November 2012 • Vol. 21, No. 10 APS Moving Forward A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY see page 5 WWW.APS.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/APSNEWS Apker Award Finalists Convene APS Delegation Fosters Closer Ties with China A team of physicists repre- tive Officer of APS. “There are needs of researchers in China, senting APS traveled to China in already a lot of good collabora- and what are the opportunities for September to enhance the Soci- tions that are taking place on an APS members,” Heeger said. He ety’s engagement with the Asian individual level.” added that the delegation hoped to nation. In addition to Kirby, represen- “build connections and relations, The delegation visited six cit- tatives from APS included Direc- get to know some of the research- ies in nine days, and met with tor of International Affairs Amy ers and universities, and explore dozens of physicists, professors Flatten; Karsten Heeger, Chair what some of the opportunities and other leading members of the of the APS Committee on Inter- for a scientific partnership might physics community in China. A national Scientific Affairs; and be.” second delegation representing Gang Cao, a member of CISA. The highlight of the trip was a the APS publishing offices also The editorial delegation included joint session at the annual meeting traveled through China shortly af- Manolis Antonoyiannakis, the Se- of the Chinese Physical Society in terwards, overlapping briefly. nior Assistant Editor of Physical Guangzhou. At this first-ever joint “The reason to go was to ex- Review Letters, and Ling Miao, APS/CPS session, Kirby gave a Photo by Shelly Johnston plore ways that APS can foster Associate Editor of Physical Re- talk about the APS, its mission The APS Apker Award for outstanding physics research by an undergraduate is more international engagement view X. and its activities. APS vice-Presi- given annually in two categories: to a student from a PhD-granting institution, with the Chinese physics com- “The goal was to explore, to dent Malcolm Beasley also spoke and to a student from an institution not granting the PhD. This year there were munity,” said Kate Kirby, Execu- listen, [and] to learn what are the seven finalists from the two categories, who met in Washington in late August to CHINA continued on page 7 be interviewed by the selection committee. They are (l to r): Adam Keith (North Carolina State University); Theodore J. Yoder (Franklin and Marshall College); APS Offers Public Outreach Mini-Grants Seth Whitsitt (University of Texas, Austin); Yuliya Dovzhenko (Princeton Univer- sity); Matthew Ware (Illinois State University); Peter H. Jumper (University of Again this year, APS is offering several grants up to $10,000 each to help APS members start their own outreach Massachusetts, Dartmouth); and Kiaran B. Dave (University of Illinois, Urbana- programs. In the past, programs such as Claymation videos, puppet shows and video games have received funding. Champaign). The two Apker Award recipients will be pictured in next month's More information about the program, descriptions of past projects and instructions for submitting proposals are online APS News. at www.aps.org/programs/outreach. Proposals are due January 11th, 2013. Quantum Wizardry Wins Nobel Recognition Preprint Policies Sow Confusion The 2012 Nobel Prize for charged atoms in a superposition back and forth billions of times. By Brian Jacobsmeyer of it to the arXiv. Physics was awarded to an Amer- of their two lowest energy states. The team then fired a doughnut- For the vast majority of his This paper never appeared in ican and a French researcher for To do this, they confined a sys- shaped Rydberg atom through scientific papers, Terry Rudolph, Nature, however. In a highly un- “ground-breaking experimental tem of ions in an electric field and the cavity and measured the en- a quantum theorist at Imperial usual case, Nature rejected the methods that enable measuring cooled them to their lowest en- ergy shift of the atom, which they College, London, had no qualms paper at a late editorial stage after and manipulation of individual ergy state. The team then exposed could use to reconstruct the quan- about posting a preprint on the Rudolph and a co-author, Jona- quantum systems.” the ions to a finely tuned laser tum state of the trapped photons. popular arXiv server. But this one than Barrett of the University of David Wineland of the Na- pulse, which effectively created a The subtle changes to the Ryd- was different. London, posted a surprising fol- tional Institute of Standards and superposition of the ground state berg atom’s energy states showed This research would soon be low-up article to the arXiv. In a Technology in Boulder, Colorado and the next excited state. that the quantum superpositions widely considered one of the most post on the popular Cosmic Vari- and Serge Haroche of the Collège Haroche came up with a com- of individual photons could be important papers on the founda- ance physics blog, Rudolph pub- de France in Paris are both APS plementary technique, which used detected. Moreover, physicists tions of quantum mechanics in re- licly contested Nature’s decision, Fellows. Their respective work atoms to measure the quantum using this information could re- cent years. Rudolph submitted his blaming it in part on the scientific on different quantum systems has state of a photon. He confined construct the wave function of the team’s paper to Nature and, with “buzz” surrounding his preprints. helped to lay the groundwork for microwave photons in a special- photon as it collapsed. some reluctance, posted a preprint JOURNALS continued on page 6 fundamentals of quantum com- ly designed optical cavity about “I use atoms to study the pho- puters and the next generation of three centimeters in size. The tons and he uses photons to study atomic clocks. walls of the cavity were reflec- atoms,” Haroche told the Nobel Of Historical Significance Wineland’s team developed a tive and cooled to nearly absolute website. “So, it’s really symmet- technique to prepare individual zero so the photons could bounce NOBEL continued on page 5 Buckley Prize Receives Major Donation from Taiwanese Company The HTC-VIA Group of Tai- ety is thrilled with the generosity “They very much appreciate wan has made a donation of of Cher Wang and Wenchi Chen in the high status of the recipients $140,000 to support and enhance reinvigorating the Buckley Prize, who have received this prize, and APS’s Oliver E. Buckley Con- enabling the award amount to dou- more so that it is very much in line densed Matter Prize. The Buckley ble,” said Sam Bader of Argonne with what their company does,” Prize is the oldest APS prize, and National Laboratory, former chair said Darlene Logan, APS director one of the most prestigious. of the Division of Condensed Mat- of development. The award is given to research- ter Physics. “The Buckley Prize is The prize was established in ers who have made significant a premier prize of the APS. Over 1952 by AT&T Bell Labs in honor contributions to the field of con- the years its ranks have included of their president, Oliver E. Buck- densed matter physics. Until this as many as sixteen who also be- ley, who had retired the previ- year, the stipend of the prize had came Nobel Prize winners.” ous year. With the new donation, Photo by Liz Dart Caron been $10,000, but with the new Professor Nai-Chang Yeh of the HTC-VIA Group will also be Roger H. Stuewer of the University of Minnesota (center) is the 2013 recipient donation, it will double to $20,000 Caltech first reached out to the named as the official co-sponsor of of the APS Abraham Pais Prize in History of Physics. In the photo he receives for the next seven years. couple, who are ranked by Forbes the award. Also, in recognition of congratulations from two members of the selection committee, Physics Today The donation was made pos- as amongst the top ten richest their contribution, Wang and Chen editor emerita Gloria Lubkin (left), who is vice-Chair of the committee, and Gregory Good, Director of the Center for History of Physics of the American sible by Cher Wang, the founder people in Taiwan. VIA Technolo- have been invited to travel to the Institute of Physics, who is AIP's representative on the committee. The an- and chair of HTC and VIA Tech- gies is a major integrated circuit APS March Meeting in Baltimore. nouncement of Stuewer's selection as the Prize recipient took place on Sep- nologies, and her husband Wenchi and computer chip manufacturer, “They will be invited to come tember 24, at the 50th anniversary celebration of AIP's history programs, com- Chen, CEO of VIA technologies. while HTC manufactures smart- and present the prize with the APS memorating the dedication, in September of 1962, of the Niels Bohr Library “The American Physical Soci- phones and tablet computers. President,” Logan said. and Archives by J. Robert Oppenheimer. 2 • November 2012 Members This Month in Physics History in the Media October 1777: Discovery of Lichtenberg Figures “If we can just damage that part “What physicists don’t know Victims struck by lightning often develop red, known as an electrophorus, measuring six feet selectively–without hurting the is that they are studying Picasso’s branching patterns across their skin, often lasting in diameter, and used that to study the behavior brain or another part of the body paint.” several days, likely caused by delicate capillaries of the electric fire–including figuring out how to to get there–that’s a big deal.” Volker Rose, Argonne National under the skin rupturing from the shock of the record the branching patterns left in the wake of Gabe Spaulding, Illinois Wes- Laboratory, on how the same zinc electrical discharge–a natural example of frac- electrical discharges.