APS News, August 2017, Vol. 26, No. 8
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August/September 2017 • Vol. 26, No. 8 A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY Physics Olympiad Results APS.ORG/APSNEWS Page 4 2018 APS Medal for Exceptional Achievement 2017 APS General Election Results in Research Awarded to Eugene Parker By David Voss By David Voss Voting in the 2017 APS General The APS Council Steering Election came to a close on July Committee has voted to award 31, and the results are in: Philip H. the Society’s 2018 Medal for Bucksbaum of Stanford University Exceptional Achievement in has been elected vice president, Research to Eugene Parker, pro- Larry Gladney of University of fessor emeritus at the University Pennsylvania becomes chair-elect of Chicago. Parker, 90, is recog- of the APS Nominating Committee, nized for his “many fundamental Ahmadou Wagué of Dakar Cheikh contributions to space physics, Anta Diop University in Senegal plasma physics, solar physics, will be international councilor, and astrophysics during the past and Vivian F. Incera of the City 60 plus years.” University of New York/College Phil Bucksbaum Larry Gladney “Eugene N. Parker is the dean of Staten Island will become gen- Academy of Sciences and the 2019 and president in 2020. of the field of space and astrophysi- Eugene Parker eral councilor. Their terms begin American Academy of Arts and “I’m honored to be elected, and cal plasma physics,” commented January 1, 2018. Sciences. Within APS he has been I’m looking forward to the oppor- Louis Lanzerotti of the New Jersey planetary magnetic field would be Phil Bucksbaum holds the active in the Division of Atomic, tunity to serve the members and Institute of Technology. “Parker’s locked into the coronal plasma and Marguerite Blake Wilbur Chair Molecular, and Optical Physics the Society,” said Bucksbaum. “I seminal theoretical work beginning would exhibit a spiral shape as the in Natural Science at Stanford and the Division of Laser Science. know we are facing challenges, in in the mid-1950s revolutionized solar wind carried it into the region University, with appointments in He has served as a Laser Science the changing landscape for interna- understanding of the solar corona known as the heliosphere. Physics and Applied Physics, and Divisional Associate Editor for tional cooperation, in the future of and its production of the inter- “There are very few scientists in in Photon Science at SLAC. His Physical Review Letters (PRL), journal publishing, in the future of planetary medium, and the effects the history of science of whom it current research is in laser inter- he was a member of the 2013 federal funding for physics, as well of the medium on Earth’s space can be said that they were respon- rogation of atoms and molecules PRL Visiting Committee, and he as other areas. There are also tre- environment.” sible for the establishment of an to explore structure and dynam- has served on the APS Executive mendous opportunities in physics Parker’s theory of the solar entire scientific discipline,” said ics on the femtosecond scale. Board. As vice president in 2018 in the 21st century, and APS has an wind led to a new understanding of Lennard Fisk of the University Bucksbaum is a Fellow of APS and he joins the APS presidential line important role in communicating the interplanetary medium. In par- of Michigan. “In the late 1950s, has been elected to the National and will become president-elect in ELECTION continued on page 4 ticular, he predicted that the inter- PARKER continued on page 4 NSF Grant For Women in Physics physics.aps.org By Rachel Gaal Research News: Editors’ Choice Regularly drawing 19 million A Monthly Recap of Papers Selected by the Editors viewers each year, the comedy TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory is Movie Archived on DNA premiering its 11th season in late Molecule September 2017. The male four- A research team has stored a Nature some featured in the show—two short digital movie inside the DNA Caltech physicists, an astrophysi- of live bacteria. DNA—our genetic cist, and an aerospace engineer—all information-bearer—is known to share the same “geeky intellectual” have the potential for encoding outlook on life. What about aspir- information at high density. In ing physicists, however, who don’t 2013, scientists managed to encode fit the male nerd image—are they 739 kilobytes of information into welcome? Thanks to a $3 million a synthetic strand of DNA, suf- grant from the National Science Zahra Hazari ficient to store simultaneously all Foundation (NSF), research- 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, one ers from Florida International physics at FIU and the lead inves- image, and a 26-second excerpt Researchers stored Muybridge's famous galloping horse film in DNA University (FIU), Texas A&M tigator of this project, her research of Martin Luther King’s “I have University–Commerce, the has centered on reforming the a dream” speech. Now, Shipman Twirling Black Holes Caught own, but only a handful of SMBH American Association of Physics physics learning environment to et al. have further boosted DNA’s in the Act pairs have been observed so far. Teachers (AAPT), and APS will raise the participation of underrep- information carrying capacity, A decade-long study of a dis- The radio galaxy 0402+379 hosts begin a multi-year project to resented groups who pursue phys- reporting in Nature (DOI: 10.1038/ tant galaxy has uncovered the first the closest known SMBH pair, esti- encourage more women to over- ics, especially women. nature23017) the first archiving of evidence of orbital motion in a mated to be 24 light years apart come the negative stereotypes and “[Shows like these] are hugely pair of supermassive black holes from Earth. Researchers monitored enter the field of physics. detrimental to opening up doors for a movie inside a living cell. The (SMBHs). This type of black 0402+379 from 2003 to 2015 with “[The Big Bang Theory] is a people who have never considered researchers first encoded the black- hole—often more massive than a the Very Long Baseline Array, funny show, and the ‘nerd’ stereo- the field, because they don’t look or and-white pixels of the movie’s million stars—is found at the cen- which is a system of ten radio tele- types are funny … but we need to act the right way,” Hazari said. “... frames into the four “letters” of a ter of many galaxies, including our scopes spread across the U.S. An change the ‘Big Bang Theory’ view you don’t have to act that way and DNA strand—the A, G, C, and T analysis of this data by Bansal et of what a physicist or a physics be that way to do physics, you can nucleobases. Using the new gene- al., presented in the Astrophysical student looks like,” Zahra Hazari be a caring and nurturing woman. editing technique called CRISPR, Journal (DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ told APS News in an interview. My research is about mythbust- they then placed the DNA into an aa74e1), shows that the black holes Currently an associate professor of NSF GRANT continued on page 6 E. coli bacterium. The movie’s frames could later be retrieved are moving relative to each other. From our planet’s vantage point, by sequencing the cells’ DNA. Josh Valenzuela/UNM The stored movie was Eadweard the detected motion is a sluggish Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion, 1.6 microarcseconds per year. a groundbreaking motion picture By making assumptions about recorded in 1878 through strobo- the orbit’s shape, the researchers scopic photography. With the new estimate that it will take 28,000 DNA technique, the authors found years for a full revolution. At this they could accurately reconstruct rate, the pair will not be merging each frame of the movie. Dance of the massive objects RESEARCH continued on page 6 Revised 09/25/17 2 • August/September 2017 Spotlight on Development This Month in Physics History Help Strengthen the Future of the Physics Commmunity by Becoming a Member of the APS Legacy Circle August 5, 1816: Sir Francis Ronalds’ Dear Valued Member of the the Society to better serve the Telegraph Design Rejected Physics Community, professional physics community, he public generally associates Samuel Morse tubes buried in the ground. At each end of the line We hope that APS has been help educate the next generation Twith the invention of the telegraph, which a clockwork mechanism turned synchronously instrumental in your career success. of physicists, and communicate the revolutionized long-distance communication. But revolving discs with letters on them. A frictional Now, we invite you to strengthen excitement of physics to the gen- decades earlier, a London cheese merchant turned electricity machine kept the wire continuously the future of the physics commu- eral public for generations to come. amateur scientist and inventor, Sir Francis Ronalds, charged, while at each end two pith balls hung from nity by becoming a member of the Kindly use the form below to created his own version of an electric telegraph. the wire on silk threads, and since they were simi- APS Legacy Circle. request additional information, and/ Ronalds proclaimed, “Give me materiel enough, larly charged from the wire they stayed apart. When Some of you will soon be or share with us your intentions and and I will electrify the world.” But the world wasn’t someone desired to send a message he earthed the receiving planned giving informa- be counted as a member of the APS quite ready for his vision; it would be two decades wire at his end at the moment when the dial indi- tion that we hope will be useful in Legacy Circle.