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Robert Stanek September Ethics Corner Steven Weinberg 1933 Op-Ed: Broadening Onramps Meet the New England Section 2021 Fall Prizes and Awards The Back Page: APS-IDEA 02│ to the STEM Workforce 03│ 05│ 08│ September 2021 • Vol. 30, No. 8 aps.org/apsnews A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY OBITUARY GIVING Steven Weinberg 1933-2021 APS Legacy Circle Profile: BY DANIEL GARISTO Robert Stanek BY LEAH POFFENBERGER teven Weinberg, a theorist If he achieved mythic status who unified two funda- through physics, it was from mental forces and shaped humble beginnings. Steven s a high energy physicist, S Robert Stanek has worked the way physicists and the public Weinberg was born in New York City thought about the universe, died to Frederick and Eva Weinberg, a A on some of the biggest July 23 in Austin at 88. court stenographer and homemaker experiments in physics, including Weinberg shared the 1979 Nobel respectively. Weinberg’s interest in HERA, Germany’s largest research Prize in Physics with Abdus Salam science was cultivated at the Bronx instrument, and as part of the and Sheldon Glashow for contribu- High School of Science, where he ATLAS collaboration at CERN. To tions to the theory that unified the was—famously—classmates with ensure students from low-income weak and electromagnetic forces. Glashow, who would also go on to backgrounds or underrepresented He continued to win academic attend Cornell. groups have the opportunity to honors and awards for the next After Cornell, Weinberg married study physics, Stanek also joined half century, including the 2020 Louise Goldwasser, and the newly- the APS Legacy Circle, which rec- Breakthrough Prize. In addition to weds spent a year in Copenhagen. ognizes donors who support APS his academic research, Weinberg He then went back to America and Steven Weinberg initiatives through planned giving. CREDIT: LARRY MURPHY, UNIVERSITY OF wrote prolifically about science in finished his PhD with Sam Treiman APS members who join the Legacy TEXAS AT AUSTIN popular books and publications at Princeton on weak decays and Circle help to fund initiatives that scholarships to students that could such as the New York Review of renormalization, the mathematical as force carriers. But giving the will make a positive impact on the not afford [college] that wanted to Books. He was also a Fellow of APS. technique for wrangling annoying W and Z mass made the theory physics community. go into physics.” “Steve was one of the last infinities. Over the next decade, he nonrenormalizable. Weinberg took “I've always been a proponent Stanek received his PhD in 1980 figures from this heroic era of bounced from Columbia to Berkeley the idea of spontaneous symmetry of helping students out.’” says from the University of Illinois at particle physics that culminated before landing in Cambridge, MA, breaking and in three brisk pages Stanek. “I was going to leave all Chicago, completing his thesis in the development of the Standard where he held appointments at showed how the mechanism could [of my money] to help scholarships work at Fermilab. After a brief stint Model,” said Scott Aaronson, a MIT and Harvard. lead the W and Z to appear massive for students [hoping to] go into working in nuclear medicine at theoretical computer scientist at In the early 1960s, Glashow and at lower energies. One of the most physics. And then my wife con- the Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital, the University of Texas at Austin, Salam attempted to unify electro- vinced me to leave half to Lincoln where Weinberg was a professor magnetism and the weak force by Park Zoo [in Chicago] and half to for forty years. proposing massive W and Z bosons WEINBERG CONTINUED ON PAGE 5 APS. My motivation was to give STANEK CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 ETHICS GOVERNANCE September Ethics Corner Speaker of the APS Council Baha Balantekin BY FRANCES HOULE BY DAVID VOSS elcome to a new column he APS Council of on professional ethics, Representatives currently W sponsored by the APS T consists of 35 members of Ethics Committee. Comprised of the Society and is responsible for appointees from several APS com- providing oversight of APS publi- mittees and the membership at large, cations and conferences, approving the Committee’s efforts include policy statements, electing APS tracking emerging trends in ethical Fellows, distributing prizes and practices and concerns, recom- awards, ratifying amendments to mending policies to APS leadership the Constitution and Bylaws, and relevant to trends, and suggesting managing other matters relating modifications to the APS Guidelines to the scientific mission of APS. on Ethics when appropriate. The Council membership com- In 2021, subcommittees on prises four General Councilors, Frances Houle Research Integrity and Ethics four International Councilors, the Education will serve to focus these Having conducted a survey Treasurer, and Councilors repre- efforts. We provide guidance as of APS Early Career members senting the Divisions, Forums, and processes associated with new in 2020, the Committee is now Sections. Activities of the Council Baha Balantekin APS policies are established and developing recommendations for are organized by the Council implemented, most recently for the new initiatives that respond to the Steering Committee. The Council particle physics. After that, I went What are some of your current phased rollout of new professional community’s needs, based on the Steering Committee consists of four to MIT as a postdoc and a Wigner research interests? conduct disclosure requirements survey results. Future columns elected Councilors, the Speaker, Fellow at Oak Ridge National Lab. I am a theoretical physicist, even for APS Honors and official lead- will describe these activities and the President-Elect, and the CEO Then I moved to the University though I am a member of several ership positions of the Society. We additional ethics resources for APS and meets frequently between of Wisconsin, where I've been experimental collaborations, but develop educational materials to members and the physics commu- Council meetings. for almost 35 years. I also have my role is primarily to provide examine specific ethics topics and nity. We welcome your feedback! The Speaker of the Council visiting adjunct appointments at theoretical feedback. And occa- presentation materials that can be presides over the Council of the University of Washington in sionally I take the night shift for used to lead ethics discussions. We Representatives and is elected Seattle and the University of New The author is the chair of the APS fun. But my primary research area invite you to visit our webpage to South Wales in Sydney. Ethics Committee. from the Council. Baha Balantekin is theoretical physics at the inter- draw on these resources. (University of Wisconsin) is the I've been involved with APS face of nuclear physics, particle current Speaker, and APS News for some time. About a decade physics, and astrophysics. And asked him to share his thoughts ago, I was the Councilor for the more recently, I'm getting involved about his journey in physics and Division of Nuclear Physics and in quantum information science the role of the Council. The inter- at that time I was elected to the applications in nuclear/particle view has been edited for length APS Board and served just before astrophysics. and clarity. APS reorganized its governance I'm collaborating with an exper- structures in 2014. Then a couple imentalist colleague, Mark Saffman, What was your path in research of years ago, the DNP Councilor and with APS? at the University of Wisconsin left, so the division asked me to who's building a quantum computer I went to graduate school at take over and run for the position Yale University, where I worked on again. So that's how I got to be on theoretical/mathematical nuclear/ the Council a second time. BALANTEKIN CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 2 • September 2021 OP-ED The US Must Broaden On-ramps to the STEM Workforce BY S. JAMES GATES, JR. AND GERALD C. BLAZEY Editor’s note: This op-ed was first published in The Hill on June 5, 2021. Since that time, the NSF for the Future Act, which is cited in the piece, passed out of September 19, 1926: Masatoshi Koshiba, the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support. The next step is for the bill to go to conference with Senate-passed legislation concerning Pioneer of Neutrino Astronomy, is Born NSF. This process enables the reconciliation of differences between the pieces BY JULIA OSTMANN of legislation passed by each chamber of Congress. iny and chargeless, neutrinos leave barely a trace on their journey around T the cosmos—elusive players in the hunt for dark matter, the study of our Sun, and the evolution of the atom. Today, the vibrant field of neutrino research cuts across many areas of physics. Yet we may never have confirmed that neu- trinos burst from stars—or discovered why so many of them escape our detectors—had Masatoshi Koshiba listened to his high school physics teacher. The future Nobel laureate was born September 19, 1926, in the seaside city of Toyohashi, Japan, the son of a military father. As a child, he liked mathematics, and as a teenager, he enjoyed reading The Evolution of Physics, a book on the magine an unfortunate world more likely. Earlier this year, the history of physics by Albert Einstein and Leopold where Americans depend upon United States fell out of the top Infeld. Koshiba excelled at Japanese fencing, competitors for innovation, 10 of the Bloomberg Innovation but after a bout of polio and diphtheria, took I up building model airplanes from bamboo and breakthroughs, and technological Index and also now ranks ninth progress. In such a world, we won’t globally in research and develop - rubber bands.
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