and Tomonaga orities. That means precious little time to more than $20 billion. place at the Ram’s Head Inn on Shelter (much of whose work had been done for legislation. Still the Senate action, or, more prop- Island, located between the twin forks in isolation in Japan during the war) In the case of treaties, Congress erly, the lack thereof, leaves Congress of Long Island. Most of the participants brought QED into a fully relativistic and holds all the cards. The Senate can sim- with a gaping $27 billion dollar hole gathered on June 1 in Manhattan, and consistent form, with prescriptions for ply refuse to take them up, and all the to repair. For civilian programs, the boarded a bus that then headed east. As renormalization that removed all in- president can do is sputter. hole is a chasm, since Congress added it proceeded across Long Island, it was finities from observable quantities. In the case of the budget, the White more than $10 billion to the presiden- accosted by a police escort, which even- Today QED is the most successful House has all the trumps. If the presi- tial request for defense spending. tually led it to a restaurant where a theory science has ever produced, dent doesn’t like what Congress sends For science this means a shortfall of banquet had been prepared for the sci- having been verified in some cases to down Pennsylvania Avenue, he can send at least $100 million in DOE research entists—a tribute organized by a an accuracy of 12 decimal places. it back promptly with a veto. With insuf- accounts, compared to present spend- member of the local chamber of com- To read more about the Shelter ficient votes for an override, Republican ing. And in NSF accounts, it could mean merce, who, having served in the Pacific Island Conference, see the essay by leaders will have four choices: shut the even more. during the war, felt that the atomic bomb Silvan S. Schweber in “Shelter Island government down, strike a deal or pass Will these numbers stick after all the had saved his life and wanted to express II,” R. Jackiw et al. eds, MIT Press, a Continuing Resolution. dust settles? Probably not, but it will be a his gratitude. At that moment physics Cambridge MA (1985). Shutting the government was a cliff hanger. The only certainty is that may have reached the apogee of its losing strategy the last time it was tried, Arlen Spector (R-PA) and Tom Harkin (D- public reputation in this country. Birthdays for June: and it still is. Passing a Continuing IA) will hold sway in the Senate, and John The conference itself brought to- 13 James Clerk Maxwell (1831) Resolution, which would allow the next Porter (R-IL) will do the same in the gether established physicists who had 13 Luis Alvarez (1911) president to call the shots, is a “no go” House, as they successfully nudge their made their reputations in the thirties, 14 C. A. de Coulomb (1736) for this president. The only option is colleagues to deliver another $2-billion such as Bethe, Weisskopf, Rabi and 28 Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1906) to strike a deal. And, as the past two increase for NIH.

3 APS News June 2000 OPINION

LETTERS VIEWPOINT… Explosive Arithmetic Cultural Differences Your third “Physics Product Warning” weight and energy. (APS News, February 2000, p. 5) said that 2) When I do the arithmetic, I get 21 his month’s “This Month in Physics who are DOE employees or DOE contract the product “contains the energy equiva- thousand tons of TNT per gram or THistory” describes the Shelter Island employees (e.g. physicists at national labs), lent of 85 million tons of TNT per net 607 thousand tons of TNT per Conference of June 1947, a landmark that may be affected by O 110.3. The ounce of weight.” ounce, not “85 million tons.” (1) event that led to deeper understanding accumulation of restrictions and prohibitions I have two problems with this: Have I done the arithmetic correctly? of quantum field theory, in particular on who may attend these meetings, where 1) Einstein’s equation is for the equiva- Albert A. Bartlett quantum electrodynamics, and to they may be held, and what may be lence of mass and energy, not University of Colorado, Boulder impressive agreement between that theory reimbursed is so onerous that their very and experimental results. It set the agenda existence can be placed in jeopardy. Sympathy for Wen Ho Lee is Misplaced for a whole program of research in both Other instances of burdensome gov- theory and experiment in the immediate ernment regulations are not hard to find. While I agree the poor treatment of Wen fire.” Perhaps that is what has happened post-war period. Feynman looked back on After carefully considering competing Ho Lee (APS News, April 2000) in prison here. If Lee’s imprisonment is causing re- it as the most important conference he sites, the APS decided to hold its March seems out of proportion to his alleged crimes, cruitment difficulties at the weapons had ever attended. meeting in Montreal in 2004. The favor- I am made highly uncomfortable by the pro- laboratories, surely this is only because of The venue for that conference was a able Canadian exchange rate made this a testations from our society and others about its effect as a reminder of what those labo- beachfront hotel on an island off the eastern particularly economical choice. Recently, his treatment. Have we lost a sense of per- ratories are really intended for. tip of Long Island in New York. The hotel though, travel to Canada has been reclas- spective here? Lee didn’t just happen to be Newt Gingrich has called upon scientists was just opening for the summer season, and sified as “foreign travel.” (The reader may at a weapons laboratory; he was actually con- to take more seriously their responsibilities it most certainly was in a “resort area.” In that think that of course travel to Canada is tributing to the design and development of as citizens. Our reaction to this case seems to light, it is interesting to contemplate DOE foreign travel, since Canada is a foreign weapons of mass destruction - objects whose only provide more evidence of how divorced regulation O 110.3, which lays down a set of country. But this is really an administrative purpose in use is to destroy the lives of mil- our priorities are from real civic responsibil- rules for DOE-sponsored conferences. In one classification, independent of national lions of people. In that context, Lee’s prison ity. Do we think the law that governs and section, conference organizers are admon- boundaries. For example, travel to Hawaii conditions seem trivial. Those who work in regulates the communities and country where ished to “avoid selecting resort or recreational could be designated as “foreign travel.”) our country’s armed forces understand that, we have such freedom to work should have sites unless true cost savings will result.” This The consequent bureaucratic entangle- in the line of duty, bad things can happen no application to us? is just one of a host of restrictions and pro- ments will make it much more difficult for — among other things they can be mis- Arthur Smith hibitions contained in this document, but some of the participants to be reimbursed taken for the enemy, and hit by “friendly Selden, New York it serves to illustrate the attitude of its au- for their expenses. The reason for the clas- Earth Science Not Given Its Due thor toward the scientists to whom it sification is presumably that travel to a applies. One is not being told to avoid a foreign country has the ring of an exotic The supplement to the April 2000 edi- unprecedented detail and global coverage. resort or recreational site if it will be more boondoggle even if it is actually less ex- tion of APS News entitled “Physics News in Both TRMM and Landsat inaugurated EOS, expensive; rather, if there are two sites, pensive, and therefore must be actively 1999” shows a poor understanding of the the “Earth Observing System,” a equally expensive, one is being instructed discouraged. category “Earth Science, Geophysics.” In that comprehensive array of satellites, continuing to choose the less attractive one. After 50 years of dealing with this kind section are listed five items that are supposed with 1999 launches of QuikScat for measuring What is the rationale? I can think of two. of government regulation, scientists are by to be important stories in that category. But winds, ACRIMSAT to measure solar irradiance, First, says the DOE, even if money is not now inured to the irritating and the illogi- two of these, “coronal mass ejections” and and the 18 December 1999 launch of Terra, actually being wasted, one must avoid the cal. Still it is tempting to daydream a little solar wind disappearance, relate to solar phys- the flagship satellite of EOS, that gives three- appearance of enjoying oneself at gov- about the simpler times of 1947 when, ics, not earth science, and a third on supernova dimensional information on clouds, aerosols, ernment expense. Second, scientists are newly released from the shackles of war- material found in South Pacific, has to do and Earth’s radiative energy distribution. inherently irresponsible creatures, and if time security, a group of two dozen mostly with astrophysics. Thus, 1999 was a watershed year for earth you turn them loose in a recreational area, scientists could avail themselves of a Earth science is a separate discipline from science, and you missed an important op- they won’t spend every waking hour at- couple of thousand dollars from the Na- solar physics or astrophysics. There were portunity to report it, replacing major earth tending the meeting, which is what the tional Academy, isolate themselves in a many important news events in 1999 in earth science stories with ones that, important DOE wants them to do. pleasant locale, and spend three days attend- science. For example, the first satellite rain though they are, have no direct bearing on One could just shrug one’s shoulders at ing one of the most productive and historic radar flew on TRMM, and the Landsat 7 observations of the Earth. this attitude, were it not for real-life examples conferences of the twentieth century. satellite launched on 15 April, 1999, began a Robert F. Cahalan of conferences, typically ones with organizers —Alan Chodos global dataset of the Earth’s surface of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Park Goes Off the Deep End Letters, continued This letter concerns your front page ar- in a metallic lattice. The end result was ticle “…March Meeting Madness” that the hamiltonian gave too high a po- Physics Can Lead to Divine Truth especially in regard to the Robert Park tential barrier for significant tunneling and spinoff on this theme on page 3 (APS therefore fusion. But it didn’t look all that I am deeply disappointed in the opinion we who search to know something about News, March 2000). Park is to be congratu- impossible to raise the tunneling probability piece by David Markowitz (APS News, March our God are charlatans, and that the only lated for the courage he has shown in to the required levels. One wonders whether 2000), in two key ways. First, it is clear that way to truth is through physics. This nar- taking on pseudoscience and the paran- high pressure or temperature would do it. Is Markowitz knows nothing about the role of rowness of thinking is considerably less ormal. But in one important respect he Park an expert on these WKB studies and women in the Catholic Church. What a shame than enlightenment, and an offense to has gone off the deep end and needs to how to interpret them, too? for a distinguished educator to make such many who find faith another way to truth. “get it right” himself. Things get pretty People like Park are creating an atmo- statements out of ignorance. Were he to do We are more than mere physical beings. shaky when he claims expertise in fields sphere of intolerance to new ideas such that in physics, he would lose all respect. While faith can lead to truth, I generally don’t he knows very little about. as this. He is an advocate of what you Second is the statement that “I think depend on my faith in God to lead me to For example, his objections to the L5 might call “negative science;” science that reference to God in this enlightened age truths in physics; but I do revel in physics society and the colonization of space. He results in new and non-establishment chal- is largely a ploy.” I am truly sorry if leading me to still more truths about God. would have to base that claim on the cer- lenges to the mainstream are being Markowitz has known only religious hypo- David W. Knoble tain knowledge that there will never be a summarily and superficially dismissed with- crites. Shame on his hubris to assert that Tupelo, Mississippi cheap way to get into orbit. But many alter- out even an attempt to determine whether native technologies already exist for lowering they are right or not. From my perspec- “What Is Science” Statement Ignores Religious Element the cost of space travel. Does he know for tive both “negative” science and The 2 April 1989 issue of the London Times, could boldly claim that the scientific sure that none of this can work? pseudoscience are equally disreputable. Sunday newspaper The Observer published “philosophy” of the modern secular western On cold fusion there are some fine Who really are the inmates in this asy- an article by Michael Ignatief under the head- world is now dead, and he could thus carry points that Park probably isn’t aware of. lum? I’m having a difficult time ing “Defenders of (Salman) Rushdie (are) out, with evident delight, the “Inquest on Certainly the Pons and Fleischman results distinguishing the staff and the patients Tied Up in Knots.” The explanation ran briefly the Enlightenment” (The Times, 25 March are phony. But in the late 1980s there were these days. as follows: The Islamic (and other religious) 1989). WKB quantum mechanical studies done Joel Maker fundamentalists have a dogma, and they are I note that the article on the APS Council of the probability of deuterium tunneling Huntsville, Alabama absolutely certain about their dogma. On the approval of the revised “What is Science?” Newt Gingrich Corrected other hand, the western intellectuals have a statement (APS News, January 2000) does so-called “philosophy,” but they are not even not address the above objection. It thus re- I think Mr. Gingrich (March 2000 range aircraft each being a much more certain about their own “philosophy.” There- grettably fails to convince the significant APS News, page 5) has his WWII his- significant contribution to victory than fore, the western intellectuals cannot really proportion of Americans who are religious tory a little wrong. The Battle of the sonar. believe in whatever they say. For the same (mostly Christian) fundamentalists. Atlantic was finally won by about May Walter Baker reason, Clifford Longley, the then religious Theo Theocharis 1943, with short wave radar and long Hartsdale, New York affairs correspondent of the London daily The London, England

4 June 2000 APS News Topsy Turvy: Researchers Announce First True “Left-Handed” Material

cientists at the University of California, ing in the same direction as the energy flow. Pendry’s prescriptions and succeeded in con- were now proceeding to explore the novel SSan Diego have devised the world’s But in the UCSD composite medium this is structing a material with both a negative mu optical effects predicted by Veselago. Fur- first truly “left-handed” material, they not the case. The velocity of the wavelets and a negative epsilon, at least at microwave thermore, they hope to adapt their design announced at the APS March Meeting in runs opposite to the energy flow, and this frequencies. The raw materials used, copper to accommodate shorter wavelengths. As for Minneapolis. In this medium, light waves makes the UCSD composite a “left handed wires and copper rings, do not have unusual applications in microwave communications, are expected to exhibit a reverse Doppler substance,” the first of its kind. properties of their own and indeed are non- a medium which focuses waves when other effect. That is, the light from a source Such a material was first envisioned in the magnetic. But when incoming microwaves materials would disperse them (and vice coming toward you would be reddened 1960’s by the Russian physicist Victor fall upon alternating rows of the rings and versa) ought to be useful in improving exist- and the light from a receding source would Veselago of the Lebedev Physics Institute, wires mounted on a playing-card-sized plat- ing delay lines, antennas, and filters. be blue shifted. The UCSD composite who argued that a material with both a nega- form and set in a cavity, then a resonant Outside commentators at the press con- material, consisting of an assembly of copper tive electric permittivity and a negative reaction between the light and the whole of ference showed interest and curiosity. Marvin rings and wires, should eventually have magnetic permeability would, when light the ring-and-wire array sets up tiny induced Cohen of UC Berkeley said that until he read important optics and telecommunications passed through it, result in novel optical phe- currents, which contribute fields of their own. the UCSD paper he had not thought a nega- applications. nomena, including a reverse Doppler shift, The net result is a set of fields moving to the tive-mu material was possible. Walter Kohn To understand how a reverse Doppler an inverse Snell effect (the optical illusion left even as electromagnetic energy is mov- of UC Santa Barbara, winner of the 1998 shift and other bizarre optical effects come which makes a pencil dipped into water ing to the right. This effective medium is an Nobel Prize in chemistry, considered the about, consider that a light wave is a set of seem to bend), and reverse Cerenkov radia- example of a “meta-material.” Another ex- UCSD work “…an extremely interesting re- mutually reinforcing oscillating electric and tion. Permittivity (denoted by the Greek letter ample is a photonic crystal (consisting of sult. I would be surprised if there weren’t magnetic fields. The relationship between epsilon) is a measure of a material’s response stacks of tiny rods or solid material bored out interesting applications.” the fields and the light motion is described to an applied electric field, while permeabil- with a honeycomb pattern of voids) which —Phillip F. Schewe; AIP Public Information picturesquely by what physicists call the “right ity (denoted by the letter mu) is a measure excludes light at certain frequencies. Editor’s Note: A figure can be found hand rule”: if the fingers of the right hand of the material’s response to an applied mag- At a late-breaking press conference in online at www.aip.org/physnews/graph- represent the wave’s electric field, and if the netic field. In Veselago’s day, no negative-mu Minneapolis, Schultz and Smith said that hav- ics), along with an animated video fingers curl around to the base of the hand, materials were known, nor thought likely to ing demonstrated that their medium illustrating the concept at www- representing the magnetic field, then the exist. More recently, however, John Pendry possessed a negative mu and epsilon, they physics.ucsd.edu/~rshelby/lhmedia. outstretched thumb indicates the direction of Imperial College has shown how nega- of the flow of light energy. Customarily one tive-epsilon materials could be built from can depict the light beam moving through a rows of wires and negative-mu materials from zero medium as an advancing plane of radiation, arrays of tiny resonant rings. gravity and this plane, in turn, is equivalent to the Now, Sheldon Schultz and David Smith sum of many constituent wavelets, also mov- of UCSD reported that they had followed Fourth Annual Pigasus Awards Awarded by the James Randi Educational Foundation Satisfaction High for Undergrad n April 1st of each year, we at the that applicants were trained to read tarot cards OJames Randi Educational Foundation at the city’s Business Link office by a Psychic Physics Bachelors (JREF) award the coveted Pigasus Awards Network representative. Efforts to locate and in four categories, for accomplishments contact the Psychic Network were unsuc- fter many years of steady Figure: Physics Bachelors in the year previous. The awards are of cessful, we’re told, since their telephone Adecline, the number of Production in the US 1955-1998 course announced via telepathy, the number was disconnected last July. On Janu- undergraduates earning bachelor’s winners are allowed to predict their ary 28th of this year, the city reacted to degrees in physics appears to have winning, and the Flying Pig trophies are unfavorable publicity on this matter, and finally stabilized, according to a sent via psychokinesis. We send; if they pulled the plug on the operation. But they recent report on the graduating senior don’t receive, that’s probably due to their probably saw it coming. class of 1998, compiled by the lack of paranormal talent. American Institute of Physics (AIP). Category #3, to the media outlet This year we honor the following indi- that reported as fact the most outra- U.S. colleges and universities viduals: awarded a total of 3,821 B.S. degrees geous supernatural, paranormal or in physics, according to Patrick Category #1, to the scientist who said occult claim: The 2000 prize goes to Mulvey of AIP’s Education and or did the silliest thing related to the the host of the “Politically Incorrect” TV Employment Statistics Division. supernatural, paranormal or occult: show, Bill Maher. Despite an Ivy League However, the decline persists in The award this year goes not to a specific education and an obviously quick and per- larger physics departments that also they will have strong employment scientist, nor to a scientific body. We gener- ceptive mind, Mr. Maher has for some maintain graduate programs in physics. prospects with their degrees. ously award it to Linda Holloway and the reason cast common sense aside and en- Among these schools, the cumulative As in years past, roughly half of the new entire Kansas Board of Education for their dorsed a series of “psychics,” most of whom drop in degrees has now reached 27% physics bachelors said they intend to en- decision to forbid evolution to take place in say they speak to dead folks. His own since 1992. ter graduate school immediately, with 31% the State of Kansas. In August, the Board ruled experience of the supernatural, he says, Mulvey says satisfaction levels among planning to study physics or a related field that the teaching of evolution must be re- includes a “haunted house” and he tells us physics bachelor recipients are quite high, and an additional 19% choosing to pursue moved from the state’s educational agenda. that only ghosts could account for what he with 86% indicating they would still major other disciplines, most commonly engi- “In voting to downgrade and discourage the observed there. This widely-watched pro- in physics if they had to do it over. An neering. The AIP survey found that of teaching of evolution, the board is moving gram satirizes politics, Hollywood, the media, overwhelming majority of the respondents those going on to graduate school, most schools in Kansas backward toward ignorance and generally popular subjects — but ap- said they chose to study physics because were optimistic about their job prospects, and obscurantism,” scolded the Los Angeles parently takes seriously any hare-brained they enjoyed the subject, not because of with 86% intending to earn a PhD and 61% Times. While this may appear to the casual claim that will catch the public fancy. Mr. the potential career opportunities it hoping to secure a career as a college or observer to be a move with no redeeming Maher squeaked to a win over the Roseanne offered, although physic seniors believe university professor. qualities, we at the JREF differ with this as- Show this year; her gushing acceptance of a sessment. Consider the potential boon to “flying” demonstration by Transcendental future generations of anthropologists that this Meditators almost landed her the prize. Wen Ho Lee Awaits His Day in Court can provide; two thousand years from now, Category #4, to the “psychic” per- groups of students can be taken to Kansas former who fooled the greatest to observe “in vivo” how humans lived number of people with the least tal- twenty centuries earlier. Kansas can be a liv- ent: The award is given this year ing museum, culturally and intellectually. posthumously to Michel de Notredame, Category #2, to the funding organi- Nostradamus, the 16th-century French zation that supported the most useless prophet who predicted back in 1558 that study of a supernatural, paranormal the world would suffer a major catastro- or occult claim: This year’s award goes to phe in July of 1999, if not the end of the the Human Resources Administration of the world as we know it. While major panic City of New York, who via their Business reigned and timorous but not-too-bright Link division finds and trains workers from folks worldwide laid in stores of water, food, welfare rolls and puts them in touch with and arms, when the time came and went, businesses needing employees. A company the reaction was the same as always, “Ah, called Psychic Network, one of the 1-900 but wait till next time!” Meanwhile, in Sa- networks, hired 15 of the city’s unemployed, lon de Provence, where the great those with “a caring and compassionate per- prophet’s bones lie in a vault in a small sonality” and the ability “to read, write and church, reports of disembodied chuckling speak English,” to take phone calls from from behind the wall have been noted. troubled callers who paid $4.99 a minute to Copyright 2000. May be reproduced have their problems psychically solved. Ruth and quoted, provided that appropriate Reinecke, a spokeswoman for the HRA, said credit is given.

5 APS News June 2000 Writing Workshops Teach Basics of Communicating with Public hysicists with a penchant for “pitch” a potential Op-Ed — something quality, and over-writing is a common suggests vetting draft articles with non- Pcommunicating science to the public which can be difficult for first-time mistake. “An editor knows how much physicists. “Physicists are afraid to received a crash course in the writers. A guaranteed formula for failure space he has, and sometimes he will edit make it simple, because it won’t sound fundamentals of writing for the general is to send out articles blindly to an editor down an Op-Ed, but he may also reject sophisticated enough, but you can interest media during special workshops without making personal contact. it because of the extra work,” said Park. never over-simplify” when writing for held at both the March and April The most common obstacle encoun- the public. Unlike addressing an meetings of the APS. Originally suggested tered is a misunderstanding of what audience of physicists, snappy sentences by a special APS task force on informing editors want in opinion articles, rou- “The science community that encapsulate complex issues and the public, the workshops were hosted tinely known as “Op-Ed” pieces deliver emotional impact work best with by Robert Park, APS Director of Public because they traditionally appear op- has not taken seriously its the general public—a skill Park has Affairs, whose weekly electronic posite the editorial page in most responsibility to inform the developed through years of experience. newsletter “What’s New” reports on newspapers. For example, “Arrogance public.” Above all, an Op-Ed should tell a story. science policy developments and other doesn’t fly well,” says Park, although “All good writing is story-telling,” he said, science-related public issues. He is the passion certainly does. He believes Editors also tend not to accept adding that it is much easier to weave in author of numerous articles and editorials that one shouldn’t write an Op-Ed un- “pleading” articles simply asking for illustrative anecdotes with a consumer for the general media, as well as the less one feels passionately about a more funding because “science is good.” hook. Local news can also provide a recently released book, Voodoo Science: topic, and has something useful to say There needs to be a powerful issue useful hook for local publications, which The Road from Foolishness to Fraud (see about it. While an Op-Ed should be under debate to draw their interest. can then be extended to a broader APS News, March 2000). more substantive than an 800-word Park has found that the strongest hooks science-based issue. emotional rant, Park says that most tend to be related to safety or Given the rise in so-called physicists have a bigger problem with effectiveness of consumer products, pseudoscience over the years, Park be- “Don’t be even- over-qualifying their statements, wa- such as the power line cancer scare or lieves scientists have a social obligation tering down their point of view to the magnet therapy. While these might not to become involved in communicating handed…you need to have point of being ineffective. Op-Eds differ form the substance of the Op-Ed, they with the public, and that the problem some bite for an Op-Ed.” in this respect from the more objective are a good “news peg” to draw the is with them, not the public’s scien- style of traditional newswriting; negativ- interest of the reader and concretely tific illiteracy. “The science community Park drew on his considerable ity can be a welcome attribute. “Don’t illustrate one’s points, he said. has not taken seriously its responsibil- experience and success in this area to be even-handed,” he admonished. “You Of course, jargon should be ity to inform the public,” he said, offer helpful tips to scientists aspiring to need to have some bite for an Op-Ed. eliminated, and such articles should pointing out that many non-scientists write for their local media, from the Don’t give the other guy’s point of focus mostly on simple concepts cannot read the simplest graph and generation of an idea to the finished view; give your point of view and only accessible to the general public. don’t understand the basics of energy product. Not surprisingly, breaking in is mention the opposition to knock it “Physicists are so accustomed to conservation. “But that doesn’t lessen the hardest step in the process. Aspiring down.” thinking in physics principles, it can our responsibility. The public is com- writers can either write an Op-Ed and The ability to “write to length” — that be difficult to put themselves in the pletely defenseless (on matters of call an editor to discuss and gauge the is, produce a specific number of words shoes of a general reader ignorant of science) without our input, and we level of interest, length, etc., or call to to fit available space—is a highly valued those principles,” said Park, and haven’t been doing this very well.”

Career Liaisons Gather for Workshop on Professional Development epresentatives from university employment information and also benefit serve students and employers virtually these workshops to give the liaisons Rphysics departments around the from the ability to network with their 24 hours a day. He also gave examples the information they need in order to country were on hand at the APS March colleagues at other institutions to bring of how the university career services make a difference to students in their Meeting in Minneapolis to attend a new ideas to their department. department can work closely with local departments. special workshop on careers and The meeting opened with a poster and national industrial companies and the Aspects of the workshop rated most professional development for physicists, session featuring programs at physics physics departments to link students useful by participants were the organized as part of the APS Careers and departments around the country, with industrial jobs. John Rigden of the importance of alumni in establishing Professional Development Liaison followed by introductory remarks from American Institute of Physics, who industrial contacts and illustrating (CPDL) program. Established in 1998, the teaches a course at the University of program's objective is to establish a Maryland, discussed the importance of nation-wide network of liaisons in “With the range of jobs bringing departmental alumni back to Liaisons are provided with academic physics departments to better campus periodically to speak to current disseminate current career information available in today’s job students regarding their career options. the latest career and and help physics students compete more market, it has never been Brian Schwartz of CUNY Graduate Center employment information effectively in today's rapidly changing job more important for physics emphasized the usefulness of one- or and also benefit from the market. two-credit mini-courses in educating “With the range of jobs available in students to have an accu- students on how to market themselves ability to network with their today’s job market, it has never been rate and comprehensive for employment. The keynote luncheon colleagues at other more important for physics students to view of their career options speaker was Jan Herbst of General institutions. have an accurate and comprehensive Motors Research, who illustrated the view of their career options and the skills and the skills necessary to different perspectives of industrial different physics career tracks, as well necessary to compete,” said Fred Stein, compete.” companies and academic departments as increased awareness of APS Director of Education and Outreach. with some real-life examples from his employment resources currently “This program is an attempt to help phys- Stein, giving a brief background of the experiences at GM. available. Many participants were ics departments develop programs that CPDL program and a summary of the Most of the participants enjoyed the especially interested in the concept of better prepare their students for many day's agenda. Roman Czujko of AIP’s presentations by the invited speakers providing more focus on those with different careers.” Education and Employment Statistics and felt the program obtained a good undergraduate physics degrees who Division provided the backdrop for the mix of physicists from all types of uni- choose to go directly into the day’s events with some statistics. Using versity backgrounds. “It was good to workplace. Interested in the CPDL the most recent data available, Czujko see that the issues that are important From the APS viewpoint, this work- reviewed the numbers of Bachelors, to me are also shared by others shop provided information on how the program? Masters, and PhD physicists in the across the country,” wrote one. Some APS can help physics department show Go to http://www.aps.org/ workforce and put those numbers in participants said they would like to their students a return on their educa- jobs/ for more information or context with career opportunities, hear from more physicists in indus- tional investment, and help its e-mail Arlene Modeste needed job skills, titles and salaries. try about what employers in that industrial and applied members de- Czujko was followed by a panel sector are looking for in candidates. velop a skilled a workforce. The Knowles: [email protected] session featuring institutions and Several also said that they would like liaisons reported especially benefitting individual scientists who have succeeded to see more departments participat- from the information provided speak- in modifying their academic programs to ing in future workshops, especially ers and other liaisons who have worked A large fraction of the program’s account for the changing employment small departments at non-PhD grant- on career issues and gotten through activities is the dissemination of current, environment for physicists. Three ing institutions. Members of the APS the pitfalls. relevant information on career and focused on better preparing students for Committee on Careers and Professional Future plans for the Career & Pro- employment trends through an exclusive jobs in industry, through innovative Development agreed that more liaisons fessional Development Liaison website. In the CPDL program, each master’s degree programs and industrial should attend workshops and remarked Program include more workshops, per- physics department identifies a liaison internships, for example. Dave Berilla, that future workshops will likely have haps at APS section meetings, who acts as a point of contact through Director of Career Services at the sessions where attendees from each consistently updating the CPDL which current information is disseminated University of Delaware illustrated how type of university background can website, and working with other sci- to students and faculty. Liaisons are university career services departments separately discuss issues relevant to entific societies to provide the liaisons provided with the latest career and have automated their systems so as to them. They remarked that they want the best information available.

6 June 2000 APS News Announcements

APS UNDERGRADUATE PHYSICS STUDENT COMPETITION Membership News… 2000 APKER AWARDS ▼ SENIOR LIFE MEMBERSHIP is now available to For Outstanding Undergraduate Student Research in Physics those members qualifying for Senior membership at 15 times the current Senior dues rate, for a American Physical Society Endowed by Jean Dickey Apker, in memory of LeRoy Apker total of $712.50. All Life members, including the GUIDE TO MEMBER SERVICES DESCRIPTION new Senior Life members, have the option of one Two awards are normally made each year: One to a student attending an institution free life membership in a dues-requiring unit. Life offering a Physics PhD and one to a student attending an institution not offering a members may also add life memberships in dues- Physics PhD requiring units at a rate of $90 (15 x the current • Recipients receive a $5,000 award; finalists $2,000. They also receive an unit rate). allowance for travel to the Award presentation. • Recipients’ and finalists’ home institutions receive $5,000 and $1,000, See the Guide to Member Services in your next respectively, to support undergraduate research. renewal packet, visit us online at www.aps.org/ • Recipients, finalists and their home physics departments will be presented with memb/, or contact the Membership Department plaques or certificates of achievement. The student’s home institution is at 301-209-3280 or [email protected] for more information. prominently featured on all awards and news stories of the competition. - • Each nominee will be granted a free APS Student Membership for one year 2000 2001 upon receipt of their completed application. American Physical Society FURTHER INFORMATION (See http://www.aps.org/praw/apker/descrip.html) marketplace DEADLINE The APS MARKETPLACE is now open for business. Visit this new member benefit on www.aps.org/memb/ and checkout the safe, secure online shopping that offers Send name of proposed candidate and supporting information by 16 June 2000 to: member discounts. Special deals are offered by Barnes & Noble.com, Dr. Alan Chodos, Administrator, Apker Award Selection Committee HardwareStreet.com, ToysRUs.com, and more. The American Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740 Telephone: (301) 209-3268, Fax: (301) 209-3652, email: [email protected] Feedback on this new benefit can be sent to Trish Lettieri, Director of Membership, at [email protected] or APS Membership, One Physics Ellipse, APS MATCHING MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM College Park, MD 20740. Relief is at hand for physicists living in developing and hard-currency-poor countries through the APS Matching Membership program. Established in 1983, the program allows individuals residing in eligible countries — especially those who are members of their Winner of Physics Trivia! national physical societies — to apply for a reduced-cost APS membership. Membership In the February APS News, we reprinted from is available in one of two categories, with the associated benefits of each outlined below: Physics World their list of the top ten physicists of all • A half-price membership at $45 is available for those with an individual or institution time. In the April issue, we presented our own, willing to co-sponsor them and provide payment. Members at this level can subscribe completely different, method of scoring these physicists, to a maximum of one (1) journal at member rates and register for APS meetings at as sampled below: member rates. They will also receive APS News and Physics Today. Newton 0 • A graduated, reduced-cost membership beginning at 20% of the full membership rate Maxwell 1 in the first year is available to individuals on a limited basis. Applicants who are unable Einstein 2 to pay and who do not have a sponsor may request APS support. Members in this category will receive APS News and Physics Today and may register for APS meetings Feynman 3 at member rates. No journal privileges are included, but members who have difficulty and we asked our readers to figure out what the accessing APS journals may apply to the APS Office of International Affairs to enroll scoring system was. We have received just one correct their institutional libraries in the APS Journal Outreach Program. In each of the next answer, from Jeffrey Winkler, who writes: three (3) years, membership dues will increase by 10%. Upon reaching 50% in the “In your physics trivia section, the scoring system is the fourth year, a maximum of one (1) journal is available at member rates. number of times they were married.” Membership will be renewed on a yearly basis via invoice. Each member sponsored Winkler will receive a copy of the handsome souvenir through this program may participate for no more than six (6) years in order to accommodate volume “Physics in the 20th Century” by Curt Suplee. as many physicists as possible. At the completion of the six-year term, all participants will be billed at full member rates. Enrollment is limited to 1.5% of the current APS membership level. Thus, in 2000, the program can accommodate 640 participants. In a story on DOE travel restrictions in the April issue, reference was errone- For further information about the APS Matching Membership Program, please ously made to the DOE High Energy and Nuclear Physics Division. The correct contact the Membership Department at (301) 209-3280 or [email protected] name is the Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics. APS News regrets the error.

Re- “Creating Copenhagen,” continued from page 1 and that (by implication) the Allies should at least some intention of alerting Bohr of also give up the attempt. On this crucial the unlikelihood that Germany would suc- of superstring theory geared for a general going to war by employing them in the point, historian Gerald Holton referred to ceed in building a bomb. The ambiguity, audience. Speakers at the second session uranium project, adding, “I believe that a recently discovered letter written by Bohr he says, resulted from the need for offered broad-based analyses of the sci- motive.” to Heisenberg, but never posted. Holton Heisenberg to be extremely guarded in entific and historical events of the era in Heisenberg’s initial attempt to account has read the letter but it is otherwise sealed his words to avoid arrest for treason. Ac- which the play takes place, including the for the Allied success in an impromptu for another 12 years at the request of the cording to Blakemore, the staging of reasons why the Germans did not achieve tutorial for his colleagues seems to indi- Bohr estate. Without revealing the exact “Copenhagen” is similar to a scientific ex- the atomic bomb, and included David cate that he was very far from contents of the letter, Holton hinted that periment in uncertainty, and in fact, the Cassidy, author of the seminal Heisenberg understanding how a bomb would work, Bohr (in the unsent letter) took excep- act of attending such a performance sup- biography, Uncertainty. although Bethe believes such scientific tion to what Heisenberg had been saying ports many of the play’s propositions. He Perhaps the most poignant presenta- mistakes demonstrate that Heisenberg was in public about their 1941 meeting. compared the actors to busy particles, cir- tions were made by Hans Bethe and John not primarily interested in building a bomb, A highlight of the day’s events was the cling around the nucleus during rehearsals Wheeler, both eminent physicists who rather than merely incompetent, as less evening discussion by Frayn and until they feel ready to be seen. The audi- themselves worked on the Allied bomb charitable sources have maintained. Blakemore about the process of creating ence acts as photons, shining the light of their project and knew both Bohr and Wheeler spoke of several meetings with the play. Frayn’s research included read- attention onto the actors, and something that Heisenberg personally. Bethe declared Heisenberg, including one at the Univer- ing Heisenberg’s original 1927 paper on has been rehearsed a hundred times is magi- that “Heisenberg had no interest in atomic sity of Michigan in 1939 from which uncertainty, and although he has no for- cally altered by the impact. “The energy an bombs,” citing as evidence the famous Heisenberg left early in order to return to mal training in science, he says he was audience brings to (the performance), the “Farm Hall” tapes: secretly recorded con- Germany for military training. Not surpris- impressed by the clarity of the paper. He energy of their laughter, and rapt attention, versations of Heisenberg and the other ingly, the reception of Heisenberg among was particularly struck by the concept of changes what is there,” he said. “Through- German atomic scientists while in British physicists in the postwar years was often irreducible quantum fuzziness which out ‘Copenhagen,’ it was extraordinary the custody after the war. News of the chilly, he reported. As the play makes clear, makes it impossible to know simulta- way the act of theatergoing supports the vari- Hiroshima bombing was a great shock to and speakers confirmed, Heisenberg tried neously both a particle’s position and its ous concepts in the play.” the Germans who, while not very far along in later years to defend his honor, and on momentum, which he extrapolated to Philip F. Schewe of AIP’s Public Infor- in the development of a genuine atomic several occasions hazarded to explain the form the thematic underpinning of his play. mation Division contributed to this bomb, had nevertheless felt they had purpose of his 1941 visit. In one such ex- “Human intentions have their own irre- coverage of the “Creating Copenhagen” gone further than the Allies. Bethe also planation, he maintained that he had come ducible fuzziness,” he said. Frayn also symposium. said that Heisenberg had told him his main to Bohr to suggest that an atomic bomb weighed in with his own views on For a website with more information on intention for remaining in Germany had would be too unmanageable to produce, Heisenberg’s motives for the 1941 visit; Creating Copenhagen go to: http:// been to save a few young physicists from that the German effort would not succeed, specifically, he believes the physicist had web.gsuc.cuny.edu/ashp/nml/copenhagen

7 APS News June 2000 THE BACK PAGE The Coming Revolution in Physics Education By David Goodstein

his essay will end on an optimistic our young people face. The undergradu- unprecedented period of sustained T note, but first, the bad news. Let me ate physics major should be the liberal prosperity. When we looked around to see be blunt. The profession of teaching arts education of the twenty-first century! why we were doing so well, we discovered physics at the college level in America Every physics department in the coun- that we were enjoying the technological today has only two purposes. One is to try ought to inscribe that motto on its fruits of all those years of research that we produce physicists, and the other is to walls and march under that banner. But thought we were doing in support of the act as a gatekeeper, keeping the to make that motto into a reality would Cold War. It was realized, and not only by unworthy out of certain other professions take nothing less than a revolution in the us physicists, that research is an investment such as medicine and engineering. We way we do our jobs. that pays handsomely. Suddenly, physics will always need physicists, but not very has a brilliant future again. many of them. And, indeed, the number Unfortunately though, those of us who of physics majors in colleges all across …if teaching physics were teach physics are still living in the past. the country today is said to be at its lowest Is it conceivable that physics education point since Sputnik, more than forty years a business, we would be could be restructured to serve purposes ago. Our other role, as gatekeeper, is the filing for bankruptcy. beyond choosing the elect and discarding dark side of our profession, and it is, the rest? The obstacles are immense. We frankly, unworthy of us. The simple fact are part of the problem, but we are not is, if teaching physics were a business, Everything about the way we teach the whole problem. It seems to me that we would be filing for bankruptcy. physics is useless for the purpose I have the problem has three tightly linked com- David Goodstein Of course, those of us who teach in in mind. The methods, the textbooks, the ponents: societal, educational and high ground and to teach them a few of universities have another educational language we use, all of it is designed more pedagogical. our more useful tricks, without the slight- role, mentoring our graduate students. to get rid of the unworthy than to throw est intention of turning them into physics Here the situation seems profoundly dif- open the doors. What we need most of foot-soldiers. ferent. The American PhD is the only all is to change the mindset that says that Just a few years ago, the computer was part of our entire system of education real education takes people like we once What physics needs is a device used by nobody but the likes of that the rest of the world admires. Yet were, and turns them into people just something that plays the us. Then the graphical user interface (GUI) this role too has its dark side. On the like us. role that the GUI plays for was developed and in no time, tens of average, each professor in an American I suspect that most of us knew at a millions of people were using computers. university turns out about 15 PhD’s in very early age that we were destined for computers. The GUI makes the computer less effi- the course of a career. In a steady-state some sort of technical career. We were cient, less flexible, less suitable for real, world of science (the best we can hope different from other children. We had more The societal part has mostly to do with hard-core professionals, but it makes the for at any time in the foreseeable future), facility with numbers, and perhaps less with one’s expectations. We physicists have computer available to nearly everybody. each professor need produce only one other graces, than our peers. The educa- gained a pretty good understanding of how What physics needs is something that professor for the next generation. If each tion system somehow discovered us and the world works. Imagine a society in plays the role that the GUI plays for com- of those 15 PhD’s want to become pro- channeled us into the physics apprentice- which it is routinely expected that every puters. fessors and turn out 15 more PhD’s, it’s ship, or maybe I should say the rites of person in every serious profession shares That does not mean dumbing phys- easy to see why physics has become a passage that qualified us to be the keep- that knowledge, at least in reasonable ics down. In the 1980’s, I directed the profession of widespread frustrated ex- ers of the flame, subjecting our students measure. Could such a thing happen in production of a television series called pectations. And, since the undergraduate to the same arduous rituals that we had America, where nearly everyone (two- The Mechanical Universe, that was in- physics major is largely perceived as passed, to assure that the next generation of thirds of all high school graduates) goes to tended to be the basis of a physics preparation for graduate school, it’s also us would be as pure and noble as we are. college and is therefore “educated?” I don’t course, with calculus, for nearly every- easy to see why there are so few under- Throughout most of our history that know the answer to that, but if the pur- one. The idea was that we could help graduate physics majors. Let’s face it: the system worked brilliantly. The first Ameri- pose of education is to render our citizens teachers overcome the barriers by giv- system is broken. can PhD in physics was granted after the capable of coping with an increasingly ing them real physics, in a rich historical Civil War, around 1870. By the turn of complex technological world, something context, with beautiful images and ter- the century we were producing about like it may just become necessary. rific computer animation to show their 10 physics PhD’s per year, by the 1930’s, For the educational part, picture a students. There was considerable skep- The undergraduate physics 100 per year, and by 1970, 1000 per year. world in which every high school teacher ticism that this could be done, so a test major should be the liberal During that century of exponential (not just physics teachers) commands was arranged, in which the material was arts education of the growth the absolute numbers were small, the pay and professional status that taught to non-physics majors at a liberal and only the chosen needed to know would justify a doctoral-level education arts college. It turned out that the stu- twenty-first century! anything about physics. Then, around in whatever subject they teach. Approxi- dents had no trouble at all with the 1970, the crunch occurred. Exponential mately that was true in large part in derivatives and integrals that we taught All right. Let us, for just a moment, growth stopped abruptly. We in the uni- Europe before World War II, but then far them how to do. In fact, they quite liked pretend that our profession is a business, versities soldiered on, producing our 15 fewer people got as far as the equiva- our little mathematical tricks. The experi- and take stock of our situation. Our pro- PhD’s and pretending nothing had lent of high school. Could it happen here? ment failed however, because, although duction line is obsolete, and there is little changed. To be sure, the best American Maybe not everywhere and for every- we assumed we would have to teach demand for our product. What can we students were no longer going to gradu- one, but that’s the road we have to go them calculus, we also assumed, do about it? ate school, so we replaced them with down. If that were true, then the need wrongly, that they had learned some The first step is to turn the problem foreign students, and since our graduates to provide those teachers would utterly trigonometry in high school. Of course, around and ask, do we have any valu- could no longer find jobs so easily, we transform university education at both the that problem might get solved if we able assets that might be worth saving? started hiring more postdocs. Still, at least undergraduate and the graduate level. were to undergo the societal transforma- You bet we do! What we have is noth- until the end of the Cold War, we could Let me be very clear: I am not talking tion I’ve tried to outline. ing less than the wisdom of the ages. It hang on and wait for the good times of about merely plunking today’s excess We physicists cannot produce that is that vast body of knowledge, the cen- exponential growth to return. We would PhD’s into high school classes. What I transformation all by ourselves. But we tral triumph of human intelligence, our have been better off waiting for Godot. am imagining instead is a truly profound are in a better position than anyone else victory over mystery and ignorance; and To many astute observers, the end of societal transformation. to take the first few steps. So here is my to go with it we have the methods of the Cold War, welcome as it was, did not Finally, we come to the pedagogical challenge to us: Let us devise ways to inquiry and analysis that have produced augur well for physics. The unspoken rea- part. Is it possible to teach physics to teach physics that will make the subject that body of knowledge. Our assets, in son why the government supported those who weren’t born to it? There has so vital and appealing that it will be un- fact, are so valuable that we have a sol- research in physics had vanished. Many been much research, over the past couple thinkable for any educated person in the emn duty not to let our profession go of the National Laboratories had lost their of decades, into physics pedagogy, much twenty-first century not to have mas- down the drain. missions. The country was 5 trillion dol- of it directed at overcoming the obstacles tered its elements. If we can manage The purpose of teaching physics lars in debt, and scientific research was to turning people who are not like us that, it’s just possible that the rest of that should not be merely to clone ourselves among the few discretionary items in the into people who are like us, that is to transformation might follow. and keep a few poor souls out of medi- budget available for cutting. The situa- say, into proficient solvers of physics David Goodstein is the Frank J. cal school. A solid education in physics is tion looked grim. problems. That, I suspect, is the wrong Gilloon Distinguished Teaching and Ser- the best conceivable preparation for the Then something quite unexpected approach. What we need to do instead vice Professor and Vice Provost at the lifetime of rapid technological change that happened. The country entered an is to figure out ways to show them the California Institute of Technology.

APS News welcomes and encourages letters and submissions from its members responding to these and other issues. Responses may be sent to: [email protected].

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