A P S N E W S OCTOBER 1999 THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 8, NO. 9 [Try the enhanced APS News-online: http://www.aps.org/apsnews] APSCelebrate News APS a Century 100 of years Physics APS and AIP Initiate Inside Science News Service he American Physical Society has lottery than this happening.” We re- Tteamed with the American Institute leased a tongue-in-cheek explanation of Physics to create Inside Science of why he was way off (with all due News Service, a new resource for respect, he had a much better chance • Fun things parents can do with journalists that will make it easier for of pitching a perfect game). children to teach science over them to uncover, understand, and the summer on ABC’s Good • US Physics Olympiad Team’s ex- explain important science that adds Morning America. ABC News.com cellent third-place finish in the depth to news stories. Inside Science linked to the APS webpage Play- worldwide competition was placed in News Service offers resources and ground Physics [www.aps.org/ the following newspapers: USA Today, fingertip access to thousands of playground.html] experts in all fields of science, free-of- Dallas Morning News, The Denver charge. Randy Atkins, the APS Senior Post, Denver Rocky Mountain News, Media Relations Coordinator, asks for and The Record-Journal (Hartford, members help in getting coverage in CT). [See IN BRIEF, page 3] the popular press by alerting him of new and noteworthy scientific • Why power outages occur dur- advances. Randy can be reached at ing heat waves explanation with 301-209-3238 or via email at APS member quotes was used in a [email protected]. Chicago Tribune article. Here are a few examples of recent science stories Inside Science News • Matter and string theory supple- Figure at left: The brain as a whole can be Service helped place in the media – ment to appear with ABCNews.com: scanned non-invasively with magnetic A Nightline in Primetime: A Brave resonance scanning or with detectors sensitive New World. to magnetic fields arising from electro-chemical • Statistics and the Perfect game at signals. At the next organizational level, surface the top of Tony Kornheiser’s nation- and depth electrodes have been used to ally syndicated ESPN radio show. After • Communications-based theory monitor the electrical activity of a group or NY Yankee pitcher David Cone about epilepsy that may lead to population of neurons. Microelectrodes can also be used to monitor the activity of a single neuron. pitched a perfect game this summer, treatments will appear in The Econo- At yet another smaller scale, patch-clamp he off-handedly said: “You probably mist, Reuters Health, the Associated techniques are used to measure the electrical
have a better chance of winning the Press and, possibly, USA Today. Photo from http://www.aip.org/physnews/graphics/html/epilepsy.html current of a single ion channel.
Inside… Fermilab Grad Students Hold Conference NEWS hysics graduate students at To Advance & Diffuse the Knowledge P Fermilab had the opportunity in of Physics ...... 2 July to participate in the 1999 New Growth and diversity present challenges to APS. Perspectives conference held at the FESTIVAL PROFILE ...... 3 facility, organized by the laboratory’s Brian Holmes blows his own horn: Exploring the physics of brass instruments. Graduate Student Association (GSA) IN BRIEF ...... 3 and endorsed by the APS and the Meserve nominated to NRC; US Olympiad team Division of Particles and Fields (DPF). makes strong showing. Conference topics covered all physics Northwest Section Revisited ...... 3 subjects of interest to the laboratory, Fermilab New Perspectives Conference attendees. Researchers Find New Ways to Model Plate Tectonics, Soil Erosion ...... 5 including QCD, electroweak physics, association among grad students in all Perspectives Conference Series. “The Scientists are developing innovative heavy flavor, CP violation, particle the laboratory’s experiments and New Perspectives conference is an techniques for modeling the surface of the astrophysics, detector developments and divisions. To this end, the GSA opportunity for graduate and Earth. accelerator technology, among others. organizes and conducts activities undergraduate students at Fermilab to Remembering a Friend of Science ...... 5 The late George Brown was a strong advocate Fermilab’s GSA was formed in 1994 deemed beneficial to graduate student present their work to the entire lab for science on the Hill. and is intended to provide a common life, among them the annual New Continued on page 3 DNP Meeting Features Undergrad Program ...... 6 The second conference experience for undergraduates to be held. APS Intern Learns the Ropes on the Hill Shocking Snowbird Meeting Explores Materials at High Pressures ...... 6 ttending Congressional hearings on scanning SQUID microscope capable of im- graduate work, I Researchers presented the latest advances in A federal funding priorities for science was aging room temperature samples from as should get a better shock compression science. a new experience for physics graduate near as 15 microns. Grossman current project idea of where I was OPINION student Helene Grossman, who spent this involves the study of bacteria tagged with going and learn Letters ...... 4 past summer as an intern in the APS Office magnetic nanoparticles and employing a about some different Readers ponder, “What is science?” and more. of Public Affairs (OPA) in Washington, DC. SQUID detection system. She was an in- career paths that VIEWPOINT ...... 4 And, she says, that was the point. In vited speaker at the APS Ohio Section might be available Alan Chodos: “National security concerns addition to simply being “a lot of fun,” meeting in May, which highlighted not after getting my reflect shortage of American physicists.” having the chance to interact with only scanning probe technology, but also PhD,” she says. Helene Grossman DEPARTMENTS Congressional offices and learn the basics of women in physics. It was there that she Her responsibilities at the OPA included ZERO GRAVITY ...... 6 public policy has given her a broader met APS Associate Executive Officer, compiling and organizing the multitude of To Catch a Lion in the Sahara Desert. perspective about her future career options. Barrett Ripin, who encouraged her to ap- data related to the APS Congressional Visits Also - another contest for the most amusing Grossman grew up in Waltham, MA, gradu- ply for an internship with the APS. program, but Grossman also had the teaching tools. ating from Yale University in 1996 with a BS To supplement her studies, Grossman has opportunity to attend several Congressional ANNOUNCEMENTS ...... 7 DAMOP award; Caught in the Web; Now in physics. She is presently pursuing gradu- actively sought out a variety of summer jobs hearings on pending legislation, reporting her Appearing in RMP; Discounted auto ate studies at the University of California, and internships, of which the OPA internship findings to the OPA staff. “It helps us to tailor insurance; Life membership. Berkeley, under the purview of Dr. John is the most recent. “Basically I reached that our lobbying efforts,” she explains. Key issues THE BACK PAGE ...... 8 Clarke, having completed her MA in physics middle point of graduate school where you this summer included federal funding for Newly elected New Jersey Congressman Rush Holt explains why in Washington, “facts are in 1998. Clarke, a pioneer of superconduct- do a lot of introspection about what you want science in the proposed FY2000 budget, and negotiable.” ing quantum interference device (SQUID) to do for a career,” she says. “I felt that, be- the restructuring of the nuclear weapons technology, most recently the developed a fore I embarked on three more years of Continued on page 5 APS News October 1999 To Advance & Diffuse the Knowledge of Physics 100 Years of the American Physical Society
Excerpts from an exhibit displayed at the APS Centennial Meeting. Curator: Sara Schechner, Gnomon Research Exhibit Director: Barrett Ripin With contributions by Harry Lustig, R. Mark Wilson, and others.
Growth The mid-years of the century were a time of rapid growth for APS and its publications. The Society’s membership grew by a factor of 10, in part due to the expansion of physics research during and after World War II. With growth came specialization and the advent of divisional groups and specialized meetings. More physicists meant more research to be published. The Physical Review grew rapidly in size, quality, and prestige.
Every Voice Heard In April 1952, APS Council—on a motion of Luis Alvarez—proclaimed that henceforth every member of the Society would have the right to submit abstracts of ten-minute papers which would not be refused. This remarkable act was prompted by the review of eccentric abstracts from a psychopathic member, Bayard Peakes who had submitted a paper denying the existence of the electron. Still frustrated, Peakes stormed into the APS offices and murdered a clerical worker.
Diversification and Its Challenges Diversification is a natural outcome of the evolution and growth of knowledge. This was reflected in the division of the Society into specialized units and the partitioning of the Physical Review following World War II. At tension was the view that physicists ought to be generalists. As Eugene Wigner told J. H. Van Vleck in 1945, Competition for “The charm of physics consists for me, and I am sure for most of our Resources colleagues, is the fact that it comprises Plans for the Superconducting all the phenomena of the non-living Super Collider opened deep world and that a Society which has fissures within the physics abandoned general interest in all this is community in the 1980s and not a physical society any more.” 1990s, pitting “big science” Today, plenary sessions at meetings, against “small science.” and journals such as Physical Review APS learned that the health of Focus, are efforts to counteract science depends on raising centrifugal tendencies. support for all active areas of basic and applied physics. Next Month: Growth of the Journals and the Birth of RMP & PRL
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Fermilab Student Conference, continued from Page 1 FESTIVAL PROFILE community,” says Maria Spiropulu, a frequency of the layout of the coils current Fermilab grad student and GSA using dimensional analysis. He also Come Blow Your Horn: Exploring the representative who organized this demonstrated how to calculate the year’s scientific program. This year energy of a nuclear explosion using Physics of Brass Instruments featured the first George Michael dimensional analysis, as well as using he day before his scheduled talk at By then, of Memorial Poster Award, with new lab pieces of wood floating at different T the APS Centennial meeting on the course, he was director Michael Witherell bestowing a angles to demonstrate the principle of physics of brass instruments, physicist/ well on his way sum of $500 on the three best posters symmetry breaking. “We had a lot of musician/composer Brian Holmes found to a career as a presented in the NP poster session. fun, and needless to say, the room was himself dashing about downtown Atlanta physicist, earning Students responded with enthusiasm packed,” said Spiropulu. desperately searching for a trumpet in music his PhD in ex- to the keynote address by J.D. Jack- The program also featured lectures and instrument repair shops. The instrument perimental low son, who expressed concern about the by senior faculty at Fermilab and sur- he normally uses for lectures had been sent temperature increasing specialization of physics and rounding institutions, among them via trunk two weeks before, but somehow physics in 1980. its impact on the unity of the field. “I Hugh Montgomery, who summarized didn’t arrive on the appointed day. Holmes joined see the physicist as generalist becom- current physics being done at the Main Fortunately he acquired a suitable the faculty of San ing the physicist as specialist, which Injector. replacement in time, and the lecture came Jose State Univer- in my view is a bad thing,” he said, Fermilab theorist Joe Lykken closed off without a hitch. sity 14 years ago, decrying the fact that physics has the meeting by attacking the notion Having an appropriate instrument is criti- and has remained grown so rapidly in the last 50 years that “particle physics is almost done.” cal to his demonstrations, because Holmes there ever since, Brian Holmes employs that many schools “skimp on the bread He decried the naysayers who argue various brass instruments likes to build a trumpet piece by piece, to carrying on the to demonstrate the basic and butter to get to the sexy stuff at that string theory is the one True better explain the acoustical significance of business of a pro- physics principles behind the frontier.” Theory of Everything, or that the Stan- each part: the mouthpiece, a conical leadpipe, fessor of physics, them. Jackson peppered his lecture with dard Model will reign forever. “There a cylindrical section, and a flared bell. This teaching, and publishing the occasional re- several dynamic demonstrations to il- is no reason to imagine that we are helps emphasize the unique nature of the search article or textbook. But physics hasn't lustrate dimensional analysis, including near the end of this process, barring instrument, which does not simply transmit dampened his love for music, or kept him the “falling honey” demo to derive the the collapse of our civilization.” sound into a room. Instead, most of the sound from performing. He still teaches the occa- stays inside the trumpet, forming standing sional course in the physics of music, and as waves that draw energy from the player’s a graduate student in Boston, he played at lips. Holmes also likes to conclude by per- various downtown theaters and occasionally forming Beethoven's Sonata in F, Op. 17 for sat in with the Boston Pops and Opera. And IN BRIEF horn and piano on a valveless horn, similar he performed regularly on a freelance to those used in the composer's time. “In basis for the San Jose Symphony and San the era before valves, horn players learned Jose Opera until quite recently, when fam- Meserve Nominated as Chair of the to augment their meager supply of open ily obligations began to impinge on his Nuclear Regulatory Commission notes by partially or completely blocking the availability for auditions and scheduled per- In August, President Clinton nominated Richard Meserve, a part- air column with their hands,” he explains, a formances. ner at the law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, DC, and technique that is now obsolete, although As his ability to perform has waned, com- long-term APS legal counsel, to serve as a member and chairman of modern players still keep one hand on the posing original music has taken center stage, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). bell. In fact, there has been a resurgence of because “it doesn’t depend on how good The NRC is a bipartisan, independent regulatory commission with interest in authentic period instrumentation, my lip is feeling that day.” Holmes first at- responsibility to ensure adequate protection of public health and evidenced by the existence of such groups tempted to write music in the 7th grade, a safety, common defense and security, and the environment with as the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and self-described “fiasco.” Nor did he find his respect to the use of nuclear materials for civilian purposes in the the Baroque Orchestra of Boston. musical theory courses in college very in- US Meserve earned a PhD in applied physics from Stanford Univer- Holmes’ interest in science was evident spiring, since the instructor was an advanced sity and his law degree from Harvard Law School. He served as law early on, coinciding with his love of music academic who believed strongly in atonal clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the US Supreme Court in the and proficiency as a horn player. He took music. Holmes wrote the score for the school early part of his career. courses in both as an undergraduate. But show instead of signing up for a composi- His practice over the years has focused on legal issues involving ultimately he decided to major in physics, tion course. “It’s only in the last 10 years that substantial technical content, including environmental and toxic tort not just because he wanted to teach, but I learned not to feel guilty about writing tonal litigation, nuclear licensing, and the counseling of scientific societ- because “my earliest physics courses music, and it was a very liberating thought,” ies such as the APS and the American Institute of Physics. Among taught me how unobservant I was about he says. The healthy number of commis- his many services, he guided the two organizations through the the universe, and how observant I should sioned works and public performances of his drawn-out litigation with scientific publisher Gordon & Breach, fi- have been.” But he admits that the deci- pieces attest to his success in following his nally won in the US this year. (See APS News, March 1999) From sion wasn't easy. “I wasn’t brave enough musical instincts. 1977 to 1981, he served as legal counsel to the President’s Science to major in music,” he confesses, nor did Holmes is particularly interested in ex- and Technology Advisor. Past committee service has focused on he have his parents’ approval, or any pro- ploring the relationship between words and such efforts as examining the cooperative threat reduction program fessional musicians to serve as role models. music in his compositions, and hence rarely with the former Soviet Union, and declassification of information at “Somehow I imagined that profess ional writes purely instrumental pieces. Occasion- the DOE. He currently is a member of DOE’s SEAB as well as chair horn players were godlike creatures who ally he even manages to work physics into a committee of the National Academy of Sciences seeking to up- never missed notes.” It wasn’t until his the musical equation: he recently completed grade the protection of nuclear weapons material in Russia. graduate studies at Boston University, when a six-song cycle entitled Updike’s Science, he signed up for a subscription to the Bos- with lyrics drawn from novelist John Updike's US Physics Olympiad Team Places Third in World ton Symphony, that he realized how many comments on science. “There’s physics in At the International Physics Olympiad, held in July, the US team notes professional musicians actually miss music and there’s music in physics,” he says had its second-best showing since it started competing in 1986, in public, and that “I was only a couple of of his increasingly dualistic career. “I’ve man- with three gold medals and two silver medals brought home by the years’ practice from that level myself.” aged to straddle that boundary.” five high school students who participated. In informal rankings, the US placed third out of the 62 countries that competed, after Russia and Iran. Taking place this year in Padua, Italy, where Galileo Northwest Section Meeting Addendum discovered the four Jupiter moons named after him, the Olympiad n the article on the first meeting of contains two days of grueling theoretical and experimental prob- Ithe APS Northwest Section (APS News, lems amounting to what is the world’s most difficult high-school July 1999), we inadvertently omitted a physics test. fifth invited talk at the special session on For example, the students had to compute the precise trajectory education organized by Lillian C. of a space probe that uses Jupiter’s gravity as a slingshot—a tech- McDermott (University of Washington). nique used in real-life spacecraft such as Cassini. US gold medalists In her talk, Paula Heron of the University included Peter Onyisi (Arlington, VA), who had the tenth highest of Washington focused on the use of overall score out of the approximately 300 competitors at the Olym- research on the learning and teaching of Photo by Dave Hendrie piad, Benjamin Mathews (Dallas, TX), and Andrew Lin (Wallingford, physics as a guide to improving Leading members of the Northwest Section. CT). Silver medalists include Jason Oh (Baltimore, MD) and Natalia instruction. “There is by now ample From left to right are: Yogi Gupta, Erich Vogt, Toro (Boulder, CO), who earlier this year also became the youngest evidence that many students emerge Ernie Henley, Mary Alberg, David Measday. person (at 14 years of age) ever to win the top prize of the Intel from traditional introductory physics used illustrative examples of student (formerly Westinghouse) Science Talent Search. (See APS News, Au- courses without having developed a difficulties with the equilibrium of rigid gust/September 1999) functional understanding of some basic bodies in introductory college physics and More information can be found online at http://www.aip.org/re- topics,” she said, “but it is important to engineering courses. “There is a need for leases/1999/release05.html. recognize that even innovative continued deep and detailed research on [Item contributed by Philip F. Schewe, AIP Public Information.] instructional approaches can fail to engage student understanding of specific topics students at a sufficiently deep level for to inform the development and real understanding to develop.” Heron assessment of curriculum,” she concluded. 3 APS News October 1999 OPINION
VIEWPOINT LETTERS
National Security Concerns Reflect Happer Contributions to MRI Imaging Overlooked The article on MRI rare gas imaging [APS News, July 1999] overlooks the contributions of Shortage of American Physicists William Happer of Yale University. I would like to add some background. by Alan Chodos By concentrating on optical pumping processes while atomic physicists rushed into laser spectroscopy in the early 1970s, Happer paddled into what many regarded as a backwater ast July, I wrote an article that Lee and Yang, Oppenheimer—great scien- of atomic physics. However, from his studies of relaxation and polarization transfer emerged L appeared on the Op-Ed page of the New tists who had done great things, and who a new understanding of atomic collision processes, and also powerful techniques for polariz- York Times under the headline: Wanted: inspired us to try for greatness ourselves. ing rare gases that were of value in nuclear physics. What was totally unexpected was the American Physicists. The article was motivated One wonders whether there are analogous application of this new knowledge to MRI. It was through Happer's imagination and persis- by the recent security crisis at some of our figures today who might have a similar abil- tence that rare gas MRI imaging was conceived and developed into a useful medical tool. He national laboratories, which has been fueled ity to kindle the imagination of potential pioneered its clinical medical applications and the company mentioned in the last paragraph young scientists and seduce them away in part by the large number of foreign-born was founded by him. Rare gas MRI imaging offers a paradigm of basic research, illustrating scientists who are employed there or who pass from their preordained career paths in the why good scientists pursue their own stars, and why the government should support them. through as visitors. My point was that this reflects commercial world. Daniel Kleppner, the acute shortage of American-born physicists There can be no doubt that the decrease Massachusetts Institute of Technology (and other scientists). I further blamed this state in the population of American-born physi- Getting Physical of affairs on the systematic underfunding of cists is a genuine effect. The question basic physics research by Congress over the remains, however: do we have a real prob- I liked the small box “What’s in a Name?” in the July issue pointing out the intervening decades, and suggested that matters lem here? Or should we just let nature take sometimes misunderstood significance of “Physical” in American Physical Society, had gotten even worse in the 1990s after the its course and watch as the American physi- Physical Review, and Physical Review Letters. It reminded me of a colleague (to end of the Cold War. cist heads for extinction? remain nameless) who addressed his latest scientific contribution to “The Physical In the wake of the article, I was exposed to Certainly this effect creates a difficulty for Revue” — that is until his mother, noticing the envelope waiting for the mail, asked a variety of different opinions. I am grateful for those of our national laboratories that deal if that was really the journal to which he was sending his communication? the opportunity afforded by the pages of APS with classified information, as amply illus- Michael E. Fisher News to amplify my own views. trated by the uproar over the possible spying Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park First let me stress that, despite the decline in incident at Los Alamos. But perhaps these numbers among American physicists, I am labs can tighten their security procedures Readers Question “What is Science?” certainly not advocating the practice of any and be extra careful whom they hire—these The rules of scientific exchange that you list in the June issue of APS News are not discrimination towards their foreign counter- are the kinds of remedies that Congress is applicable to those working in cosmology and on question of origins. Replication is not parts. By and large, the foreign students who proposing. Are there any other reasons to something that we can do with unique events. I believe that you ought to use “physical are being educated in American graduate worry? universe” rather than “world” in your definition of science. Experimental data can be gath- schools are well qualified and fully deserve to I think there are other security issues in- ered entirely by means of mechanical devices. However, the whole of reality may encompass volved, beyond the safeguarding of nuclear be here. They generally turn into excellent sci- more than the physical. For instance, man is a “detector” of the spiritual. Science is amoral. Its entists, and many of them choose to remain in secrets. One simply has the feeling that an use determines whether “science extends and enriches our lives.” The latter requires human this country, thereby contributing to American adequately trained supply of American physi- society either as physicists or in other jobs where cists is a good investment, perhaps even a moral/ethical decisions that lie outside of the purview of science. their scientific training can be put to good use. crucial one, in the event of unexpected chal- Moorad Alexanian, University of North Carolina at Wilmington Science traditionally has been, and should lenges to our national security. These could continue to be, an international enterprise in be threats from other nations, new scientific I would like to call attention to a flaw in the definition of science as adopted by POPA, as which the ideas are important and their source discoveries environmental problems, or an activity that requires “condensing the knowledge into testable laws and theories.” is irrelevant. In that spirit, we should welcome even all those irresponsible asteroids speeding This sounds much like the definition of physics high school teachers love to use with qualified students into our graduate programs through the solar system. beginning students, and is intrinsically myopic. Were that criterion applied, most of no matter where they come from. One would expect universities to be rela- what we sincerely believe constitutes the practice of science would be disqualified. Let On the other hand, some of the people I tively free of any bias having to do with the us not fall into the trap of proposing a silly statement because it is brief and sounds significant. heard from did take what was to me a distress- national origin of their students and faculty, S.H. Bauer, Cornell University ingly rigorous economic view. To them, physics and to a large extent it is true. But even here, is a commodity, and our supply of physicists one detects among the members of gradu- I think the publicization of an agreed definition of science will help to combat “the ate admissions committees an uneasiness that coming, increasingly, from abroad is seen as growing influence of pseudoscientific claims,” and that this is a worthwhile objective. completely analogous to the same situation with is directly proportional to the fraction of for- David T. Read, National Institute of Standards and Technology regard to athletic shoes or television sets. Opin- eign students being admitted. The abundance ion among them divides into the free-traders of foreign students is not the problem, but who think global market forces should rule the rather the absence of Americans. Although the proposed APS statement on “What is Science?” mentions the importance of day (let’s get the most physics at the cheapest But of course the ability to change this testing theories in the scientific process, it does not elaborate on the nature of those tests, price) and those who, detecting a sinister plot situation rests very little with professors in which needs to be understood. As scientists, many of us regard the ability to explain what has among government, industry and universities universities, or even with teachers of phys- already been observed as an insufficient test of scientific understanding. We need to empha- to keep down the cost of physics research by ics in high school and junior high. There size the role of experimentally verifiable predictions with quantified levels of ambiguity fomenting a glut of foreign physicists, call for a has to be a renewal of the idea that the goals in our work. By itself, prediction is not a sufficient indicator of true understanding, protectionist remedy. that drive basic research are important to although it is a necessary indicator. Personally, I would maintain that anything which My guess is that most Americans would the nation as a whole. otherwise has the appearance of science, but which lacks this element of testable perceive more forces at work than just the com- Partly this can be achieved by an increase prediction, should not be called science. It might be demagoguery, or it might be social petition between them and foreigners for the in funding. The continual decline of funds for science. It might even be one of those discussions about the wave function of the same physics jobs. For one thing, there are basic research since the 1960s has had a de- universe which occasionally appear in the Physical Review. But it is not really modern moralizing effect on research, which has been many other avenues that a technologically ori- science. I urge POPA to consider rewording the proposed statement to reflect the impor- ented American undergraduate can pursue. The exacerbated by occasional dramatic events, like tance of experimentally verifiable predictions when carrying out scientific inquiry. expanding world of computers, the Internet the termination of the Supercollider project in Leo Bellantoni, and the Web offer more and better paying jobs 1993. One cannot credibly improve the attrac- Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory than the world of academic physics. Hardly tiveness of doing basic research without a A Nobel Mistake any of the sons and daughters of my colleagues substantial reversal of the decades-long record are becoming basic scientists, but many of them of indifference and neglect. Several alert APS News readers rightly chastised us for the typographical error in are going into the computer industry or to Wall But there is a spiritual side to this issue the headline on page 5 of the July 1999 issue, referring to spin-polarized “Nobel” Street. These choices are generally not avail- as well, and therein lies my biggest concern. gases. Naturally, it should have read “noble” even though helium has certainly led to able to students who come from abroad directly As a discipline, physics is dedicated to ask- several Nobel prizes. after their undergraduate years. ing fundamental questions about how the —Editor In addition, there are less tangible fac- world works and how the universe has tors that influence the career choices of evolved. A nation that has lost interest in Dyson’s Skepticism Well-Founded American undergraduates. My memory of these questions, or that is willing to delegate Brad Marston’s reaction to Freeman Dyson’s article is to label it misleading and ill-in- the 1960s is not perfect, but I retain a sense that interest to scientists recruited from formed. However, Marston makes several misleading claims of his own. First, the deconvolution that those of us who went into basic sci- abroad, is in danger of degenerating into a of borehole temperatures tells us only that temperature has increased worldwide during the ence did so with the expectation that our state of meaningless self-absorption. One past century—something that we know already from air temperature records. Several re- work would be valued by the nation as a hopes it is not too late to summon the col- search groups have suggested that borehole temperatures show stable surface temperature whole. This was partly due to the space race lective will to renew our commitment to basic prior to this recent increase. Yet I found a counter example that in typical circumstances with the Soviet Union, partly to the general science, and thereby to help restore the sense borehole temperatures cannot resolve the Little Ice Age or the Late Middle Ages Optimum. ambience of the cold war, and partly, per- of national spirit and purpose that will keep If borehole temperature cannot resolve an event as significant as the Little Ice Age, then it us strong and prepared as we embark on haps, to a starry-eyed idealism that was a has little to say one way or the other regarding the stability of past climate. In fact, borehole legacy of the rhetoric of Camelot. the challenges of the new millennium. temperatures in glaciers, which, for technical reasons have better resolving power than other There were also the heroes of the recent Alan Chodos is a senior research physicist past, still alive or not long dead, principally at Yale University and Chair of the APS Pub- borehole measurements, do show wide variation of temperature over the past 10,000 years. Einstein, but others too like Bohr, Heisenberg, lication Oversight Committee. Second, while the history of carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere is available Continued on page 5 4 October 1999 APS News Researchers Find New Ways to Model Plate Tectonics, Soil Erosion
hanks to a tub of molten wax, Cornell Unfortunately, he adds, “Humans lack the remains straight with T University’s Eberhard Bodenschatz is time to witness the full extent of this fas- a deep valley. At fast able to witness 100 million years of cinating creation/demolition derby.” rates, the pattern is tectonic evolution on the ocean floor — Clearly, an experimental system that dominated by the creation of transform faults, rift valleys allows the study of the dynamics of rift transform faults and and spiral structures called “microplates” formation processes and its dependence fracture zones. But —in the course of a single hour. on the material parameters of the solidi- medium rates were, Bodenschatz believes the dynamics of fying crust was badly needed. Following where Bodenschatz the Earth’s crust tell a large portion of some initial work in the mid 1970’s, observed the most the history of this planet, and his Bodenschatz and his collaborators devel- interesting wax-tectonics modeling experiments oped a technique in which molten wax phenomenon. shave away millions of years of field is frozen at the surface by a flow of cold Microplates, tiny research by simulating portions of Earth’s air. The experimental apparatus is heated chunks of solid wax drama in the laboratory. Meanwhile, from below so that the wax melts and that appear at the rift Daniel Rothman, a geophysicist at MIT, cools from above to create a crust, which and begin rolling Image from http://milou.msc.cornell.edu/lay_wax.html is combining physical reasoning, the represents the Earth’s cold, hard lithos- upwards much like a rolling snowball The evolution of wax-microplates is observed analysis of digital elevation maps and phere, while the molten wax below gathering snow, grow with constant velocity from above. A picture is taken every 15 seconds, each image size is 3.0mm across, computer simulation to predict and represents its plastic upper mantle. The in the direction of the rift resulting in a spiral and the pulling speed is 35 microns/sec. The describe the mechanics of water-driven solid layer is then pulled apart with con- shape. Bodenschatz theorizes that microplates dark line is the rift. An offsetted spreading landscape erosion. Both researchers stant velocity and the formation of the form in a similar fashion on the ocean floor. center is formed in image (A). As time reported the latest results of their rift between the two solid plates is stud- Rothman’s goal at MIT is to explain progresses (A to D), a microplate is formed and rotates counter clockwise and increases respective experiments at the APS ied. While peering into the wax tank, one why a landscape exhibits its particular in size. In image E the microplate breaks off Centennial meeting in Atlanta. can observe and characterize the many features, and why so many — whether and is frozen into the newly formed crust (D). “Except for the occasional earthquake phenomenon occurring on the planet. it be the underwater continental slope The spiral shape can be explained by a or volcano eruption, we typically witness These in turn can be measured and ana- off the coast of Oregon or the Amazon model that works both for wax and Earth. few large scale changes in the Earth’s lyzed to determine the factors river basin — exhibit similar features. oil, predict floods, or determine crust; the earth’s time scale dwarfs the contributing to their behavior. Most re- “Based on simple assumptions concern- whether the topological features on the life span of a human being millions of markably, says Bodenschatz, “These ing the tendency of running water to run surface of Mars were sculpted by run- times over,” says Bodenschatz. “But un- phenomena seem to scale to the Earth. in the same direction, our model chal- ning water. “From the air, riverbed deniably, the earth moves, shaping the That wax spreading patterns should form lenges existing theories of landscape erosion might look like limbs branching land masses upon which we live. There and be similar to the Earth is fascinating, evolution that assumes landscapes off a tree trunk, crystals forming on an is no reason to expect that in another and leads to deeper questions of dynam- evolve to a form that minimizes the icy windowpane, or a nerve cell’s axions,” hundred million years, the North Ameri- ics in general.” rate of energy dissipation,” he says. On says Rothman, and he hopes to make can plate won’t be oriented in a direction For example, Bodenschatz found that a more practical level, Rothman’s work mathematical sense of the dendritic pat- opposite to its current configuration.” at very slow spreading rates, the rift may make it easier for analysts to find terns of the river’s branches. NRC Invites Member Input for Survey Remembering a Friend of Science he National Research Council is Comments should be directed to S Representative George E. Brown, advocated peaceful Tseeking the input of the physics [email protected]. The Overview Committee UJr. (D-CA) died in July from an space exploration community for a survey it is conducting is particularly interested in such issues as infection developed following heart and international sci- under the auspices of its Board on Physics the support of research in universities and valve replacement surgery in May, in the entific collaboration, and Astronomy. The present survey is laboratories, international trends in phys- midst of his 18th term as California’s longest- and opposed ear- intended to provide a broad overview ics, and science education and training, serving congressman. The ranking Minority marking of federal of the field of physics, as a complement as well as the impact of physics on bio- Member of the House Science Committee, science funds, a to the volumes published thus far in the medical sciences, environmental science, Brown was widely recognized as a strong practice known col- series, covering atomic, molecular and the economy, information science, and advocate for federal R&D funding, as well as loquially as optical science; cosmology; plasma national security. More information about a champion of civil rights and the “pork-barrel funding.” George E. Brown science; elementary particle physics; the project can be found online at: http:/ environment. He was also an outspoken critic of the Viet- nuclear physics; condensed matter and /www.nas.edu/bpa/projects/ An industrial physicist by training — he nam War in an era when it was politically materials physics; and gravitational physics. physicssurvey/overview. earned a BS in industrial physics from the unpopular to be so. Because of his science University of California, Los Angeles, in the background, he became a fixture on the late 1940s — Brown entered public service House Science Committee, twice serving as Letters, continued from page 4 as a Monterey Park city councilman in 1954, chairman. 15 years after he helped integrate student One of Brown’s major initiatives was a through sampling in glacier boreholes, it is not easy to make estimates (simple or otherwise) housing at UCLA by taking a black student study of the health of the US research enter- of the carbon dioxide forcing function. There is dispute over whether changes in carbon as his roommate. He was first elected to the prise, and he was one of the first politicians dioxide concentration lead or lag the temperature variations, making even the assignment of US House of Representatives in 1962, rep- to recognize and articulate the current pre- cause and effect uncertain. Freeman Dyson’s skepticism is hardly misplaced. resenting Monterey Park, but gave up his vailing national science policy: namely, that Kevin T. Kilty, Washington State University seat after eight years to run (unsuccessfully) the path from scientific discovery to techno- for the US Senate. He returned to the House logical innovation to commercial product is Brad Marston’s criticism of Freeman Dyson’s article is off base. The crucial question cer- in 1972, serving San Bernardino and surround- complex and nonlinear and national policy tainly is whether greenhouse theory is quantitatively correct, i.e., whether climate models ing communities, and remained in that should reflect this nature. “Always genial, he can reproduce the observations. So far at least, they have not only failed to do that, but they position until his death. nevertheless fought tenaciously for civil rights, differ among themselves by several hundred percent in their predictions. The major failings During his years in Congress, Brown the environment and science,” APS Director have to do with the modeling of clouds and aerosols, whose optical properties determine helped establish the Office of Science and of Public Affairs Robert Park wrote of Brown’s the radiative forcing along with that of greenhouse gases, but whose distribution in time and Technology Policy and the now-defunct Of- passing in the July 16 What’s New. “With his space is highly variable. None of the climate models encompass properly the most fice of Technology Assessment. He passing , the world is darker.” important of atmospheric greenhouse gases, water vapor, whose vertical distribution determines whether water vapor exercises a positive or negative feedback on warm- ing. Until climate models are reasonably well validated, one cannot accept their predictions, nor base far-reaching and costly policies on such predictions. Respected APS Intern, continued from page 1 economists have revisited the UN’s climate report and now find that CO2 increases and warming produce substantial economic benefits. Under the circumstances, one can complex, resulting from security concerns in Physical Review Letters, as well as optical only recommend policies like avoiding waste, cost-effective investments in energy earlier this year. Her research of specific issues properties of highly distorted micro-cavities. conservation, and similar measures that make economic sense. included interviewing psychologists, FBI In 1995, she spent the summer at the S. Fred Singer, president, Science & Environment Policy Project, Fairfax, Virginia agents and other specialists about the reliability Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, of the polygraph, in the wake of a working with a young professor in the Sober Message Department of Energy proposal to require Department of Complex Systems on I am writing to you in frustration about the social message sent in the July 1999 issue 5000 scientists engaged in defense-related computer simulations of atoms propagating of APS News. I am upset by the continuing college fraternity mentality of the physics research at the national weapons labs to through an atomic lens. “It gave me the community as represented by devoting half a page to an astronomer’s drinking song ... submit to polygraph testing. She also opportunity to see science at work in another and much of the rest of the page to articles about beer. The article Foam: Food for contributed to “What’s New,” the frequently country,” she says, as well as refining her Thought might be appropriate, but the rest is, at best, in very poor taste. “Drinking” irreverent weekly electronic newsletter on knowledge of computer simulations. And in and “drinking songs” are clearly not about having a glass of wine with dinner. Drinking public policy penned by APS Director of 1997 she spent the summer as a research is a wide-spread problem on college campuses (the death of an MIT student at a Public Affairs, Robert Park. assistant at Lucent Technologies working on fraternity beer party last year is an example of the worst possible consequence) and in Grossman spent two previous summers scanning capacitance microscopy, as part of professional communities and should not be the subject of jokes in the publication of a as a research assistant at Yale, studying the the requirements of a grant she received from professional society. use of magnetic mirrors to bounce ultra-cold the company’s Graduate Research Program Margaret Geller, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics atoms, which led to co-authorship of a paper for Women fellowship program. 5 APS News October 1999 DNP Meeting Features Second Annual Outreach Program for Undergrads or the second year running, the fall member, he noted the lack of under- will be followed by a general DNP re- of ties,” says Rogers. “There’s a general F meeting of the APS Division of graduates at DNP meetings and decided ception, and an hour-long undergraduate lack of students going into these graduate Nuclear Physics (DNP) — to be held later to do something about it: he wrote a grant poster session, during which students will programs, and this helps foster a pipeline.” this month in Asilomar California — will proposal to the NSF outlining the project, be able to share their research with the Students are also encouraged to partici- feature a special program of events and received enthusiastic approval. professional nuclear physicists in atten- pate in the regularly scheduled meeting designed specifically for undergraduates. Qualified students for the CEU program dance. A special CEU seminar will be held events, particularly the plenary lectures. The Conference Experience for are those with former participation in Thursday afternoon, covering a more Rogers is optimistic that student reac- Undergraduates (CEU) program is experimental or theoretical nuclear phys- specific topic in nuclear physics. tions to this year’s event will match the sponsored by the NSF and several DOE ics research. Travel and lodging awards On Friday, the students will attend a enthusiastic response of those who par- laboratories, including Los Alamos are presented to the top qualifying ap- special luncheon, during which represen- ticipated last year. “They really enjoyed National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley plicants, based on their submission of a tatives from various graduate schools will meeting each other and comparing their National Laboratory, Argonne National research abstract and brief summary of present information about their respective research experiences,” he said. “I think Laboratory, and Oak Ridge National the student’s individual contribution to a programs, followed by a tour of the many found it very inspiring to learn of Laboratory. Its purpose is to provide a larger group effort. But thanks to dona- Monterey Bay aquarium. “Half of the rea- the research being done by their peers “capstone” conference experience for tions from the national laboratories and son for doing this is to create these sorts around the country.” undergraduates who have conducted individual schools, all 60 of last year’s research in nuclear physics, by providing applicants were able to attend, and them with the opportunity to present Rogers is confident that all 61 of this zero their research to the larger professional year’s applicants will be able to attend gravity community and to one another. CEU also as well. enables the students to converse with The week’s CEU-related events will Problem: To Catch a Lion in the Sahara Desert faculty and senior scientists from graduate kick off with a welcoming reception on institutions about graduate school Wednesday evening to allow the under- Hunting lions in Africa was originally The general relativistic method opportunities. graduates to meet members of the DNP, published as “A contribution to the math- All over the desert we distribute lion The program is the brainchild of War- followed by a keynote address by one ematical theory of big game hunting” in bait containing large amounts of the ren Rogers, associate professor of physics of the luminaries in nuclear physics, out- the American Mathematical Monthly in companion star of Sirius. After enough at Westmont College. An active DNP lining the current status of the field. This 1938 by “H. Petard, of Princeton, NJ” [ac- of the bait has been eaten, we send a tually the late Ralph Boas]. beam of light through the desert. This will curl around the lion so it gets all Shocking Snowbird Meeting Explores Theoretical Physics Methods confused and can be approached with- out danger. The Dirac method Materials at High Pressures We assert that wild lions can ipso facto The Heisenberg method not be observed in the Sahara desert. Position and velocity from a moving esearchers keen on hearing the latest ranging from atomistic to macroscopic Therefore, if there are any lions at all in lion cannot be measured at the same R advances in shock compression scales. time. As moving lions have no physi- th the desert, they are tame. We leave catch- science flocked to the 11 biennial On Wednesday morning, Mel Baer, of ing a tame lion as an exercise to the reader. cal meaningful position in the desert, International Conference of the APS Sandia National Laboratories, described one cannot catch them. The lion hunt Topical Group on Shock Compression new three-dimensional simulations of The Schroedinger method can therefore be limited to resting li- of Condensed Matter (SCCM), held June shock impact on a realistic ensemble of At every instant there is a non-zero prob- ons. The catching of a resting, not 27 through July 2 in Snowbird, Utah, a crystalline grains, which demonstrated ability of the lion being in the cage. Sit moving, lion is left as an exercise for year-round resort located in the Wasatch that rapid material distortion occurs at and wait. the reader. mountains, about 30 miles from Salt Lake crystal boundaries. Such advanced simu- The quantum measurement method City. lations are now possible because of the We assume that the sex of the lion is ab Experimental Physics The meeting kicked off with two spe- vastly improved new parallel comput- initio indeterminate. The wave function Methods cial keynote sessions on Monday ing machines able to provide improved for the lion is hence a superposition of The thermodynamics method morning focusing on issues related to the resolution of shock processes at the the gender eigenstate for a lion and that We construct a semi-permeable mem- U.S. Department of Energy. DOE mesoscale. In a third plenary session later for a lioness. We lay these eigenstates out brane which lets everything but lions Deputy Assistant Secretary, Gilbert that morning, Brad Holian, of Los Alamos flat on the ground and orthogonal to each pass through. This we drag across the Weingard, summarized current progress National Laboratories, discussed recent other. Since the (male) lion has a distinc- desert. on the Accelerated Simulation Initiative advances in simulations of shock waves tive mane, the measurement of sex can (ASCI), a mission-based program that and related phenomena, including plas- safely be made from a distance, using bin- The atomic fission method seeks to enable the use of computer tic deformation, high-speed interfacial oculars. The lion then collapses into one We irradiate the desert with slow neu- simulation to move from a test-based to sliding, and fragmentation. “As experi- of the eigenstates, which is rolled up and trons. The lion becomes radioactive and a science-based assessment of the mental observations become more and placed inside the cage. starts to disintegrate. Once the disin- nuclear weapons stockpile. “Such simu- more refined, and molecular dynamics tegration process has progressed far The nuclear physics method lations are extremely complex and will simulations become larger, even ap- enough, the lion will be unable to re- Insert a tame lion into the cage and apply require computers that are orders of proaching the mesoscale, fruitful overlap sist. magnitude more powerful than the larg- is achievable in the near future,” he con- a Majorana exchange operator on it and a est systems in place today,” he said, cluded. wild lion. As a variant let us assume that The magneto-optical method adding that software environments must The topical group also organized we would like to catch (for argument’s We plant a large, lense-shaped field also be expanded in order to use such several special events to balance out sake) a male lion. We insert a tame fe- with cat mint (nepeta cataria) such that large systems effectively. Later that the technical aspects of the program. male lion into the cage and apply the its axis is parallel to the direction of morning, Hans Mark, director of the Tuesday afternoon featured an out- Heisenberg exchange operator, exchang- the horizontal component of the earth’s DOE’s Defense Research and Engineer- door picnic on the deck of the Snowbird ing spins. magnetic field. We put the cage in one of the field’s foci. Throughout the ing division, outlined the financial outlook Center, complete with a complimen- The Newton method desert we distribute large amounts of and potential results of defense technol- tary ride on the 125-passenger Cage and lion attract each other with the magnetized spinach (spinacia ogy R&D. tramcars to the top of the 11,000-foot gravitation force. We neglect the friction. oleracea) which has, as everybody The technical focus of this year’s mountain. On Wednesday, participants This way the lion will arrive sooner or later knows, a high iron content. The spin- SCCM meeting was the physics of were given the option of choosing be- in the cage. materials at elevated pressure or stress. tween two tours. The first began at ach is eaten by vegetarian desert Tuesday morning featured a lecture by Bear Hollow, Utah’s state-of-the-art The special relativistic method inhabitants which in turn are eaten by this year’s recipient of the Shock Com- winter sports park and one of the ven- One moves over the desert with light the lions. Afterwards the lions are ori- pression Award, Lynn Barker, of Valyn ues for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and velocity. The relativistic length contraction ented parallel to the earth’s magnetic International. He discussed the devel- proceeded on to the Deer Valley Re- makes the lion flat as paper. One takes it, field and the resulting lion beam is fo- opment of the VISAR technique in sort and Park City’s Historic Main Street, rolls it up and puts a rubber band around cused on the cage by the cat mint 1972, which first made laser interfer- a former mining town that now houses the lion. lense. ometry applicable to a wide range of specialty shops, art and history muse- shock experiments, such as a plate ums, and restaurants The second tour impact study of phase transitions in focused on Salt Lake City’s most fa- AT LAST! ANOTHER CONTEST! iron. Since then several subsequent im- mous sites, beginning with the provements have been made to the Kennecott Copper Mine, from which 5 It seems like ages since APS NEWS held a contest for its readers. With that device, most recently Valyn billion tons of ore have been extracted in mind, we’re soliciting submissions for amusing tales, puzzles, or other International’s “multi-beam” VISAR, ca- since operations began in 1905. [The tools that teach physics concepts while entertaining the student. [As an pable of measuring several points on mine is so enormous it is actually visible example, see “How To Catch a Lion in the Desert” above.] Those who submit a specimen simultaneously. He was fol- from space.] The tour then proceeded the winning entries will receive our usual fabulously silly prizes and have lowed by a plenary address on bridging to the Great Salt Lake, the largest salt- their entry published in APS News. Send submissions to the attention of the length scales in dynamic plasticity water body of its kind in the world, Editor, APS News, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, simulations by Rodney Clifton of where participants were given a sum- [email protected]. The deadline is any time when we feel we have enough Brown University, who reviewed re- mary of the lake’s history from the Ice entries to make a selection. cent computer simulation methodology Age to the present. 6 October 1999 APS News Announcements
OUTSTANDING DOCTORAL THESIS RESEARCH IN CAUGHT IN THE WEB ATOMIC, MOLECULAR, OR OPTICAL PHYSICS Notable information on the APS Web Server.
Sponsored by members and friends of the Division of Atomic, Molecular and A Century of Physics timeline: timeline.aps.org Optical Physics. Playground Physics: www.aps.org/playground.html Purpose: To recognize doctoral thesis research of outstanding quality and Phys. Rev. Focus: focus.aps.org achievement in atomic, molecular, or optical physics and to encourage effective Media Relations: www.aps.org/media written and oral presentation of research results. Physics Limericks: www.aps.org/apsnews/limericks.html Nature: The award to be given annually consists of $1,000 and a certificate Amazon Books: www.aps.org/memb/amazon citing the contribution made by the recipient. All finalists will receive a travel stipend of $500. 100 Years of the APS - Exhibit & History: www.aps.org/apsnews/history.html Rules and Eligibility: Doctoral students at any university in the U.S. or abroad who passed their thesis defense for the PhD in the disciplines of atomic, molecu- lar or optical physics after December 6, 1997 are eligible for the award, except Now Appearing in RMP... for those whose thesis advisors serve on the current selection committee. Any The articles in the October 1999 issue of Reviews of Modern Physics APS member may submit a nomination for this award. are listed below. For brief descriptions of each article, consult the Deadline: The deadline for submission of nominations is DECEMBER 6, 1999. RMP web site at
The Back Page is intended as a forum to foster discussion on topics of interest to the scientific community. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the APS, its elected officers, or staff. 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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