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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS

THE DEPARTMENT OF AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN • 2006 NUMBER 1

Quantum without “Computing”

BY JAMES E. KLOEPPEL did not run (O. Hosten, et al., 439, 949–952 [2006]). y combining quantum Quantum have the Bcomputation and quantum potential for solving certain types of interrogation, Bardeen Professor of problems much faster than classical Physics Paul Kwiat and his group have computers. Speed and efficiency are found an exotic way of determining gained because quantum bits can be an answer to an —without placed in superpositions of 1 and 0, ever running the algorithm. Using an as opposed to classical bits, which optical-based quantum computer, the are either 1 or 0. Moreover, the logic researchers have presented the first behind the coherent nature of quantum demonstration of “counterfactual information processing often deviates computation,” inferring information from intuitive reasoning, leading to about an answer, even though the some surprising effects. “It seems absolutely bizarre that counterfactual computation—using

tauffer information that is counter to what The Kwiat research group at the Alma Mater

rian S must have actually happened—could

y L. B find an answer without running the not run the search algorithm,” said interrogation schemes, and to my mind, entire quantum computer,” said Kwiat. graduate student Onur Hosten, lead doesn’t get any hoto b P “But the nature of quantum author of the Nature paper. “We also more mysterious than this.” interrogation makes this amazing showed theoretically how to obtain While the researchers’ optical feat possible.” the answer without ever running the quantum computer cannot be scaled Sometimes called interaction-free algorithm, by using a ‘chained Zeno’ up, using these kinds of interrogation measurement, quantum interrogation effect.” techniques may make it possible to is a technique that makes use of Through clever use of beam splitters reduce errors in , wave-particle duality (in this case, of and both constructive and destructive Kwiat said. “Anything you can do to photons) to search a region of space interference, the researchers can put reduce the errors will make it more likely without actually entering that region each photon in a superposition of that eventually you’ll get a large-scale of space. Utilizing two coupled optical taking two paths. Although a photon quantum computer.” interferometers, nested within a can occupy multiple places simul- In addition to Kwiat and Hosten, third, Kwiat’s team succeeded in taneously, it can make an actual co-authors of the Nature paper are Paul Kwiat, right, Professor counterfactually searching a four- appearance at only one location. graduate students Julio Barreiro, of Physics and Electrical and Computer element using Grover’s Its presence defines its path, and that Nicholas Peters, and Matthew Rakher Engineering, and graduate student quantum search algorithm. can, in a very strange way, negate the (BS ’03, now at the University of Onur Hosten have shown that quantum “By placing our photon in a need for the search algorithm to run. , Santa Barbara). I computation can determine the answer quantum superposition of running “In a sense, it is the possibility that This work was funded by the Disruptive Technologies to an algorithm—without ever running and not running the search algorithm, the algorithm could run that prevents the algorithm. Office and the National Science Foundation. The we obtained information about the the algorithm from running,” Kwiat conclusions presented are those of the authors and answer even when the photon did said. “That is at the heart of quantum not necessarily of the funding agencies. Of Bits and Bytes: Physics Pioneers Computing at Illinois

n 1949, the University received In 1964, the Digital Computer the University of Illinois and beyond. Iapproval to build a copy of a Laboratory—comprised mainly of This issue of Physics Illinois News computer being designed at the Physics faculty—was renamed the features interviews with several of the Institute for Advanced Study in Department of , central figures in computing history Princeton, New Jersey. The Illinois but the undergraduate degree program at the U of I, and we invite you to computer group was organized as the in computer science wasn’t introduced enjoy this glimpse of our important Digital Computer Laboratory with until 1972. heritage. I Ralph Meagher, a , named In 1985, the National Science chief engineer for the computer project. Foundation established the Center Completed in 1951 and named for Supercomputing Research and ORDVAC, the computer was one of Development and the National Center the fastest in existence—performing for Supercomputing Applications, with an add time of 92 ms and a Abraham Traub and Ralph Meagher with ILLIAC I making Urbana-Champaign the multiplication time of 700 ms. nation’s only university campus with Measuring 10-ft long, 2-ft wide the University’s radio telescope. two centers. Larry and 8.5-ft high, the 5-ton machine Using the ILLIAC for brain power, Smarr, an astrophysicist, was named contained 2,800 vacuum tubes. U of I faculty introduced PLATO, the NCSA’s first director. Its successor, dubbed ILLIAC, was nation’s first computer-based program The NCSA would drive the completed in Fall 1952 and was one of instruction. Beginning in 1959, development of computer of the first electronic computers built Physics faculty member and Control software. Physics graduate student and owned entirely by an educational Systems Laboratory Director Daniel Brand Fortner (BS ’77, MS ’82, PhD institution. Operating initially only Alpert championed the idea of Chalmers ’93), co-founder of Spyglass Inc., 8 hours a day, its was Sherwin (also a Physics faculty member) licensed the software from the gradually expanded to 24-hours-per- that computers could be used for University and developed the first day, six-days-a-week operation. ILLIAC instruction, a concept that was to graphical browser for the Internet, would provide the major portion of the emerge as PLATO. About 25 years later, Mosaic®, in 1995. Physics faculty developed a pattern recognition computer services for the University for Lorella Jones would write the country’s The Department of Physics—its computer, which would become ILLIAC III, to 10 years, finding use in the design of first computerized homework problems faculty and alumni—has had an solve the problem of interpreting millions of other research instruments such as on PLATO for an elementary physics enormous influence on the bubble-chamber photographs. high-energy particle accelerators and course at Illinois. development of computing at

2 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1

Message from the Head his is the seventh issue of Physics only 20 percent of the total university system levels will be a TIllinois News and my last as head UIUC budget comes from state multi-year challenge. I am confident of the department. I will be stepping appropriations, a smaller fraction than that the Department of Physics will down as head and retiring from the comes from tuition. Nevertheless, we come out stronger in the end, but it University this summer. At that time, have been able to hire new faculty, the will need help from all of its friends. I will have completed 39 years as a lifeblood of our department, during I am also confident that the member of the faculty and 6 as head. every year that I have been head. Department will play a major role in As I look back, I am amazed how Between January 2005, when Joe assisting the College of Engineering quickly 39 years has passed and how White took office as the new president and the University of Illinois at much the personnel, research, of the University of Illinois system, Urbana-Champaign to meet their teaching styles, and the outreach and Summer 2006, when my challenges and goals as well. I also programs of the Department of successor takes over, there will have know that the new head of the Physics have changed, and at the been a complete turnover of the Department of Physics will struggle same time how the ethos of administrative hierarchy: Head of with the same issues that Wheeler department—the collegial Urbana Physics, Dean of Engineering, Provost, Loomis and every department head spirit—has endured. The latter is the Chancellor, and President. Starting in since have had to deal with—money most important news I have to Spring 2005, the ground work was and space! report, and I am proud of that. laid for a strategic planning process at It has been a great honor to have During my tenure as head, all levels of the University to redefine served as head of the Department of especially in the last four years, the its mission and its relationship to the Physics, and I am deeply humbled to long-standing implicit covenant State and, at the same time, to expand have been entrusted with that between public universities and its national and international reach. opportunity and responsibility. I their state governments has changed The planning process will come to irreversibly, even at land grant completion in June 2006. universities such as ours. In the Executing the strategic plans at the current academic year, for example, departmental, college, campus, and Jeremiah D. Sullivan First Atom-by-Atom Simulation of a Life Form

he computing horsepower of one collaborated with crystallographers at Tof the world’s most powerful the University of California, Irvine— has been harnessed Alexander McPherson, a professor of by Swanlund Professor of Physics molecular and , Klaus Schulten and his research group and research specialist Steven Larson. to visualize the behavior of a complete The group’s results were published in life form, the satellite tobacco mosaic the March issue of Structure (P.L. virus. According to the researchers, Freddolino, et al., Structure 14, their simulation, done at the 437–449 [2006]). National Center for Supercomputing The researchers visualized the Applications, University of Illinois at dynamic atomic structure of the virus Urbana-Champaign, is the first to in a saline solution by calculating, in capture an entire biological organism femtosecond time steps, how each in atom-by-atom detail. A better of its ~1 million atoms moved. understanding of viral structures The simulation utilized the latest and mechanisms is an essential step version of NAMD®, a software in allowing scientists to develop program developed by Schulten and improved methods of combatting his colleagues over the last decade to viral infections in plants, animals, model the molecular dynamics of and eventually, . biological molecules. The program allowed the supercomputer’s 500 processors to work in parallel on oup r the same problem. Even so, the simulation took about 50 days to iophysics G Klaus Schulten, right, with students Peter Freddolino, bottom, and Anton Arkhipov, center generate 50 ns of virus activity. “Such a task would take a desktop shows that the virus coat collapses “It may take still a long time to computer around 35 years,” according without its genetic material, simulate a dog wagging its tail with a to Schulten. “This is just a first suggesting that when reproducing, computer,” said Schulten. “But a big

etical and Computational B glimpse of a moving virus,” he said, the virus builds its coat around the first step has been taken to ‘test fly’ living organisms. Naturally, this step Theor “but it looks gorgeous.” genetic material, rather than inserting “The simulations followed the life it into a pre-existing coat as was will assist modern medicine as we of the satellite tobacco mosaic virus, commonly assumed. “We saw continue to learn more about how but only for a very brief time,” something that is truly revolutionary,” viruses live.” I added Freddolino and Arkhipov. Schulten said. This work was supported by the National Institutes of First all-atom simulation of the satellite “Nevertheless, they allowed us to Ultimately, computational Health and by allotments of computing time from the tobacco mosaic virus discover key physical properties of the biophysicists will generate longer National Center for Supercomputing Applications viral particle, as well as providing simulations of larger biological through its National Science Foundation funding. Schulten’s group, which includes macromolecules, but that The conclusions presented are those of the authors crucial information on its assembly.” and not necessarily those of the funding agencies. Peter Freddolino, a graduate student In the brief simulation, the virus development will wait on the next in biophysics and computational looks spherical but expands and generation of supercomputers, the biology, and Anton Arkhipov, a contracts asymmetrically, as if it so-called petascale high-performance graduate student in physics, were “breathing.” The model also computing systems.

1948 The Board of Trustees approves the purchase of a 1949 The Digital Computer Laboratory (DCL) is 1950 Arnold Nordsieck (Physics) finishes building his Physics and large digital computer for $150,000 from the Reeves organized as a unit of the Graduate College and tasked “differential analyzer”—an analog computer capable of solving Computing Instrument Company. When it becomes clear that the company with building the University’s first computer system. complex equations and drawing curves—out of war surplus cannot deliver the machine, the University’s Research Board, Ralph Meagher (Physics) is named Chief Engineer. materials. Clones will subsequently become the first computers at Illinois headed by physicist Louis Ridenour, proposes that it design a (Professors of Physics will be involved in the design at the University of California Radiation Laboratory (which will computer itself. (On January 13, 1949, the Trustees authorize and construction of ORDVAC and ILLIACs I, II, and III.) become Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and at the Research Board to proceed.) Purdue University.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 3

Larry Smarr: NCSA’s Architect Still Revolutionizing Information Infrastructure

could do—and that its speed was several for the rest of the country. recruited to the University of California, hundred times faster than anything “I then worked closely with Ted San Diego (UCSD) in the Department achieved with the local VAX computer, Brown, the vice chancellor for research, of Computer Science and Engineering. which was as large as any US research and George Badger, head of the Although intending to return to basic group had at the time. These experiences Computing Services Office, in creating research in led Smarr and his UI colleagues to the structure of NCSA. By that time, architectures, Smarr was again asked to compile 65 case studies from 16 I was so far into it, I had to become the play a trailblazer role—this time to departments, demonstrating the need first director,” Smarr said. He assumed answer the call to create a California for greater computing capabilities to the reins in 1985 and was named Institute for Science and , carry out research projects. in 1997 to head the National an initiative championed by both the Computational Science Alliance before state’s governor and then UC President Putting It In Writing stepping down in March 2000. Richard Atkinson. Smarr was asked to Larry Smarr as a young assistant professor, In 1983, while the National Science pull together a team between UCSD “A Long, Proud Tradition” when NCSA was only a dream. Foundation was still conducting blue- and UC, Irvine, develop a proposal, ribbon panel discussions on the need for Smarr saw NCSA as “a very natural and win the competition. supercomputing, Smarr wrote a proposal step in a long, proud tradition of Given his previous success in launching BY CYNDI PACELEY recommending development of a supercomputing technology for the NCSA, it’s no surprise that Smarr did just hen he left the University of national supercomputer center. U of I at Urbana-Champaign.” that. Bringing together more than 100 W Illinois for the University of “It still amazes me that I—an assistant In answer to those who attempt to faculty at the frontiers of information California six years ago, former Physics professor at the time—had the nerve credit solely him for NCSA, he offers technology, telecommunications, professor Larry Smarr knew that to author an unsolicited proposal for an interesting historical footnote to nanotechnology, and applications of all of $55 million to the NSF,” Smarr said. coincidence or fate—or both. these to biomedical research, intelligent uncharted waters awaited him. But little He sought the guidance of Ralph “A letter dated October 16, 1948— transportation, the environment and did he realize that he would also gain Simmons, head of the physics the day I was born—was sent from the civil infrastructure, and the new media the opportunity to captain a maiden department, on how to best deliver U of I to J. Robert Oppenheimer, who arts “was a once-in-a-lifetime ship and to learn about entirely new the document. had recently left the Los Alamos opportunity,” he said. academic disciplines—including a key “Ralph suggested that we put it in an Project to direct the Institute The Institute’s newest project, just component of our earth’s oceans. envelope marked ‘Director, NSF,’ hop on for Advanced Study in Princeton, New unveiled in mid-January, unites Smarr’s New frontiers have always appealed to a plane, and deliver it to NSF’s Math and Jersey. The letter advocated plans for professional interest in computational Smarr, who knew from the first grade Physical Sciences assistant director Marcel constructing two “supercomputers”— structures with a personal love of marine that he was going to be a scientist. Early Bardon, whom Ralph knew well,” Smarr one in Princeton for John von reefs. in his career, Smarr made his mark in explained. “That someone of Ralph’s Neumann and the other at the U of I. Researchers at UCSD will build a state- relativistic astrophysics, founding the stature was willing to support a junior That computer became ILLIAC I. of-the-art computational resource and field of numerical general relativity professor like me in such a substantial “So I can say that fully all of my life, develop software tools to decipher the and making major contributions to way speaks volumes about his the U of I has been at the forefront of genetic code of communities of microbial computational high energy leadership.” high performance computing,” Smarr life in the world’s oceans. The new astrophysics—supernovae, neutron After a “frustrating” wait of a year and said. resource will help scientists understand stars, blackholes, relativistic a half while the NSF leaders reviewed “Completed 31 years before my initial how microbes function in their natural magnetohydrodynamics, and galactic Smarr’s proposal as part of a new national NSF proposal, ILLIAC I was that key ecosystems and enable studies on the jet dynamics. competition, the University of Illinois first step in making Illinois a computing effect humans are having on the It was his work in computational was tapped as one of the nation’s five powerhouse,” he continued. “As a result environment, as well as permit insight science that led him to realize the need NSF supercomputer center locations, of the ILLIAC I, II, III, IV, and into the evolution of life on Earth. for an integrated system for computing, creating the National Center for CEDAR, the University for many The project gives Smarr “a wonderful storage, visualization, and analysis to Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) years recruited faculty in different opportunity” to learn entirely new support scientific research. in 1985. departments who did the type of work disciplines, such as microbial ecology Not surprisingly, Physics played a But the first step was finding a suitable suited to supercomputing,” he added. metagenomics “with mentors who are major role in the origins of such a location for the actual supercomputing “That Illinois had the fertile intellectual the worlds’ leading scientific researchers.” system. With a joint appointment in units. Enter another Smarr mentor in ground already in place—and nationally “I get to combine that frontier Physics and Astronomy, Smarr and his the person of Ned Goldwasser, a former recognized—was the reason we were scientific-discovery excitement with the colleagues began building an early Physics professor who had become able to organize around NCSA.” ability to architect whole new classes of version of a supercomputing center in Fermilab’s deputy director in 1967 science servers connected by dedicated 1979–80. With the fitting acronym of and then returned to campus as vice Heading West optical networks to the laboratories of VIP (VAX and Image Processing chancellor for research and dean of Pursuit of emerging science has been one end-users around the globe,” he said. Center), a consortium of faculty in the Graduate College. of the happy outcomes of Smarr’s move “It’s hard to imagine a more exciting physics, astronomy, atmospheric “Because of his background in physics to California in 2000, where he was challenge.” I sciences, and theoretical and applied accelerators, Ned understood that we mechanics pursued interdisciplinary needed a world-class facility to house the collaborations in computer simulations supercomputers and their storage units. and visualizations of large data sets. Fortunately, the Advanced Computation “It was a first step in gaining Lab’s second floor had been built to experience to address the very limited house the University’s ILLIAC IV computing power available to university computer in 1968,” Smarr said. “I told researchers at that time,” Smarr recalled. Ned that with a little work, it could Creating VIP sparked discussions become our first supercomputer work across the Urbana-Champaign campus room.” That “little work” translated about supercomputing’s increasingly into several million dollars—a huge central role in basic research. At the commitment for the campus at that time. same time, Smarr was exposed to It was quickly apparent that the first supercomputing in action. As a Fellow two-processor Cray X-MP would soon at Germany’s renowned have to be upgraded, since a lone Institute for Physics and Astrophysics theoretical and particle physicist—John Announcing the Moore Foundation grant for the CAMERA project. Left to right: Craig during the summer of 1982, he saw Kogut—could easily use all of one of the firsthand what a Cray supercomputer Venter, President, J. Craig Venter Institute; UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, Calit2 processors while the other was reserved Director Larry Smarr; and Scripps Institution of Oceanography Deputy Director John Orcutt.

1951 Hoping to avoid the mass exodus of Urbana 1957 The Digital Computer Laboratory, 1959 Daniel Alpert 1960 A pattern 1961 Using ILLIAC I as a computational engine, researchers that occurred during World War II, Louis Ridenour, which has been offering classes to (Physics) begins a recognition computer PLATO becomes the nation’s first computer-assisted now dean of the Graduate College, works with Wheeler Loomis students since 1954, becomes a full project in CSL for (ILLIAC III) is designed in program of instruction. Conceived by Chalmers Sherwin to establish the Control Systems Laboratory (CSL). Funded by department with Ralph Meagher (Physics) computer-assisted Physics to analyze bubble (Physics) and developed under the direction of Don grants from all three branches of the Armed Services, the CSL as its head. (A subsequent head, James N. instruction, which will chamber photographs of Bitzer (), PLATO is the world’s first focuses on and on possible uses of the new digital Snyder, will also come from Physics.) come to be known as high-energy particle time-shared computer-based education system and the computers. PLATO. events. home of the world’s first on-line community.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

4 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 Dan Alpert Continues Shaping Technology and Education

BY CYNDI PACELEY setting up a new project students were served by a single PLATO

ssociation in CSL given the absence network. It contained features such as rom solving college-level of leadership personnel email, listservs, and messaging, similar Fmathematics problems posed by a lumni A in the required areas of to such features now available on the revered high school algebra teacher to llinois A expertise. Despite the Internet, though at much higher costs developing a device for airborne radar committee’s negative for the communication services. ersity of I to pioneering the field of ultra-high niv recommendation, Alpert And PLATO continues today. A public U vacuum, it’s no surprise that Dan proceeded on a quite company headquartered in Bloomington, Alpert’s zest for learning created the different tack. Based Minnesota, with offices throughout path to computer-based education. upon his experience with North America and the United Kingdom, Pursuit of new horizons in education interdisciplinary projects, as well as international distributors and public policy could be the central he sought a single worldwide, PLATO Learning, Inc. is theme of this 88-year-old scholar’s life. imaginative researcher a leading provider of computer-based In addition to his role as Physics Daniel Alpert (left) and Wheeler Loomis in the Control who was technologically and e-learning instruction for faculty member, Alpert also served the Systems Laboratory, November 1958 gifted and was qualified kindergarteners through adult learners. campus as technical director of the to teach at least one Control Systems Laboratory and Alpert responded to a key directive: to course in what was later to be called New Horizons director of its successor, the develop and implement a strategic plan computer science. He found those Though his involvement with PLATO Coordinated Science Laboratory, dean for the Laboratory, an effort obviously characteristics in an electrical ended 30 years ago, Alpert is still a of the Graduate College, director of the requiring consultation with UI faculty, engineering graduate student, Don proponent of broadening the horizons for Center for Advanced Study, director of military sponsors, and CSL professional Bitzer, who was soon recognized as the using innovative technology in teaching the Program in Science, Technology and staff. The central features of the plan technical of the overall design, and learning at all levels. He serves on Society, and senior policy adviser in the included ending classified research at and the project was born. the board of advisers for the Office of National Center for Supercomputing the laboratory and opening its facilities Within a few months, individuals in Mathematics, Science and Technology Applications (NCSA). He is drawing on to the campus; using CSL’s traditional various roles were added to the project, Education (MSTE) within the U of I these experiences to promote education problem-solving capabilities to address and after a year or more, the PLATO College of Education. MSTE is accessible reform and reconsideration of science public problems; and changing the name was adopted. “My role was that of to students and teachers throughout the and technology policy in his current name of the laboratory but retaining the champion, source of financial support, Internet world, offers low-cost or no-cost role as a senior policy adviser at the initials CSL—by which it was known and bridge to the academic and modules on otherwise difficult topics, University’s Institute for Government to the campus and to its Washington Washington scenes,” Alpert recalled. and supports a growing MSTE network and Public Affairs. sponsors. This was the new mission “I was in the unique position to help of teachers and students. Alpert’s papers, donated to the setting in which the PLATO project bring all of the right University Archives in 1999, reveal the was started—in the search for projects personnel and pieces together, scope of his interests and the impact of for which computers could be applied to while others provided the his leadership. Notes from his course on civilian needs. With the completion of technological inspiration for technology, values and the future share ILLIAC in Fall 1952, the campus had the authoring system.” space with his original plan for the already gained acclaim for building one Providing access for student Science, Technology and Society of the first electronic computers owned learning at all levels, each Program. Early notes on entirely by an educational institution. PLATO terminal could also supercomputing on the Urbana- The computing era was fully underway. be used to “author” lessons, Champaign campus join an initial modules, and courses and proposal for the Beckman Institute PLATO Emerges could be used in various for Advanced Science and Technology. The possible application of computers to educational institutions, in Alpert co-authored the earliest peer- education was one of the first areas that community colleges, and in Dan Alpert at an early PLATO terminal reviewed paper on the PLATO Alpert explored. He assembled a group military training centers. project, and as chairman of a national of engineers, educators, mathematicians, By the early 1980s, a single PLATO The MSTE and his policy-centered multidisciplinary committee appointed and psychologists to consider how system had a network of more than work for the Institute of Government and by the National Academy of Sciences, computers might aid in students’ 2000 terminals, located between Boston Public Affairs are the focus of Alpert’s he was principal author of the learning. The group was positive about and Hawaii. Over time, hundreds or current energies. In a paper recently influential report, “The Impact of the prospects, but quite negative about thousands of authors and thousands of co-authored with IGPA director Robert Science and Technology on Regional Rich, Alpert addresses the information Economic Development.” revolution’s implications for higher education policy. And as a participant in Early Years Set the Stage a project involving NCSA and IGPA, he Alpert joined the campus in 1957 is exploring how advanced technologies as professor of physics and technical can assist ongoing efforts in the public director of the Control Systems sector to improve the effectiveness and Laboratory, following a successful efficiency of government agencies. career as a research physicist and “The relationship between academic Physics Department manager at the research and the real world has been a Westinghouse Research Laboratories. longstanding concern of mine,” he said. While at Westinghouse, he became It would appear that Alpert is internationally known for his managing his own academics-life contributions to the field of ultra-high relationship quite well in his semi- The latest [i.e., 1975, ed.] in Physics discussion sections. Thirty PLATO terminals in Room vacuum, including the co-invention of 220 Physics Building are busy nearly 40 hours per week during the school year. The computer- retirement. From his home in Colorado, the Bayard–Alpert ionization gauge. assisted instruction provided by PLATO supplements the work in numerous courses, and, for he continues to advance computer-based As technical director of CSL, which about 200 students in a developmental group in elementary mechanics, PLATO provides a education and policy analysis while had been started as a classified research substantial portion of their instruction. (from the Summary of Engineering Research, College pursuing hiking, biking, and downhill enterprise during the , of Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 1976) skiing with equal zeal. I

1966 The High Energy Physics 1967 The CSL completes the CSX-1 computer 1984 Larry Smarr (Physics) 1986 The National Center for 1989 Wolfram Research, founded Group (HEPG), the largest single for the HEPG and moves it to the Physics Building. submits proposal #8404556 to the Supercomputing Applications opens by Stephen Wolfram (Physics) in user of University mainframe Designed by CSL Professor Richard Brown, who National Science Foundation to in Urbana, one of the five original 1987, releases Mathematica®. computers, begins negotiations will later join Physics along with his computer, the establish a supercomputer center NSF supercomputer centers, with with CSL to provide computer CSX-1 is the first computer to be partially designed at the University of Illinois. Larry Smarr as its director. services. by another computer, in this case the ILLIAC II.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 5 The Innovation of PLATO Homework

BY CYNDI PACELEY was interested in motivating students. She ow does a major research guided the development Huniversity maximize its resources of an on-line quiz system while providing optimal teaching when in the introductory a required course can pull in as many electricity and magnetism as 1,200 students a semester? course. Preparation for At the University of Illinois a little these quizzes became the more than 30 years ago, computer- weekly homework activity. based instruction delivered via the At their assigned quiz PLATO system emerged as a new and time, students had 20 intriguing way “to do a better job of minutes at a terminal to The PLATO log-in screen at 3:20 p.m. CST, February 14, 1975 teaching large-enrollment courses,” A Physics 107 PLATO quiz. What was the work a variant of one of recalled Denny Kane, senior specialist magnitude of the net electric force on q at the multi-part problems in for automated education and teaching its initial position? (ignore gravity) for the students to work story the set they had studied for that week. associate in Physics. problems—and lots of them,” Kane In a memorial prepared for the 1995 Since his arrival on the Urbana- assistants more available to the students said. “That means taking the Physics Newsletter, Robert Delbourgo Champaign campus in 1972, Kane for one-on-one instruction.” information provided, modeling the (University of Tasmania, Australia) and has served as the continuing thread The idea was to do a more uniform story in algebra, and calculating an Laura H. Greene (University of Illinois in the department’s computer-based and efficient job of teaching the answer to the numerical question that at Urbana-Champaign) recalled this instruction. He first worked with material—particularly with continuing had been posed. aspect of Jones’ work: Bruce Sherwood in converting physics high enrollments in these courses, “A computerized approach seemed “Professor Jones was a dedicated and lessons from PLATO III (a primarily along with fewer graduate students ideal for presenting and grading dozens innovative teacher who was particularly development system) to PLATO IV available to teach. of problems over the course of a interested in the application of (the first production-level system in the After repeatedly comparing outcomes semester for the hundreds of students computers to physics education. series developed by the Computer-Based from PLATO and non-PLATO classes, we typically have enrolled in our In 1985, she pioneered the use of Education Research Laboratory at it was clear that these large courses introductory courses,” he continued. computerized quizzes for a large Urbana-Champaign). could be taught successfully in the new, This pioneering effort with PLATO elementary physics course at Illinois, “We placed the roughly 1,200 more efficient way. The new method eventually led to the development of one of the earliest developments of its students enrolled in the introductory was shown not to adversely affect the Tycho system used today—a Web kind, nationwide. Recently, she mechanics course into two groups: student learning and actually to interface that delivers various kinds of collaborated in the development of PLATO and non-PLATO sections,” improve overall student attitudes for-credit homework and quiz exercises computer lessons, incorporating Kane said. “We thought that some about the courses. to all students in the department’s digitized video of lecture type of automation would benefit the “We know that in the physics courses large-enrollment courses. As with demonstrations. She also initiated a student experience by making teaching for engineers, the best way to learn is PLATO’s individualized approach, project to develop materials and Tycho exercises usually include a help curricula to introduce physics in the button that provides an optional local elementary schools.” sequence of simpler questions to assist Although Jones was a superb scientist, History of the PLATO Project the student in mastering more basic perhaps one of her most enduring material or in offering additional help legacies will be the way in which 1960 June PLATO I (one terminal) that guides the student to solving the 1961 January PLATO II (two terminals) thousands of U of I physics and initial problem. engineering alumni remember her—as a 1961 March First remote terminal (30 miles) Kane recalled that when the late 1961 Spring First teaching attempt using PLATO faculty member who helped them learn Professor Lorella Jones became involved 1962 Spring First college credit for students taking a course using PLATO to learn through innovative physics with PLATO—known then and now 1963 Fall First stage of PLATO III completed computerized homework. I as NovaNet—in the early 1980s, she 1964 December First on-line editing possible 1966 March PLATO III (20 terminals)

1967 Summer TUTOR author language in use ette az 1968 March PLATO IV system design started ews-G 1968 June First time-shared authoring and student use 1968 Winter Four remote demonstration centers in operation (12 to 14 terminals in each) The N 1969 Summer 150 hours of instructional material developed by this date 1970 Summer 720 hours of instructional material developed; 100,000 student contact hours of use 1971 May Delivery of first Digivue display from Owens-Illinois 1971 June Delivery of first PLATO IV terminal from Magnavox 1972 Summer 1,600 hours of PLATO III instructional material in about 70 courses with 154,000 student contact hours to date 1972 Summer 40 PLATO IV terminals in operation; intensive PLATO IV lesson development; remote on-line demonstrations in Canada, Europe, and USA 1972 Winter 250 PLATO IV terminals in operation at approximately 40 locations (15 on the UI campus and about 25 off campus) 1973 June PLATO III phased out 1973 Fall Remote on-line demonstrations in Sweden and the Soviet Union; 1,500 hours of available PLATO IV lesson material in 50 teaching areas; 25,000 student contact hours between September and December 31, 1973 1974 400 terminals in operation at approximately 70 locations This photo of Arnold T. Nordsieck and his “differential analyzer,” an early analog computer, was published in the April 2, 1950, edition of the Champaign News-Gazette. Under the (20 on the UI campus and about 50 off campus) screaming headline, “Illini Scientist builds ‘brain’ with $700,” the editors breathlessly from PLATO (Computer-based Education Research Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 5/74) announced that the machine “all but talks.” Their caption: “Doctor Arnold T. Nordsieck, professor of physics at the UI, sits before the ‘Differential Analyzer,’ which he built out of war surplus materials. The machine calculates complex mathematical problems and draws curves.”

1992 Physics graduate student Brand 1994 Spyglass, Inc. 2000 Richard Martin (Physics), with 2006 Paul Kwiat (Physics) and 2006 Klaus Schulten (Physics and ) and his Fortner (BS ’77, MS ’82, PhD ’93), who had releases Mosaic®, Duane Johnson (MatSE and Physics), his research group, using an optical-based research group create the first atom-by-atom simulation been working on visualization software at the first commercial secures funding from the National Science quantum computer, demonstrate of a life form, the satellite tobacco mosaic virus, a tiny NCSA, founds Spyglass, Inc. with Timothy Internet browser. Foundation and IBM Corporation to “counterfactual computation,” inferring spherical package of RNA. The simulation modeled how Krauskopf (MS ’87, Computer Science) to establish the multidisciplinary Materials information about the results of a computation each of the ~1 million atoms in the virus interacted with develop scientific software. Computational Center in the MRL. even though the computer did not run. one another and with the atoms in a surrounding saline solution every femtosecond.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

6 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 Faculty News Budakian Shares World DeMarco Receives Sloan Fellowship Technology Award

n November 15, at a gala on such problems as determination of Oceremony at the San Francisco protein structure, which remains an City Hall, Raffi Budakian, an assistant unsolved problem with profound professor of physics, was recognized implications to our understanding of with the 2005 World Technology protein function. Our work on single Award in the “materials” category. spin detection is a crucial milestone Budakian shared the award with his along the way to three-dimensional former IBM colleagues Daniel Rugar, imaging of single molecules.” John Mamin, and Benjamin Chui. Budakian earned his bachelor’s, The World Technology Network master’s, and PhD degrees in physics (WTN) combines a global meeting from the University of California, ground, a virtual think tank, and an Los Angeles. From 2002 to 2005, he elite club whose members are involved was a visiting scientist at the IBM with the business or science of Almaden Research Center in San Jose, important emerging technologies of California, where he was part of a all types (from biotech to new team that first imaged the spin of a materials, from IT to new energy single defect in glass. sources). The WTN’s membership is At Illinois, Budakian is developing comprised of nearly 1000 individuals ultra-sensitive spin detection and organizations from more than techniques for single spin imaging Brian DeMarco 60 countries that have been and quantum readout. Current areas nominated and judged by their peers of research include designing and to be the most innovative in the fabricating micro-machined ssistant Professor of Physics Brian of intersecting laser beams. According technology world. cantilevers for sub-attonewton force ADeMarco was one of 20 young to DeMarco, “Ultra-cold atoms “The award recognizes our work detection, devising spin in the and trapped in optical lattices have on single spin detection using a detection/manipulation protocols that Canada to receive a 2006 Alfred P. fantastic promise for quantum technique known as magnetic enable force detection at the thermal Sloan Research Fellowship. DeMarco information processing, because resonance force microscopy limit, imaging single dopants and is an AMO experimentalist who is millions of atoms having long (MRFM),” explained Budakian, who defects in , using active interested in quantum information internal-state coherence times can be joined the Physics faculty in August feedback to achieve spin control, and science and atomic Bose–Einstein precisely manipulated in parallel.” 2005. “The ultimate goal of MRFM combining MRFM with electron condensates and Fermi gases. His The first step in the quest to build is for three-dimensional imaging of nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) current research is focused on a quantum simulator was reached by matter on the atomic scale. If for high-sensitivity nuclear spin achieving a workable “quantum DeMarco’s group in August 2005, successful, it will help shed detection. I simulator,” which uses a quantum when they successfully created a system over which precise and Bose–Einstein condensate of 87Rb microscopic manipulation is possible atoms. They are now working on to simulate efficiently many-body developing the optics and laser systems quantum mechanics—the initial required to create an optical lattice. motivation behind the quantum The Sloan Research Fellowships computer that was proposed by were established in 1955. They are Feynman, Benioff, and others in intended to enhance the careers of the the 1980s. very best young faculty members in DeMarco plans to utilize ultra-cold specified fields of science. Currently neutral atoms trapped in an optical about 100 grants are awarded annually lattice to achieve quantum simulation. in seven fields: chemistry, physics, In optical lattice experiments, atoms mathematics, computer science, are confined by the optical dipole economics, , and force in the potential wells formed computational and evolutionary from the spatial interference pattern molecular biology. I

Second Annual Slichter Colloquium

On March 30, the second

oldenfeld Slichter Colloquium was held in Physics. Michael igel D. G N Tinkham, Rumford Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University, spoke on “50 Years of Superconductivity.” Shown here with Tinkham (right) are Charles Slichter and Donald M. Ginsberg, who was Tinkham’s student.

Raffi Budakian

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 7

The Science of Stability: Research Reveals Insight into Stability of Thin Films

BY JOHN MORGAN, SCIENCE Miller, a member of the research team WRITER—THE SYNCHROTRON and a resident scientist at SRC. “So in RADIATION CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF a way we’re trying to get the most WISCONSIN boring sample possible!” Yet for several years the group’s ust as every snowflake is different progress has been anything but Jfrom any other, an individual boring. In fact, Chiang and his snowball exhibits exceptionally colleagues have been exceptionally different properties from the successful; while the work is deeply thousands of snowflakes that make rooted in the fundamental exploration it up. A group led by Dr. Tai-Chang of physical properties, there are many Chiang studies how thin films of exciting practical benefits to this materials—such as lead films research. deposited on silicon—exhibit different “Our work on atomically uniform traits from those of their more massive films provides a fundamental cousins. Most recently, the researchers understanding of the relationship have found that it is possible to turn between structure and properties unstable films into stable ones. based on quantum physics. Ultrathin “Our results demonstrate that films are important components for unstable film thicknesses can be devices, now and in the future,” says turned into stable ones. This capability Chiang. “Our work on quantum is important for developing strategies well states began in the 1980s (at the for device applications,” wrote Chiang SRC). The first report of quantum and his colleagues (D.A. Ricci, T. well states as observed by angle- Miller, and T.-C. Chiang, Phys. Rev. resolved photoemission appeared in Letters 95, 266101 [2005]). The work 1986. My group discovered in 1998 was also summarized recently as a that atomically uniform films of Ag research highlight in the journal can be prepared on Fe. In 2004, we Nature (12 January 2006). reported that atomically uniform films “In the present work, we compare Tai-Chang Chiang and Dominic Ricci (PhD ’06) of Pb and Ag can be prepared on Si the stability properties of Pb films and Ge, the most important electronic deposited on Pb-, In-, and Au- substrate materials. The work has terminated Si surfaces,” explains University of Wisconsin, where the properties can be substantially potential for great impact on future Chiang. The research reveals that research was conducted, we measure different and possibly useful,” electronic devices.” I while odd-numbered layers of thin the electronic structure of films. Chiang explains. films are normally less stable than Essentially all physical properties of Indeed, it’s this ability to reduce Reprinted with permission. This article even-numbered ones, when an materials are determined by their materials down to a few atoms of was first published on the SRC website at thickness—along with making the www.src.wisc.edu, copyright of the Board intervening layer of indium atoms is electronic structure. Due to quantum of Regents of UW Madison. put between lead and silicon, the odd- confinement and boundary effects, films as smooth as possible—that is numbered films become more stable. thin film electronic structure can be the group’s goal. “In some ways what “In our research at the Synchrotron very different from the bulk we’re trying to get is the simplest Radiation Center (SRC) at the counterpart, and likewise the possible sample,” explains Dr. Tom

New APS Fellows

he American Physical Society announced in December 2005 that Physics Tfaculty James N. Eckstein and Taekjip Ha, along with two distinguished alumni, had been selected as 2006 APS Fellows in recognition of their pioneering contributions to physics.

James N. Eckstein, professor of physics, for development of layer-by-layer growth of oxide films for fundamental studies and for planar tunneling junctions made from oxide superconductors and oxide magnets (Materials Physics)

Taekjip Ha, associate professor of physics and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, for innovative work in the determination of nucleic acids’ structure and dynamics using single molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (Biological Physics)

Alan David Bross (MS ’74, PhD ’77), staff scientist, Fermilab, for his pioneering efforts in developing the D0 fiber tracking detector (Particles & Fields)

Eric Lawrence Shirley (MS ’88, PhD ’91), staff physicist, Physics Laboratory, NIST, for important contributions to the computation of the optical properties of from the infrared to the x-ray spectral regions () James N. Eckstein Taekjip Ha

CONGRATULATIONS!

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8 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1

Department News

Vijay R. Pandharipande, 1940–2006

awarded by the University of Bombay in 1969. After postdoctoral fellowships at the Institute, Copenhagen, and Cornell University, he came to the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois as a research associate in 1972 and was appointed to the faculty as an assistant professor in 1973. He was promoted to associate professor in 1974 and to full professor in 1977. A member of the board of directors of the European Center for Theoretical Nuclear Physics, Professor Pandharipande also held ijay R. Pandharipande, Donald a visiting faculty appointment at VB. and Elizabeth M. Willett Argonne National Laboratory from Professor in Physics, died on 1983 until his death. January 3, 2006, in Boston, An internationally recognized Massachusetts, after a long battle nuclear theorist, Professor with cancer. A memorial service Pandharipande played a leading was held at the Beckman Institute role in the development of the Vijay Pandharipande with his lifelong friends and collaborators, Gordon Baym and in Urbana on January 15. nuclear many-body problem. (April 28, 1977, in Urbana) Professor Pandharipande was His contributions led to a state-of- born on August 7, 1940, in the-art comprehensive, quantitative, of the enhancement of the effective three nucleons using realistic Nagpur, , the son of and reliable theory of nuclei, neutron mass at the Fermi surface of Fermi nucleon-nucleon interactions Raghunath and Kamal matter, and neutron stars, and were liquid helium. supplemented by three-body forces, Pandharipande (née Brahma). extended more generally to quantum Professor Pandharipande was a Professor Pandharipande was He married Rajeshwari Sinha in liquids. His theoretical contributions life member of the Indian Physical awarded the prestigious Tom W. 1966; she survives. Also surviving set the agenda for experimental work, Society, a Fellow of the American Bonner prize of the American are his son Rahul Pandharipande significantly advancing the use of Physical Society, and a permanent Physical Society in 1999. of Princeton, New Jersey, daughter electron scattering as a probe of member of the University of Illinois’ Among those who knew him well, Pari Pandharipande of Boston, nuclear structure. Working with his Center for Advanced Study. He served Professor Pandharipande will be Massachusetts, grandson graduate students and collaborators, as a member of the editorial board of remembered most for two things, Dhruva Schlondorff of Boston, he initiated and carried out over C, American Physical his devotion to his family and his Massachusetts, and his sister several decades a successful research Society, 1991–1994, and a member of dedication to his students. His Kalpana White of Waltham, program to describe all nuclear the editorial board of the Journal of daughter Pari wrote of him, Massachusetts. He was preceded systems in terms of the elementary Physics G: Nuclear and , “His style of gardening, a favorite in death by his parents and his two- and three-body interactions Institute of Physics (UK). He also hobby of his, best exemplifies his brother. of the constituent nucleons. His served as an editor for Nuclear Physics manner—he planted and nurtured Professor Pandharipande studied pioneering variational Monte Carlo and Computer Physics flowers with striking attention to at the College of Science, Nagpur, calculations have become the Communications, North Holland. their growth, but without fences or India, and received a bachelor standard methods for the field. In recognition of his fundamental boundaries. From early spring to of science degree in physics, In addition to his nuclear studies, contributions to determining the late fall, he loved to watch each mathematics, and applied Professor Pandharipande applied his structure of light nuclei by solving the variety thrive in its moment.” I mathematics, and a master of expertise to condensed matter physics, Schrödinger problem with more than science degree in physics from where his research included Bose and Nagpur University, Nagpur, India, Fermi helium liquids and drops, in 1959 and 1961 respectively. including structure, response, and Upon graduation, he joined the elementary excitations. Most notably, Tata Institute of Fundamental he predicted structures subsequently Research, Bombay, India, where he observed in the dynamic response simultaneously began work towards of Bose superfluid helium and a doctorate in physics, which was demonstrated the important effects

Special Symposium

A special symposium will be held in Urbana on September 29–30, 2006, to honor the life and celebrate the scientific achievements of Vijay R. Pandharipande.

For further information, email [email protected].

Vijay doing what he loved—talking physics with one of his students (Joe Carlson, MS ’79, PhD ’83)

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PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 9

Physical Revue 2005: Refuse of

1 2 3

he worst snowstorm 1. PR veteran Igor Roshchin of the season did not T 2. Donald Ginsberg, the poet laureate deter the standing-room- of Physics only crowd for the 2005 Physical Revue, Refuse of 3. Good advice from “So Now You’re a TA” Modern Physics. Graduate instructional movie student Paras Naik was the laid-back, gold-chain- 4. Mike Stone “gets his groove on” in bedecked, hip-hoppin’ “Hollywood Freaks” emcee for the show, which 4 5 featured a WLLP news 5. The WLLP “sports” wrap-up broadcast, some stuff played on guitar (Soren Flexner), and poetry their coffee hour. The Dan Korean martial art that involves the collection of the rarest cards (Albert by Donald “Everyone takes my vital Vandervelde Experience (Dan highly acrobatic jumps and flips while Einstein, , John signs/But still I have some left” Vandervelde and Rob Dinsmore) brandishing an enormous sword. Bardeen, and Soren Flexner), the most Ginsberg. expanded on the theme with a vintage Los Loomiseros entertained the crowd complete set, and the most cards of the The world-renowned PR veteran, movie, modeled after 1950s with lively and polished salsa dancing. same physicist. Mike Weissman won Igor Roshchin, who “speaks Russian instructional films, “So Now You’re In a break with recent tradition, the grand prize, a new toy Yoda (not with a strong English accent,” a TA.” Unlike the Hollywood only one band performed. The a new Toyota, much to his chagrin). returned from balmy San Diego to blockbusters it emulated, the entire Perturbations (graduate students Paco The only disappointment of the deliver “Son of the Revenge of the movie was brainstormed on Sunday, Jain, Paras Naik, John Gergley, and rollicking evening was the non- Return of Igor.” The presentation written and filmed Monday through Andrew Missel) brought down the appearance of any faculty acts (with featured news of the world, including Wednesday, and touched up and house with “Doctorate,” “Superfluid,” the exception of Professor Ginsberg’s the President’s controversial decision rendered Thursday afternoon, before and “Stuck in Urbana.” In keeping traditional poetry reading). It is to address the crisis in nanoscience by its premiere Thursday night. A low- with tradition, “Hollywood Freaks,” uncertain whether the faculty has allowing exploration in the national resolution version of the movie is an animated feature by Eric White, simply given up, after having been nanoscience reserves, much to the online at https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ poked fun at the faculty. upstaged by the graduate students year dismay of the nano-environmentalists. rdinsmor/shared/sonowyoureata.wmv A new feature this year was after year, or if they are merely working Eugene “The TA” Torigoe offered for those who missed it the first time. Phantasy Physics—sets of trading up to something spectacular for 2006. insights from his 11 semesters of Quite fittingly, this year’s PR was cards featuring the all-time greats in This critic hopes it’s the latter. I teaching, including how physics physical as well as cerebral. James physics. The audience was encouraged students could avoid dirty looks from Reed, 1st Dahn, introduced the to trade cards, and prizes were the MRL denizens when gate-crashing audience to Kuk Sool Won, a traditional awarded to the person assembling “Intersections” Conference Tradition Continues

he ninth Conference on the the standard model to consequences of communications skills offered young TIntersections of Particle and the solar model. Abstracts are on the scientists expert counsel on the Nuclear Physics (CIPANP 2006) conference web site at preparation of talks, papers, figures, again offered the opportunity for http://cipanp.physics.uiuc.edu and proposals, and a technical editor discussion and collaboration in areas “Because nuclear and particle physics was available to offer writing critiques where the two subfields intersect. are closely related, both fields benefit and practical, one-on-one advice to In addition, this year’s meeting of from discussion and collaboration on the participants throughout the the triennial event featured workshop joint projects, similar techniques, conference. activities for young scientists. Rio different perspectives on the same Hertzog was joined in conference Grande, Puerto Rico, was the setting physics, and other manners of planning efforts by professors Douglas for the conference from May 30 to overlap,” said Conference Chair David Beck and Jen-Chieh Peng of the June 3. W. Hertzog, one of six University of nuclear physics group and Tony Liss, The conference program of 20 Illinois physics department faculty Mats Selen, and Scott Willenbrock plenary talks provided comprehensive who organized the conference. of the high-energy physics group. and pedagogical overviews, plus Thanks to financial support from Significant contributions were also 10 parallel strands explored topics in Brookhaven National Laboratory, University Research Associates, made by Physics staff and students. I depth – all spanning the range from Fermilab, Jefferson Lab, Berkeley Lab, students and postdocs were able to hot dense nuclei to cold dark matter; Los Alamos National Laboratory, the participate in the conference for a Detailed information about the conference, from deep-inelastic scattering to National Science Foundation, the reduced registration fee. In addition, including the list of plenary speakers and abstracts, is available at hadron spectroscopy; from tests of U of I Physics Department, and a unique short course on physics http://cipanp.physics.uiuc.edu.

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10 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 Student News Walsh Helps Electrify Village in India

Walsh drilling support beams for the solar dryer. Illinois’ Engineers Without Borders with villagers and members of the Walsh with the completed generator; his right arm is On the right is one of the group’s volunteer translators local partner organization Gana Chetana. resting on the vegetable oil tank. Note the two fuel from the Jagannath Institute for Technology and tanks—the engine starts on conventional diesel fuel Management. to warm up the cylinder for one minute, and then a valve switches over to the vegetable oil fuel.

hysics undergraduate T. Patrick rural villages. By demonstrating the completed to the point that the also provided fellowships to the PWalsh, a junior from Riverside, use of this vegetable oil, the students system could be finished by the students to pay for 80 percent of Illinois, and a member of the UI gave predominantly unemployed villagers, with assistance from the their airfare. Without the College of student chapter of Engineers without villagers the chance to produce a associated NGOs: AID-Orissa and Engineering’s initial financial support, Borders (EWB-UIUC), spent the substitute for diesel fuel, a liter of Gana Chetana,” Somers reported. the entire project would have been summer of 2005 bringing electricity which costs the daily wage of many The two organizations have formed a hopelessly delayed. and hope to rural India. Here is the laborers. coalition to act as stewards of the At the end of May 2005, Malia story of how bright, energetic, The EWB students brought basic project for the future. Appleford and Maren Somers dedicated UI students changed the tools and parts needed for the engine represented EWB-UIUC at a special life of a village. modification from the US, purchasing About the Orissa Project conference where they received, on Last May, six EWB members— the rest of the equipment in Orissa. behalf of their fellow volunteers, Walsh, Ben Barnes and Brian Haman, The modification involved the The UI chapter of Engineers Without the DaimlerChrysler/UNESCO mechanical engineering; Sean Poust addition of a filtering system and Borders (EWB-UIUC) began the “Mondialogo Engineering Award.” and Maren Somers, civil engineering; an inline fuel heater to reduce the biofuel electrification project in A copy of their presentation about and Stephanie Bogle, materials vegetable oil’s viscosity. January 2004, with the objective of the project is available at science and engineering—journeyed The group had to work through aiding agricultural villages cut off www.physics.uiuc.edu/alumni/ to Badakamandra, Orissa, India, to continual frustrations—no building from India’s power grid. The group, Biofuel.pdf. build a biofuel electrification system. to house the generator, low-lying with a committee of about 20 Unlike “biodiesel,” which refers to land subject to flooding, few or no graduate and undergraduate students, EWB-UIUC Today chemically refined oils, the students’ translators, gender-related difficulties applied to work on the project, which project involved “biofuel.” They with the village organizing committee, was originally presented to Engineers The Illinois EWB continues its inexpensively modified a commercial and scorching hot temperatures. Without Borders–USA in an involvement with the village in Orissa diesel engine, not the fuel (which Two members of the group, Walsh application submitted by the and is looking into water-related would have required complex and and Somers, who extended their stay Association for India’s Development needs in the village, as well as an expensive chemical refining), so that by four weeks to complete the project, (AID-Orissa). The project was expansion of the biofuel concept to it could be run on cheap, abundant spent their last days in India in the intended to serve as a model for surrounding areas. The organization local vegetable oil. hospital, felled by food poisoning practical, scalable energy sources has also been working on two other The project was an ambitious and a parasite, hooked up to IVs for similar areas in central Asia. research projects: improved woodstove one that addressed a variety of the for fluid replacement. In May 2004, a small team of five technology to conserve wood and villagers’ needs: enable the use of During the course of the project, UI students undertook a 10-day site improve indoor air quality and the new fuels (vegetable oil and oil cake), the students converted the diesel survey of the target villages and met design of power needed produce electricity, provide additional generator to run on vegetable oil, built with other engineers at the Kalinga to efficiently generate electricity by income for villagers by introducing a building to house it, constructed Institute of Industrial Technology. wind- and bicycle-power in mechanical spice-grinding a solar dryer for the oil seeds, and The fall semester of 2004 was spent Maharashtra, India. equipment, and stimulate internal installed a 5-hp oil expeller, a 3-hp corresponding with their Indian In addition to the India projects, village governance. Completely on mechanical spice grinder, and a 2-hp collaborators, fundraising, and EWB-UIUC has recently taken on their own, the students managed to rice huller. They worked side-by-side researching and designing their a project in Enugu State, Nigeria. find their way to a village in the with the villagers as they struggled project, taking into account the Currently, the 10,000 inhabitants middle of nowhere and undertook with organizational issues and economic constraints and needs of of Andu Achi Town in Enugu State a project for which there was no decision-making. the community. With research and must walk 3 km to their only water instruction book, no precedence, When Somers and Walsh finally prototyping in the US included, the source, a stagnant, dirty stream. and no higher authority. left on July 2, the modified generator cost of the project was approximately Illinois students are investigating a After arriving in India, the students was running on vegetable oil and $16,000 (not including the students’ variety of alternative solutions, purchased an off-the-shelf 7.5-kW powering electric lighting for the travel expenses). including a bore well, rainwater diesel generator and modified it to project building. The students The students received $6,000 from collection, and stream-water cleanly burn filtered vegetable oil. received help with the electrical the College of Engineering Design treatment. I Several varieties of oil-seed-bearing system from an Australian Council to get the project off the trees grow plentifully in India’s electrician working with AID. ground. The International Programs tropical climate, within easy reach of “By the time we left, the in Engineering office, which is funded tens of thousands of unelectrified infrastructure for the project was primarily through alumni donations,

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 11

About Patrick Walsh Ramsey at AAS hysics undergraduate Caitlin instrumental role in the discovery of PRamsey was the center of attention dark matter. Ramsey herself was raised on January 9, when NASA on Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series and Administrator Michael Griffin stopped became more seriously interested in by to chat about her poster, “An physics and astronomy when, at age 11, Optical Study of Stellar and Interstellar she audited an undergraduate course at Environments of Seven Luminous and Sangamon State University (now Ultraluminous X-ray Sources,” at the University of Illinois, Springfield) with American Astronomical Society annual Professor of Astronomy and Physics meeting in Washington DC. Charles Schweighauser. Ramsey, a junior from Rochester, Ramsey is preparing for a senior Illinois, attended the meeting with thesis project this summer with S. You-Hua Chu, professor of astronomy Lance Cooper, a condensed matter at Illinois, who supervised her experimentalist. Her future plans are undergraduate research project. to pursue a PhD in biophysics and Caitlin used archival Hubble Space biomedical engineering. Telescope images to identify the optical About her trip to AAS, Ramsey T. Patrick Walsh (third from right) in Badakamandra counterparts of the ultraluminous x-ray noted, “A number of professors and sources (ULXs) Ho IX X-1 and NGC students from other universities, as 1313 X-2 and made photometric well as independent astronomers, were atrick Walsh is a junior, working on a double major in engineering physics measurements of the local stellar interested in my poster, and I am glad Pand economics. He originally decided to study physics out of philosophical populations of these and the luminous that I was able to answer a lot of curiosity. “I always figured that searching for enlightenment through physics source IC 10 X-1 (C.J. Ramsey, et al., questions that morning. This was a was more of a symbolic gesture than a practical one, but I like physics. “An Optical Study of Stellar and good opportunity to learn about the Lately I’ve been looking towards less theoretical and more -oriented Interstellar Environments of Seven work that others were doing in x-ray applications, so it’s nice to have the ‘engineering’ already in my degree. Luminous and Ultraluminous X-Ray astronomy and with ULXs.” I “I’m interested in the production of energy because its scarcity seems to Sources,” Astrophys. J. 641, 241-251 be the root cause of a lot of the world’s strife and suffering. That’s how I got [2006]). [Eds. note: Funding for Caitlin’s attendance at the interested in the biofuel project, and the understanding of basic physics I got A highlight of the conference for AAS meeting was provided by the Department of here at school helped me to grasp the overall challenges in ways that the more Ramsey was a talk given by Vera Rubin Physics’ Excellence in Physics endowment. If you would like to contribute to the fund, so that we can specialized engineers at our level weren’t as able to, so it was a great fit.” about the early years of her career in continue to support worthy student activities, please His experience in India taught Walsh that the problem of energy production astronomy in the 1950s, and her see www.physics.uiuc.edu/support/excellence.html.] and distribution in the developing world must be addressed in a much bigger way. “I’m now interested, first, in long-term development of technologies that will increase global energy production by orders of magnitude, and second, in short-term development of technologies that will directly benefit the world’s

poor.” onomical Society Walsh has gotten involved this semester in a fusion energy research project str in the Department of Nuclear, Radiological, and Plasma Engineering, and he’ll merican A be working on a plasma gun experiment for his senior thesis in Physics. He is also trying to organize a project to raise some investment capital to mass produce solar-charged, battery-operated LED lanterns to replace some of the >1 billion inefficient kerosene lamps used now in the developing world. elley Knight, © 2006 A

He just wrote a proposal to the US Environmental Protection Agency for y K seed-funding for the project.

Walsh says he’s “up in the air” on future plans. “I know I’ll have to pick AAS photo b something to concentrate on soon, and make a decision about grad school and such. I don’t know if I want to do research or work on policy issues or some combination of the two; I’m looking for advice!” If you have career advice to offer, contact the editor at [email protected]. I NASA Administrator Michael Griffin talks with Caitlin Ramsey at the AAS meeting in January

Physics Website Gets New Look

he department has recently undertaken a complete overhaul of its 18-GB, >16,000-page website, T giving it a fresh new look. “People have been asking me, ‘Why change?’” said Celia Elliott, department webmaster. “While the old site was content rich and straightforward to navigate, the look was very dated and did not, I believe, reflect the stature of the department. The site was also getting harder and harder to maintain as it grew—each page was hard-coded HTML. If we wanted to change something in the footer, we had to make the change 16,000 times, one page at a time. The old pages also relied on tables for layout, which are not accessible to anyone having a visual impairment who relies on a screen reader. “Thus, we had three major design goals: get a more up-to-date look, meet or exceed federal accessibility guidelines, and switch to cascading style sheets (css) for easier maintenance. Unfortunately, doing any of these things was far beyond my abilities,” Elliott added, “but we got wonderful help from the University’s Office of Creative Services and their web designer, Valerie Lohmann. Val was able to take my vision and translate it into a beautiful design and idiot-proof css templates that I was able to use.” The project has not been without its setbacks. “Oh, it’s like any other do-it-yourself project I’ve ever undertaken,” Elliott laughed. “It took ten times longer than I expected, cost twice as much, and pushed me waaaaay beyond the limits of what I could do competently. Fortunately, I got great support from Val and people here in the department, particularly Gabe Gibson, Becky McDuffee, Mark Tomory, and Johnetta Wilde. We’d still be looking at the old pages if it hadn’t been for them.” Plans for the future? “Before we do this again, I’m going to be the former webmaster,” said Elliott. Check out the new look at www.physics.uiuc.edu. I

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

12 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 Alumni News Yildiz Wins International Prize Magnetism Coexists with .com Superconducting Electron Partners

collelaphoto At absolute zero, unconventional superconductivity, formed by electron pairs dancing at the surface of an electron sea, hides a background of . Lifting the veil by applying a magnetic field reveals magnetism coexisting with superconducting electron partners. (Illustration by Shirley Veenis)

Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of AAAS and executive publisher of Science (left) and hen water crystallizes into fluctuations. These discoveries, new AAAS President Gilbert S. Omenn (right) congratulate alumnus Ahmet Yildez (PhD ’04). W ice, H2O molecules are though specific to condensed either in a liquid state or in a matter, underpin broadly applicable or his discovery of how proteins move within cells, Ahmet Yildiz (PhD ’04), won the crystalline state—or a mixture concepts common to diverse classes F2006 Young Scientist Award, supported by GE Healthcare and the journal Science. of the two—depending on of quantum problems.” He received the $25,000 award in February during the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American temperature and pressure. The point at which magnetism Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific Researchers at Illinois and at becomes hidden actually lies on a society, which publishes Science. His wife, Hatice Yildiz, Paul Selvin, his thesis adviser, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, line of quantum critical points Physics Head Jeremiah Sullivan attended the ceremony. in studies of the heavy fermion separating a purely unconventional

Selvin explained the significance of Yildiz’s work. “First, Ahmet has improved single superconductor CeRhIn5, have superconducting phase from a molecule fluorescence by developing a technique that can locate the position of a single demonstrated that its magnetic phase of coexisting magnetism and dye to within 1.5 nm, which is 20 times better than has previously been achieved and 200 state can coexist with another unconventional superconductivity. times better than the classical diffraction limit of light,” said Selvin. “Ahmet then applied state—superconductivity—in a Such behavior can be explained this technique to measure how V, a biomolecular motor involved in intracellular certain range of temperature quantitatively by a theory developed transport, moves.” and pressure. explicitly in the context of the high- In a letter published in the cuprates, but which has been While working in the Selvin group, Yildiz developed the technique of fluorescence imaging Tc March 2 edition of Nature (T. Park impossible to test so definitively with one-nanometer accuracy (FIONA). This work was recognized with a Foresight Institute et al., Nature 440, 65–68 [2006]), in the cuprates. These discoveries Distinguished Student Award in 2003. He went on to use FIONA to study the molecular the researchers describe their provide an entirely new framework walking mechanism of the motor proteins myosin V, myosin VI, and . Yildiz’s 2004 discovery—that the magnetism is that unifies the relationship among thesis was awarded the Gregorio Weber International Prize in Biological Fluorescence. merely hidden by unconventional magnetism, unconventional In 2005, Yildiz moved to the University of California, San Francisco, where he is a superconductivity but can be made superconductivity, and quantum postdoctoral fellow in the research laboratory of Ronald Vale. He is currently studying the to reappear in the presence of an criticality in cuprate and heavy- structural mechanism of cytoplasmic . applied magnetic field. fermion systems. A native of Sakarya, Turkey, Yildiz received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Bogazici “Hidden broken symmetries and This work is one in a series of University, Istanbul in 2001, and later that year started his graduate studies in biophysics quantum-phase transitions underlie ongoing collaborations between at the University of Illinois. theoretical models of how Nature is Myron Salamon’s group at Illinois

Yildiz’s winning essay is posted at www.sciencemag.org. I organized, ranging from the fabric and the Condensed Matter and of the cosmos to the most Thermal Physics Group at Los fundamental components of Alamos. Park, for whom Salamon elementary particles,” said Physics was thesis adviser, is now an alumnus Tuson Park (PhD ’03), the Oppenheimer Postdoctoral

letter’s lead author. “CeRhIn5 has Fellow at Los Alamos. I provided a bench-top example in which the presence of a hidden This work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Complex Adaptive broken symmetry is revealed, as Matter, and the Office of Basic Energy Sciences in well as its relationship to phase the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. transitions controlled by quantum v o idor Vladmir S tesy hoto cour P

Alumna Cynthia Chiang (BS ’02), a graduate student in the Observational Cosmology Group at Caltech, spent December 2005–February 2006 at the geographical South Pole installing the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP), her thesis experiment. BICEP is designed to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background to unprecedented precision, and in turn to answer crucial questions about the beginnings of the Universe. It will operate at 100 GHz and 150 GHz at angular resolutions of 1.0° and 0.7°, respectively, with an array of 96 polarization-sensitive detectors, mapping a large region of the sky Tuson Park (PhD ’03), J.R. Oppenheimer Postdoctoral Fellow at LANL, is preparing around the South Celestial Pole. a high-pressure study on strongly correlated electron systems.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 13

Redfield remembers… Redfield Wins 2006 APS By A.G. Redfield Biological Physics Prize I was recruited to go to Illinois for my graduate work by Charlie Slichter, with whom I had worked in Woods Hole during school vacations, in a wartime lab lfred G. Redfield demonstration and utilization there doing electronics. In 1949, he was leaving with A (MS ’52 PhD ’53), of pulsed FT NMR using soft his Harvard PhD for Urbana, and I was a junior at professor emeritus of and composite pulses in, Harvard. He made sure to tell me about the arrival of biochemistry and physics especially, transfer RNA. Later Fred Seitz, and the other interesting things at Illinois, and I decided that it would be good for me to get out at Brandeis University, his group worked on NMR Alfred Redfield with his apparatus at of the northeast coast of the country and see the received the 2006 APS studies of the Ras protein. Harvard, during the second year of world. Biological Physics Prize Most recently, during semi- his postdoc with Bloembergen. The “for his seminal retirement, Redfield has While I was working at Illinois for Bob Maurer, slanted chassis is the rf spectrometer contributions to the developed another field- I got the idea for observing the Hall effect in that he built. The Varian magnet in theory and technical development cycling device to move a sample from photoconducting insulators, and got it to work in the background was brand new, but of nuclear magnetic resonance its usual position at the center of the diamond and alkali halides. I shared a lab with his original work used a permanent spectroscopy, and for pioneering magnet in a commercial 11.7-T Dave Dutton (MS ’49, PhD ’53) and Ken Teegarden magnet that was probably built by applications of this technique to NMR instrument out to a lower-field (MS ’51, PhD ’54), which was right next to John Purcell’s group. the study of biological molecules.” position above the magnet, and back, Bardeen’s office; every day we would be inspired Redfield received a BA from with a minimum round-trip time of by the sight of him reading the newspaper. I finally got up the courage to show him my Harvard in 1950, and a PhD from 200–300 ms and a field as low as results on diamond, which approximated the T–3/2 dependence as predicted. His first question the University of Illinois in 1953; his 50 G. The device allows investigators was, “electrons or holes?” Blast it, I had no idea and retreated in embarrassment to look at thesis adviser was Robert J. Maurer. to insert a low-field interval into any my lab notes. He was a postdoctoral researcher with pulse sequence, which can be used to To do the Hall effect, I needed a high magnetic field but not a good one, and I negotiated a at Harvard, study relaxation or cross-polarization space in Slichter’s lab in the lower edge of a magnet built by Dick Norberg (AM ’47, PhD ’51) where he published his first NMR rates at the lower field. With and previously used by Don Holcomb (MS ’50, PhD ’54). So I spent a lot of time near people papers on spin thermodynamics in Professor Mary Roberts of Boston doing NMR and was in the same lab as Tom Carver (PhD ’54) during his historic observation the rotating frame and on College, Redfield has published of the Overhauser effect. For this and other reasons I learned that you don’t need a big magnet perturbation theory of relaxation. articles demonstrating the utility of to do NMR. He joined the IBM Watson this device for studying dynamics of When I started my postdoc at Harvard, I was somewhat surprised to find that Harvard was Laboratory at a DNA fragment and the geometry no better than Illinois in most ways. For some strange reason I had decided to do a theory in 1955, where he used field-cycling and dynamics of polar head groups postdoc, but fortunately my intended theory mentor was too busy and I was politely invited to NMR, including extension of the in phospholipid membranes. Many join the group of a new professor at Harvard, Nico Bloembergen. Finally, I landed accidentally seminal NMR relaxation result of further applications of this device for in a lab working in a field where I soon did the best work of my life, after passing up the Hebel and Slichter to low the study of, for example, protein possibility to do the same thing in Illinois. temperatures, to study normal and dynamics and structure can be I had not realized how interesting magnetic resonance was, nor how outstanding both superconducting metals and the expected. Slichter and Bloembergen were. The work I did in my postdoc is probably a major reason structure of the type-II fluxoid lattice. Redfield is a member of the why I got the recent Biological Physics prize and is a tribute to my fine education at Illinois. In 1969, he shifted to work on National Academy of Sciences and a The biological part came much later; there was an excellent biophysics group in the Illinois biological NMR with Raj Gupta, fellow of the American Academy of Physics Department, but I had little to do with them except socially. starting with the first NMR Arts and Sciences. He received the Fifteen months after I graduated, I passed through Urbana to rendezvous for a car trip to observation of intra-protein electron 1995 ISMAR Prize from the ski in Colorado. I indiscreetly headed for Slichter’s lab in his absence, where I chatted with his transfer in cytochrome C. He joined International Society of Magnetic students. I mentioned a plan I had to study NMR relaxation in a superconductor. His students the Brandeis Departments of Physics Resonance, and he was a Miller immediately informed me that Chuck Hebel (MS ’54, PhD ’57) was attempting the same thing. and of Biochemistry in 1972, where visiting professor at the Illinois Later Charlie graciously encouraged me to continue in my plans independently. I eventually his early work included Physics Department in 1963. I lost this race but I had a lot of fun trying, and I happily continued in this area for many years. The experiment involved cycling the magnetic field to below the critical field for a very short time, and I am still working on an experiment like this in retirement, but applying it to study proteins. I

Wang Receives 2006 DNP Dissertation Prize

nuclear models. His thesis adviser was became a full-time teaching assistant Roy J. Holt, now at Argonne National in laboratory physics at National Laboratory. Taiwan University for one year. The 6He nucleus comprises a In 1999, he enrolled in the U of I’s 4He nucleus (two protons plus two graduate program in physics. neutrons) surrounded by a halo of two At Illinois, Wang first worked more neutrons; the isotope is produced with Roy Holt and Douglas Beck at a special beamline at Argonne on a parity violation experiment to Nuclei of 6He are thought to consist National Laboratory by smashing a test the standard model in simple of a 4He inner part (denoted by two neutrons and two protons) and an beam of lithium ions into a target. atomic systems. In Fall 2001, he 6 Li-Bang Wang outer “halo” part consisting of two The stray He nuclei produced during joined Roy Holt and Zheng-Tian more neutrons. (Courtesy of this process were confined and cooled Lu’s group at Argonne National American Institute of Physics) in a magneto-optical trap, and laser Laboratory, where he used an atom spectroscopy was used to measure the trapping technique for nuclear isotope shift between 6He and 4He physics studies. He received his i-Bang Wang (PhD ’05) was single atoms stored in a magneto- (Wang et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, PhD in May 2005 and is now a Lawarded the American Physical optical trap.” His work, a tour de 142501 [2004]). postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos Society’s 2006 Dissertation in Nuclear force in experimental nuclear physics, Wang received a BS in physics from National Laboratory. His current Physics Award “for his outstanding measured the charge radius for National Taiwan University in 1996, research involves ion trapping and and innovative experimental work to 6He for the first time. His result where he was awarded the Dr. Paul precision laser spectroscopy to test precisely measure the charge radius contributes to our understanding of C.W. Chu Fellowship for Materials the constancy of fundamental of the exotic and short-lived isotope the nature of weakly bound nuclei Science. After two years’ mandatory interactions. I 6He by laser spectroscopic studies of and serves as a key benchmark for service in the Taiwanese army, he

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

14 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 So Who Was Loomis Anyway?

posthumously by rededicating the in elementary physics himself. He written by a colleague for the 1941 Physics Building as the Loomis exemplified his own ideal of a faculty Physics newsletter: “There was a Laboratory of Physics. totally involved in physics, every young fellow named Wheeler/Who for Loomis was born August 4, 1889, member active in research and more men put out a feeler/Many men in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He teaching at both the elementary and did he hire/And none did he fire/But attended schools in Ohio, Wisconsin, advanced levels. He demonstrated spent cash like a drunken New and Massachusetts. Both his keen judgment of young scholars— Dealer.” undergraduate and graduate work were identifying many who later became The outbreak of World War II led done at Harvard University, where he famous and creating a climate to a general exodus of faculty and received his PhD in 1917. During conducive to their best work. Among staff to the MIT Radiation Laboratory World War I, as a captain in the his graduate students was Polykarp and to a super-secret government Army Ordnance Department, he was Kusch, who, as professor of physics installation near Los Alamos, New in charge of antiaircraft range firing at Columbia University in 1955, Mexico, to contribute to the war and preparation of ballistic tables at won the in Physics. effort. Loomis began the annual the Aberdeen Proving Ground. For Loomis built the Department of Physics newsletter in 1940 as a way two years, he worked as a research Physics twice, the first time in his of keeping in touch with absent physicist at the Westinghouse Lamp quest to get rid of the “obsolete,” faculty members. Francis Wheeler Loomis, ca. 1929, when he Company and then joined the physics despite the Great Depression, and the After the war ended, Loomis was came to Illinois as head of Physics. department at New York University. second time after the disruptions of faced with the task of rebuilding the While abroad in 1928–29 as a World War II. As the economy department once again, as many Guggenheim Fellow studying at gradually improved in the late 1930s, faculty moved on to other institutions n 1929, F. Wheeler Loomis was Zürich and Göttingen, he was invited Wheeler Loomis began to build his instead of returning to Illinois. In an Iappointed head of the Department to become head of the physics department. His strategy—upon era when few physicists deigned to of Physics; he would turn it from a department at the University of realizing that Illinois lacked the study “dirt physics,” Loomis, with pre-quantum mechanics physics Illinois, a job he retained until just ambience, money, and prestige to his usual vision, introduced research backwater to the world-class center of before his retirement, except for the attract senior scientists—was to hire efforts in solid state and low- physics research and teaching that it is leaves of absence for work at MIT promising youngsters and nurture temperature physics to the department today. Initially dismayed by the quality on national defense. them assiduously, thus beginning in 1949, bringing the noted theorist of the faculty and suffering from an Loomis began research in physics the tradition of “Loomis tenure.” Frederick Seitz to head the group, Easterner’s disdain of the rural with his PhD thesis on Between 1937 and 1941, Loomis with Robert J. Maurer and four Midwest, Loomis nevertheless saw thermodynamics, but following World hired twelve new physicists, including instructors to begin experimental the potential of Illinois. According to War I, he changed to the new field of the noted theorists Sidney M. Dancoff work—David Lazarus, Dillon E. Loomis, “I came here knowing … that molecular spectroscopy, a field in and Robert H. Serber, Donald W. Mapother, Charles P. Slichter, and the department was obsolete and the which he was active up to World War Kerst, who invented the betatron John C. Wheatley. Later additions only way to get it over being obsolete II. In 1920, he discovered the isotope while at Illinois, Leland J. Haworth, included Professor John Bardeen, who was to get some new people.” effect in molecular spectra, thereby later director of the National Science in 1956 shared the Nobel Prize with This nontraditional photograph of opening the way to identification of Foundation, the noted William Shockley and Walter Brattain Wheeler Loomis, showing him as a several molecular species and to experimentalists Norman Ramsey for the discovery of the , and young faculty member, was selected discovery of important new isotopes, and Maurice Goldhaber, and R.H. who in 1972 again shared the Nobel deliberately. Throughout his long and including several of carbon and Bolt, an expert in acoustics. Others Prize, this time with J. Robert distinguished career at Illinois, he oxygen. He also did important work included Gerald M. Almy, Ernest M. Schrieffer (MS ’54, PhD ’57) and retained the vigor, imagination, and in diatomic molecules of iodine and Lyman, and P. Gerald Kruger, who for their joint work at unpretentiousness of a young man. the alkali metals. brought Illinois to the forefront in Illinois that gave an explanation of A noted scientist and administrator A believer in the importance of nuclear physics, and the theorist J.H. superconductivity. of science, he headed the department attracting beginning students to Bartlett. Loomis’s enthusiastic Other notable scientists whom until 1957, building it into one of the science, for years he gave the lectures spending inspired the following verse, he brought to Illinois included the leading physics departments in the well-known particle theorists Geoffrey world. He was president of the Chew, Francis Low, and K. Nishajima. American Physical Society and elected Loomis also brought Chalmers to membership in the National Sherwin and James Allen, who did Academy of Sciences, both in 1949. important work on establishing the Much of this article is taken from a existence and properties of the memorial written by Professor Charles neutrino. P. Slichter for the dedication of the Loomis’s ability as a keen judge Loomis Laboratory of Physics. of science talent, and his ability to Wheeler Loomis made important generate a strong enthusiasm and contributions to national defense as sense of purpose among his colleagues, associate head of the MIT Radiation led to his being asked by Lee Laboratory during World War II, as DuBridge, the director, to assume head (1951–52) of Project Charles, the #2 position in the MIT Radiation which led to formation of the MIT Laboratory, a post Loomis held from Lincoln Laboratory, and as director 1941 to 1946. The Laboratory was (1952–59) of the Control Systems the principal developer of radar in the Laboratory at the University of United States. In 1951, possession of Illinois. He was awarded the degree of the atom bomb by the Soviet Union Honorary Doctor of Science in 1969 led to concern over the air defense of by the University of Illinois, and the Distinguished visitors marking the dedication of Loomis Laboratory of Physics on September the United States. As a result of his Board of Trustees honored Loomis 21, 1977. From left, I.I. Rabi, Edith Loomis, Fred Seitz, and Ned Goldwasser. reputation among America’s top

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1 15

scientists as a perceptive and strong His style was direct and to the scientists led to repeated invitations leader of a research team, Loomis was point, often spiced with dry humor. to head major government agencies, called upon to head a study, Project Describing himself, he once wrote, university departments, or otherwise Charles, to investigate methods to “I am married and have three small take up new careers. But though he protect the United States from Soviet daughters. My avocations are yachting took leaves to serve his country, he airborne attack. President Killian of (15 foot nondescript) and always returned to his position as MIT wrote of Loomis, “There is mountaineering, or at least hilling.” head of the physics department he serious question as to whether any In response to a graduate student had built at the University of Illinois. other person could be found who doing research on the history of He most wished to be close to could hold together the team required quantum physics in the United States working physicists, to try to build for the work.” For a period of between 1920 and 1935 he wrote, an active center of the finest physics. The plaque installed in Loomis Laboratory, eighteen months in 1951–52, Loomis “You ask whom I was particularly He knew he could best achieve this commemorating the milestones and directed Project Charles and the associated with in Göttingen in goal as department head, where he achievements of its namesake. formation of the Lincoln Laboratory, 1928–29. It was . In could judge what was happening which was operated under the Zürich I was ‘under’ Pauli, but I spent first-hand, take part as a colleague in because he conveyed to them his own auspices of MIT. most of my fellowship term there on discussions of the results of research, sense of the importance of the work In 1952, after the Korean War a trip back to the States to study and and help to promote that spirit of in which they were engaged. broke out, Loomis founded and consider an offer from the University excitement and of the importance In many ways, Wheeler Loomis directed the Control Systems of Illinois, which I accepted.” of doing physics by his presence. imprinted his indelible stamp on this Laboratory at the University of Illinois Loomis’s abilities as a leader of Scientists worked hard for him department and defined its character. to contribute to further development His legacy is a physics department of radar—including airborne Doppler unsurpassed in its dedication to radar having a moving target lock-on, teaching, its pursuit of excellence, portable “sentry” radar, and synthetic and its hallmark of cohesion and aperture radar (SAR) imaging—and collegiality. As Jerry Almy noted at the application of digital computing a dinner on May 24, 1957, honoring to national defense. Later the name of Loomis on his upcoming retirement, the laboratory was changed to the “I am inclined to take at face value his Coordinated Science Laboratory and [Loomis’s] satisfaction and pride in the it pursued unclassified research. department and its accomplishments… Loomis was active in affairs of And I believe that this widespread science at the national level. In his feeling of pride in the department 1950 address as the retiring president and in being a part of it is a chief of the American Physical Society, Can ingredient of its strength through Physics Serve Two Masters?, he gave a the ups and downs of its fortunes. discussion of the relation and role of We are very grateful to Wheeler for basic and applied physics that stands his important part in creating this as one of the most perceptive, atmosphere.” I balanced, yet eloquent analyses ever given of the importance of basic Wheeler Loomis at the tiller of “15-foot nondescript” research, of the potential dangers of government control, and of the policies needed for wise support of basic science. He stated:

The misconception that physics is primarily a utilitarian subject pervades even the university campuses, where it is studied largely as a tool by engineers and premedics and studiously avoided by our colleagues who plan the curriculum in liberal education; or at least so diluted as to be unrecognizable. Unless one defines a humanity as a subject of which everyone thinks he understands something, or as one suitable for dinner-table conversation, physics deserves as high a rank among the humanities as any discipline whatever, and its omission will leave just as wide a gap as would the omission of philosophy or history in the appreciation of the major intellectual achievements of our civilization and the forces which affect it.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 16 PHYSICS ILLINOIS NEWS • 2006 NUMBER 1

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Physics Illinois News 215 Loomis Laboratory of Physics, MC-704 Department of Physics University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Backward Glance 1110 West Green Street Urbana, IL 61801-2982 USA

Important scientific news is indicated by this picture, taken in the U of I Physics Laboratory. Seated, from left: Nathan If you have suggestions for stories or features that you Levine, Giovanni De Pasquali, and Prof. Hans Frauenfelder. Standing: Eberhard von Goeler, Angelo Rossi, Norman Peacock, would like to see, comments about this edition, or and H. R. Lewis. On the team but not in the picture is Renato Bobone. In January [1957, ed.], physicists were astonished to requests for an electronic version of the newsletter, please learn that, in experiments at Columbia University, a 20-year-old law of physics, known as “the conservation of parity,” had write to us. We’re listening! been upset. Professor Frauenfelder set out, at top speed, to test an independent consequence of the upset. He called in the group The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in this picture, all his associates or students, from a variety of research projects. Working day and night for 30 days, these men is an equal opportunity and affirmative action institution. built the apparatus shown here and demonstrated conclusively the predicted consequences of the law’s failure. Working as a unit, the scientists proved that an electron emitted from radioactive nuclei as a beta ray has its axis spin aligned parallel to

its direction of motion. (The Alumni News, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, April 1957.)

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