May 2011 Volume 20, No. 5 TM www.aps.org/publications/apsnews APS NEWS Inside the Oil Spill Commission A PublicAtion of the AmericAn PhysicAl society • www.APs.org/PublicAtions/APsnews See page 8 Promise Lies Ahead for Superconductivity After 100 Years Congressman “Lights Up” The centennial celebration of the resistance of mercury when “Materials are very important superconductivity was the talk his instruments showed that it for superconductivity. In fact of this year’s March Meeting. dropped to zero at four degrees they drove most of the advances Both researchers and historians Kelvin. At first he thought the in the last century,” said George took time to reflect on the seren- results stemmed from a short in Crabtree of Argonne National dipitous discovery of supercon- his equipment because it was an Laboratory. “Superconductivity ductivity, and speculate about effect that no one had predicted. has in many ways led the field of its future promise for the world. Once he realized that his ex- condensed matter physics.” The Kavli Foundation sponsored periments were sound, this unex- An ultimate goal is to develop two sessions on the history and pected effect became the focus of a material that superconducts future of the effect, one of which intense study. From the start, the at room temperature. It’s been featured five Nobel Laureates. promise of dissipationless elec- a long and difficult search. Re- Dozens of sessions focused on tricity was evident. Laura Greene searchers have been pushing the applications and basic research in of the University of Illinois at envelope slowly but surely. For the field. Even before the meet- Urbana-Champaign pointed to a the first seventy years or so, the ing started, the Industrial Physics press release from Onnes’ lab in high temperature limit of super- Photo by Michael Lucibella Forum, organized by the Ameri- 1920 that said superconductivity conductors kept climbing on av- At a reception on Capitol Hill on April 6, the Science-Engineering-Technology can Institute of Physics, high- would lead to “better energy stor- erage of about a degree a year. working group (setwg), to which APs belongs, presented two members of lighted current and future areas age, better magnets and helping Then in 1986, scientists at congress with the george e. brown, Jr. leadership Award for their work on is- of research and industrial appli- the energy crisis.” IBM’s Zurich Research Lab dis- sues related to science, technology and engineering. in the photo, APs head of Public outreach becky thompson (right) gives an leD "throwie" to congress- cations. Today superconductivity con- covered that copper-oxide-based man Daniel lipinski (D-il), one of the Award recipients. At the reception, APs A common theme for those tinues to be an active field of re- materials can superconduct at distributed throwies, which are battery-powered leDs with magnets attached, to speaking was how the story of search. Five Nobel prizes have temperatures warmer than any the attendees in 3 patriotic colors, red (for the republicans), white (for the inde- pendents) and blue (for the Democrats). the second brown Award recipient was superconductors has been filled been awarded for research on un- previously known. Soon there senator Kay bailey hutchison (r-tX). with unexpected discoveries. In derstanding the mechanisms be- were examples above the temper- 1911, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, hind superconductors. Materials ature of liquid nitrogen. The goal the following day was congressional Visits Day, sponsored by 31 professional societies and related organizations, in which some 270 members of the science the Dutch physicist who would physicists the world over have of a room temperature super- and engineering community came to washington from all over the country to later win a Nobel Prize for liq- been working to develop high conductor seemed tantalizingly participate. they visited an estimated 350 different congressional offices (out of uefying helium, was measuring temperature superconductors. a possible 535). PROMISE continued on page 4 Fukushima Disaster Alters Dialogue at Nuclear Session By Eric Betz it should,” said Raymond Orbach, ment of spent fuel rods away from With a nuclear meltdown un- director of the Energy Institute at the facility,” said Orbach, “and that derway at the Fukushima Nuclear the University of Texas at Austin, was not done.” Power Complex in Japan, a previ- “except for the tsunami.” According to Orbach, the plant ously planned session at the March Orbach, who had served as Un- survived the earthquake in good Meeting on the future of nuclear der Secretary of Energy for Science shape, but after the tsunami hit, all energy took on a decidedly differ- in the George W. Bush administra- the back-up generators failed and ent tone than the presenters had tion, broke down a blow-by-blow the batteries were soon exhausted. planned, and one of the presenters, sequence of the partial meltdown The power company then tried to Toshikazu Suzuki, of Japan’s Na- and said that much of the problem alleviate the problem by venting tional Institute of Radiological Sci- stemmed from the fact that the steam from the reactor, which also ence, was forced to cancel because spent fuel being stored in the reac- didn’t work, he said. At that point, of his role in the nuclear remedia- tor building was four times larger a process called core oxidization tion efforts at the ailing plant. than that actually in the reactor. In- started occurring rapidly, creating stead of transporting the spent fuel corrium–a lava-like mixture of ma- The Tuesday session was titled Photo by mary catherine Adams “Drowning in Carbon: The impera- away from the site or storing it in terials that forms inside a nuclear a nearby cooling pond as is done Panelists from the "Drowning in carbon: the imperative of nuclear Power" ses- reactor during a meltdown–which tive of nuclear power,” however, sion answer questions from the audience. from left to right are robert rosner (u the focus turned to fallout from the in the US, the Japanese had simply of chicago), lee schroeder (lbnl and techsource), Victor reis (Department of generated huge amounts hydrogen nuclear disaster. kept the material in the building. energy), and Jay Davis (hertz foundation and formerly of llnl). raymond orbach inside the building until it finally “There needs to be some move- of the university of texas spoke at the session but had to leave before the panel NUCLEAR continued on page 7 “Everything worked exactly as discussion. New Awards Issue a Call for Nominations March Meeting Teems with Graphene Talks By Eric Betz next door. Even then, many sat on several new APs awards are making their debut this year, and those interested are urged to get the floor or leaned along the walls. them off to a good start by nominating worthy candidates. Few discoveries in physics have yielded a Nobel prize as quickly as Beginning his lecture by chiding other graphene speakers for skip- first up is the stanley corrsin Award in fluid Dynamics, intended as a mid-career award, for Konstantin Novoselov and Andre ping their introductions because which the nomination deadline is may 31. two new awards with deadlines of July 1 are the Geim’s 2004 breakthrough in gra- they said everyone else had already landau-spitzer Award in Plasma Physics, which will be administered jointly with the european phene. Research on the subject has given one, Novoselov took the time Physical society, and the henry Primakoff Award for early-career Particle Physics, which will exploded in the seven years since to trace a history of the two-dimen- recognize outstanding research in elementary-particle physics performed by a physicist who has then, and this year’s March Meeting sional substance from the discovery held the PhD for no more than 7 years, plus any career breaks. strongly reflected that trend. “It opened up this Pandora’s of graphite 500 years ago, through buckyballs and carbon nanotubes A new dissertation award in theoretical particle physics, with an october 1 deadline, will comple- box” said Novoselov in his lecture and on to the current status of gra- ment the tanaka Dissertation Award for experimental particle physics. at the meeting. “I’m sure it will keep us busy for quite a few years phene research. “Each of you has synthesized information about all of the awards mentioned above, as well as instructions for nomination, can because of that.” graphene many times,” he told the be found in the prize and award section of the APs website at www.aps.org (under "Programs"). So many wanted to attend No- audience, adding that “every time in addition, an award administered by the committee on education will recognize programmatic voselov’s lecture that the center you use a pencil, you create one- excellence in undergraduate physics education. more information about it can be found in the divider had to be removed between atom-thick layers of graphite on education corner column in this issue of APS News. the lecture hall Novoselov was scheduled to speak in and the room GRAPHENE continued on page 4 2 • May 2011 APS NEWS This Month in Physics History François-Marie Raoult and Raoult’s Law: May 23, 1887 “The idea is pretty simple. It a very thorough look at what they “He discovered a universal property of dissolved with volatile solutes, different compounds behave posits that social groups that have were doing. …Unfortunately, it molecules and showed how to use it.” differently. Exploring these conditions provides more members are going to be took this Macondo accident to re- Full acceptance of the atomic-molecular theory abundant data, the basis for fractional distillation more attractive to join, and it pos- ally open up the eyes for deepwater of matter depended on the ability to relate familiar and other industrial processes.