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August-September 2009 Volume 18, No. 8 TM www.aps.org/publications/apsnews PhysicsQuest APS NEWS Goes to Kenya A PublicAtion of the AmericAn PhysicAl society • www.aps.org/PublicAtions/apsnews See page 5 APS Awards Three Hildred Blewett Scholarships Presidents Two This year APS has announced electrical properties. three women as recipients of the “It was amazing how many ses- M. Hildred Blewett scholarship. sions there were on graphene at the Chosen by the Committee on March Meeting,” Guikema said. the Status of Women in Physics, She plans to use funds from the three are Janice Guikema at the Blewett Scholarship to further Johns Hopkins University, Marija research the feasibility of using Nikolic-Jaric at the University of graphene as a sensitive magnetic Manitoba, and Klejda Bega at Co- detector. She said that graphene has lumbia University. a lot of potential for use as a Hall Each year the committee se- effect detector to detect nanoscale lects women who are returning to particles and map out magnetic their research careers that had been Janice guikema structures. Currently she is continu- interrupted for family or other rea- ing to look for ways to make the sons. The scholarship is a one-year as a second-time recipient of the material as sensitive as possible. grant of up to $45,000 that can be Blewett Scholarship. She currently In addition she will use scanning used towards a wide range of ne- has a part-time research position at probe microscopy to further ex- cessities, including equipment pro- Johns Hopkins University, where plore the nature of graphene. curement, salary, travel, tuition, she is primarily studying graphene. Guikema first left her postdoc- On April 27, APS presented a plaque to Harvard University as part of its his- Graphene molecules are one- toric sites initiative. the plaque honored the Jefferson Physical laboratory, and dependent care. This is the toral research at Cornell University which was built in 1884 and as such is the oldest surviving university building fifth year the scholarship has been atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms in 2005 when her husband received dedicated to physics in the country. over the years it has been the site of awarded. organized in a hexagonal pattern an offer to join the faculty at Texas many important advances in physics, including the celebrated Pound-rebka After taking time off to follow like a honeycomb. Since its first A&M and they relocated to Texas. experiment that confirmed one of the predictions of general relativity. sitting synthesis in 2004, it has quickly together in this photo are APs President cherry murray (left), who presented her husband and start a family, There she took a lecturing posi- the plaque on behalf of APs, and harvard President Drew gilpin faust, who Janice Wynn Guikema is continu- become one of the hottest fields in tion teaching introductory physics received it on behalf of harvard. ing her return to the laboratory condensed matter physics because of its remarkable structural and AWARDS continued on page 6 US Team Ties for Second in International Physics Olympiad The traveling team representing cent, and silver went to students in bers for working so hard to make the US at the 2009 International the top 25 percent. this one of the best teams ever.” Physics Olympiad won four gold The gold medal winners on the China placed first overall, earn- medals and one silver, tying with United States team were Bowei ing five gold medals. In addition, India and Korea for second place Liu of Freemont, California; Mari- China’s Handuo Shi scored the overall. This high placement du- anna Mao of Freemont, California; highest individual score, the first plicates last year’s outcome, and is Anand Nataranjan of San Jose, time in the forty-two year history the US’s best standing to date. California; and Joshua Oreman of the Olympiad that a female won The Olympiad is an annual in- of Los Angeles, California. David the honor. ternational competition for high Field of Andover, Massachusetts The exams consisted of three school students. In the 2009 Olym- earned silver. theoretical problems and two lab piad, held in Merida, Mexico from “They all did very well,” said experiments. This year’s subjects July 11th to the 19th, 316 students Paul Stanley, the team’s academic ranged from calculating the tidal representing 70 nations competed director. “Much of the success of drag affecting the moon to measur- to solve complex physics prob- the traveling five can be attributed ing the wavelength of light using a lems. Gold medals are awarded to Photo courtesy of AAPT to the collegial, supportive atmo- razor and a pair of vernier calipers. students whose total scores from left to right: Anand nataranjan, coach warren turner, bowei liu, David field, sphere of training camp; I thank All of the team coaches graded the the five tests were in the top 8 per- coach Paul stanley, marianna mao, and Joshua oreman each of the nineteen team mem- US TEAM continued on page 4 Winning Videos Use Toys to Teach Physics Sorted Business A rocket propelled favorite toy. Other as dolphins blowing bubble rings racetrack illustrates Al- than asking for videos and a rising mushroom cloud. He bert Einstein’s equiva- around three minutes received a $1,000 reward and a lence principle. An or- in length, the rules for trophy made of toys. ange teddy bear driving the contest were left “I thought it was important a dump truck into a cin- open-ended, to en- that I showed demonstrations that derblock demonstrates courage as much cre- were easy to do so that the audi- Newton’s law of inertia. ativity in the submis- ence could try it on their own,” A mushroom cloud rises sions as possible. Lincoln said, “I thought I would over the desert with John- The grand prize be able to reach a larger audience ny Cash playing in the winner, chosen by a if I kept my video equation-free background. These are panel of outreach ex- and jargon-free.” just a few of the scenes perts, was James Lin- Lincoln has been teaching from the finalists in the coln’s “Smoke Rings, high school physics for six years Toy Box Physics video Mushroom Clouds and is currently working on his contest. and Vortexes,” which master’s degree in physics at The APS outreach explained the phys- UCLA. He said that putting to- website PhysicsCentral ics of a vortex air gether a successful video takes hosted the contest which cannon. In the video, a lot of work and planning, and Photo by Ken cole invited participants across Lincoln creatively sometimes ideas don’t pan out. on July 23, 25 sorters for the fall meeting of the Division of Plasma Physics the country to create demonstrated how Despite his sparse YouTube page, met at APs headquarters in college Park to arrange 1,629 abstracts into ap- their own short YouTube his toy air cannon Lincoln is no newcomer to mak- propriate sessions. here, DPP chair-elect tom Antonsen (left) of the universi- videos to explain phys- used the same fluid ing these kinds of short science ty of maryland confers with eric fredrickson of the Princeton Plasma Physics Toy Box Physics lab. the DPP meeting will take place november 2-6 in Atlanta. ics incorporating their video contest trophy dynamics principles VIDEOS continued on page 6 2 • August-September 2009 APS NEWS This Month in Physics History “If ITER is built on money hav- tion of a dark matter detector in an September, 1911–The Sackur-Tetrode Equation: ing to do with energy or oil, that is abandoned mine in South Dakota, How Entropy Met Quantum Mechanics perfectly good...But if it is taken The Associated Press, June 22, 2009. Editor’s note: This month’s column has been con- experimental values in tabulations of best values of from the public support of research “There’s so much neat science in physics or biology then I would tributed by guest author Richard Williams. thermodynamic data, such as the CRC Handbook of in NASCAR…It’s a great way to Early in the twentieth century, leading physicists Chemistry and Physics. be very upset,” educate people. NASCAR fans were struggling to get a deeper understanding of After his work on this problem, Tetrode wrote Sebastien Balibar, École Nor- are fervent and will wade through the concept of entropy. Entropy is at the heart of the some other theoretical papers, but none achieved male Supérieure, BBC News, June net force and molecules if it helps all-encompassing Second Law of Thermodynamics comparable recognition. He lapsed into scientific ob- 17, 2009. them understand why something and can be used to establish the absolute tempera- scurity, little remembered even among the commu- “Certainly the worst way to play happens to their driver.” ture scale, so it needs to nity of Dutch physicists. better golf is to study physics.” Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, Uni- be fully understood. But In 1932, his compatriot, Robert Adair, The Wall Street versity of Texas at Dallas, USA To- a troubling question re- The Sackur-Tetrode Equation the physicist H.G.B. Ca- Journal, June 18, 2009. day, July 1, 2009. mained unanswered. S = N k{ ln M3/2 T5/2 / P simir, spent a year as an Could its absolute value 2 3/2 5/2 assistant to Wolfgang “We would grow some crystals “I’ve always been interested in + ln [ (2 π / NAv h ) k ] + 5/2 } and we would come back to him how art and science shed light on be determined, or would Pauli at the Technische and he would measure them again one another… The relationship of it always involve an unknown additive constant? Hochschule in Zurich.
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  • Otto Sackur's Groping for a Quantum Theory of Gases

    Otto Sackur's Groping for a Quantum Theory of Gases

    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by MPG.PuRe Much Polyphony but Little Harmony: Otto Sackur's Groping for a Quantum Theory of Gases Massimiliano Badino1 and Bretislav Friedrich2 The endeavor of Otto Sackur (1880-1914) was driven, on the one hand, by his interest in Nernst's theorem, statistical mechanics, and the problem of chemical equilibrium, and, on the other, his goal to shed light on classical mechanics from the quantum vantage point. Inspired by the interplay between classical physics and quantum theory, Sackur chanced to expound his personal take on the role of the quantum in the changing landscape of physics in the turbulent 1910s. In this paper, we tell the story of this enthusiastic practitioner of the old quantum theory and early contributor to quantum statistical mechanics, whose scientific ontogenesis provides a telling clue about the phylogenesis of his contemporaries. Key words: Otto Sackur, Richard Abegg, Fritz Haber, Max Planck, Ludwig Boltzmann, Max Born, Peter Debye, Walther Nernst, Otto Stern, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Arnold Eucken, Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff, Cato Maximillian Guldberg, Peter Waage, Hugo Tetrode, affin- ity, heat theorem/third law of thermodynamics, quantization, phase space, entropy, quan- tum theory of gases, quantum statistical mechanics, black body radiation, heat capacity, Sackur-Tetrode equation, law of mass action, chemical constant, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, University of Breslau, First Solvay Conference. 1Max-Planck-Institut f¨urWissenschaftsgeschichte, Boltzmannstraße 24, D-14195 Berlin, Germany. Cur- rent address: Centre d’Hist`oriade la Ci`encia,Facultat de Ci`encies,Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola del Valles, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain 2Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Faradayweg 4-6, D-14195 Berlin, Germany 1 Introduction Upon its inception within the context of radiation theory, the quantum hypothesis rapidly diffused into other fields.
  • Development Team

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    Physics Paper No. : Statistical Mechanics Module : Gibbs Paradox and Indistinguishability of Particles Development Team Prof. Vinay Gupta, Department of Physics and Astrophysics, Principal Investigator University of Delhi, Delhi Prof. P.K. Ahluwalia, Physics Department, Himachal Pradesh Paper Coordinator University, Shimla 171005 Conten t Writer Prof. P.K. Ahluwalia, Physics Department, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla 171005 Content Reviewer Prof. P. N. Kotru , Department of Physics, university of Jammu 1 Statistical Mechanics Physics Gibbs Paradox and Indistinguishability of Particles Description of Module Subject Name Physics Paper Name Statistical Mechanics Module Name/Title Equilibrium, Thermodynamic Parameters and Response Functions Module Id M9 2 Statistical Mechanics Physics Gibbs Paradox and Indistinguishability of Particles Know-More Suggested Readings Title of Book Image Pathria R.K. and Beale P. D., “Statistical Mechanics”, 3rd Edition, Oxford: Elsiever Ltd., 2011 Landau L.D., Lifshitz E.M., “ Statistical Physics Part 1,” 3rd Edition, Oxford: Pergamon Press., 1982 3 Statistical Mechanics Physics Gibbs Paradox and Indistinguishability of Particles Panat P.V., “Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics”, New Delhi: Narosa Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 2008 Pal B.P., “ An Introductory Course of Statistical Mechanics, New Delhi: Narosa Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 2008 Yoshioka D., “Statistical Physics An Introduction,” Berlin Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 2007 4 Statistical Mechanics Physics Gibbs Paradox and Indistinguishability of Particles Brush S.G., “Statistical Physics and the Atomic Theory of Matter, from Boyle and Newton to Landau and Onsager”, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983. Weblinks On the 100th anniversary of the Sackur–Tetrode equation W. Grimus∗ University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics Boltzmanngasse 5, A–1090 Vienna, Austria http://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.3748.pdf .
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