DOCSLIB.ORG

People and Things

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
People and Things People and things Herwig Schopper (right) talks with Jean Teillac, President of CERN Council, at a special Council meeting in April. At this meeting. Professor Schopper was unanimously appointed as the next CERN Director General, to take up office on 1 January 1981. (Photo CERN 208.4.80) Herwig Schopper CERN's next Director General On 25th Apri/f at a specially con­ vened session of the CERN Council delegates of the twelve CERN Mem­ ber States unanimously appointed Professor Herwig Schopper as Director General of CERN for the five years 1981-85. He will suc­ ceed John Adams, Executive Direc­ tor General, and Leon Van Hove, Research Director General, on 1 January 1981. Herwig Schopper will move to CERN from his present position as Chairman of the Board of Directors at the DESY Laboratory, a position he assumed in 1973. Under his leadership, DESY has enhanced still further its reputation as a leading high energy physics Laboratory — the physics programme on the DORIS electron-positron storage rings has been amongst the most i fruitful in the world, and the rapid construction of the large PETRA search Association which operates On people ring has been one of the major feats the Laboratory. of accelerator building. Professor A t the recent annual meeting of Schopper has guided DESY through Ron Russell retired from the Ruther­ the American Physical Society in this period with total commitment ford Laboratory at the end of Chicago, Herman Feshbach of MIT to its physics aims and skilful judge­ March. Ron had participated signif­ began his term as APS President. ment as to how these aims could icantly in the construction and oper­ Maurice Goldhaber, Distinguished be achieved. ation of the Nimrod proton syn­ Scientist at Brookhaven, was named He is no stranger to CERN. In chrotron, becoming Head of the vice-president elect. Arthur Schaw- 1970 he became Head of the Nu­ Nimrod Division. In recent years he low of Stanford became this year's clear Physics Division and, before has headed the Division building vice-president. he returned to the Federal Republic the Spallation Neutron Source, and of Germany in 1973, he was mem­ was Chief Engineer at Rutherford. ber of the CERN Directorate for the Norman Ramsey, Higgins Professor Experimental Programme. of Physics at Harvard University, He returns to lead the Laboratory has been elected Chairman of the Royal visitor at TR/UMF when it is hoped that the world's Governing Board of the American largest machine will be under con­ Institute of Physics. Norman Ram­ On 1 April, His Royal Highness struction — the electron-positron sey is a well-known personality on Prince Charles went on a short tour storage ring LEP. Schopper's knowl­ the US high energy physics scene. of the TR/UMF site during a visit edge and experience in particle phy­ He was among those who esta­ to Vancouver. This included an in­ sics and in the management of large blished the Brookhaven Laboratory spection of the operation of the machine projects should prove a and has also been closely asso­ accelerator itself, a typical experi­ valuable asset to CERN during this ciated with Fermilab, where he is ment in the basic physics pro­ challenging time. President of the Universities' Re- gramme, the biomedical facilities 160 CERN Courier, June 1980 Prince Charles has the muon to electron conversion experiment at the TRIUMF cyclotron explained by Doug Bryman (left) and the Laboratory Director, Jack Sample (right). (Photo TRIUMF) of the British Columbia Cancer Foundation and their programme of cancer therapy, and finally the radiochemical facilities installed in the chemistry annexe by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. for commer­ cial production of radioisotopes. While inspecting the AECL hotcells. Prince Charles used the master- slave manipulators to turn a stop­ cock and thereby symbolically inau­ gurate the chemical processing of irradiated targets. Jacques Prentki, leader of CEHN's Theory Division, celebrated his 60th birthday on 17 April. To mark the occasion, some close friends reminisced on different periods in his career: Ph. Meyer spoke on 'good times in Paris', Bernard d'Es- pagnat on 'the pioneering years at CERN', Dan/e/e Amati on 'the Golden age', Tatiana Faberge on 'theory division through the years' and Paul Musset on 'the theorist in interaction'. This was followed by a short concert of chamber music. History of particle physics An International Symposium on the History of Particle Physics was held at Fermilab from 28-31 May. It concentrated on the origins of particle physics back in the 1930s and 40s before the advent of the big particle accelerators. The im­ pressive list of main speakers in­ cluded Paul Dirac, Gilberto Bernar- dini, Viki Weisskopf, Carl Anderson, Satio Hayakawa, Robert Serber, Bruno Rossi, Willis Lamb, Julian Schwinger and Murray Gell-Mann. Seen here together with Jacques Prentki (left) at the celebrations at CERN to mark his 60th birthday are Tatiana Faberge of Theory Division Secretariat and Daniele Amati. (Photo CERN 120.4.80) CERN Courier, June 1980 161 One of the 4000 horsepower compressors used by the Fermilab Central Helium Liquefier. (Photo Fermilab) SCIPP at Santa Cruz The Regents of the University of California have approved the forma­ tion of a new Institute for Particle Physics on its Santa Cruz Campus. Acronymed SCIPP (the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics I it builds on the strength of existing groups of theoretical and experi­ mental particle physicists. Benefit­ ting from its close proximity to SLAC, the experimental group (started in 1970) has carried out programmes on inelastic muon- nucleon scattering, early charm searches in pion-nuc/eon scattering and dimuon production, all in colla­ boration with SLAC Group D. In addition, a tagged photon scattering experiment has been performed at Fermilab. The principal new enter­ prise of SCIPP is co-responsibility, again with SLAC Group D (plus groups from the Universities of Illi­ nois and Washington) for the next- generation SPEAR detector, called tevatron proton synchrotron. Initial such a way that this limit has com­ MARK III. operation provided liquid helium at pletely disappeared. Under the new Senior fellows at SCIPP are theo­ the rate of 2000 litres per hour, conditions no difficulty was found rists Richard Brower, Michael which is just below half the maxi­ in storing up to 18 mA in a single Nauenberg, and Joel Primack; ex­ mum capacity. The helium will even­ bunch, Such currents were already perimentalists David Dorfan, visitor tually be distributed via satellite stored in PETRA when only 4 r.f. Hartmut Sadrozinski, Terry Schalk, plants to the one thousand super­ cavities were installed but could Abe Seiden, and Dennis Smith. conducting magnets of the Tevatron. not be reproduced once the 60 cavi­ Clemens Heusch is Acting Director. ties needed for higher energies were built in. Serving on its Advisory Committee PETRA improving are Geoffrey Chew, George Trilling, Sidney Drell, Frederick Reines and During a few shifts devoted to ma­ Chinese meeting Donald Oster brock. chine developments on 20 April, the stored beam of PETRA reached Earlier this year, a high energy phy­ the design energy of 19 GeV. Within sics meeting, organized by the Helium starts to flow at Fermilab the next weeks the conditions for Academia Sinica, was held in the production runs at energies near pleasant winter climate of Guang­ On 18 April, Fermilab brought into to 19 GeV will be worked out by zhou, Canton. This was one of the operation the world's largest helium the machine group. Major progress first major scientific meetings to liquefier plant. The liquefier, con­ has also been achieved in the beam be held in China in recent years. It verted from an oxygen/nitrogen currents which can be stored in attracted some 100 physicists from plant previously used in the US PETRA. The reason for the earlier within China, together with some space programme, is destined to 'current limit' at the 7 GeV injection 50 researchers of Chinese origin supply the cooling for the supercon­ energy seems to be understood and working in other countries, and the ducting magnets of the 1000 GeV the machine can now be tuned in physics was of a high standard. 162 CERN Courier, June 1980 A recent display of fifth century BC Greek vases has been exhibited at Fermilab using The inscription reads 'The 1980 Guangzhou an interesting background of magnet Conference on Theoretical Particle Physics'. laminations. The meeting was one of the first major scientific meetings to be held in China in (Photo Fermilab) recent years. m — fa fit *• if. The meeting was conducted in Chi­ voiced his unambiguous support for quences of their research. Those nese, but it is planned to publish fundamental research. Here are a who dispose of knowledge have a the proceedings in English. After­ few excerpts from his statement: special responsibility which must wards, all participants joined in an '...pure research provides the nour­ find expression in practical action. extensive tour of the country, visit­ ishment for future development. In particular, scientists must try to ing Beijing, Shanghai and Hang- Non-applied research, such as parti­ make their knowledge comprehen­ chow. cle physics or astrophysics, is done sible to the public and to politicians. because it springs from an inborn From 10-30 August the 21st Scot­ human curiosity to find the truth. tish Universities' Summer School A culture conscious of its own value in Physics (a NATO Advanced Study must interest itself in fundamental Institute) on Gauge Theories and knowledge concerning the nature Experiments at High Energies will of matter, the universe and life be held at the University of St. An­ itself.' drews.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Charles Hard Townes (1915–2015)
    ARTICLE-IN-A-BOX Charles Hard Townes (1915–2015) C H Townes shared the Nobel Prize in 1964 for the concept of the laser and the earlier realization of the concept at microwave frequencies, called the maser. He passed away in January of this year, six months short of his hundredth birthday. A cursory look at the archives shows a paper as late as 2011 – ‘The Dust Distribution Immediately Surrounding V Hydrae’, a contribution to infrared astronomy. To get a feel for the range in time and field, his 1936 masters thesis was based on repairing a non-functional van de Graaf accelerator at Duke University in 1936! For his PhD at the California Institute of Technology, he measured the spin of the nucleus of carbon-13 using isotope separation and high resolution spectroscopy. Smythe, his thesis supervisor was writing a comprehensive text on electromagnetism, and Townes solved every problem in it – it must have stood him in good stead in what followed. In 1939, even a star student like him did not get an academic job. The industrial job he took set him on his lifetime course. This was at the legendary Bell Telephone Laboratories, the research wing of AT&T, the company which set up and ran the first – and then the best – telephone system in the world. He was initially given a lot of freedom to work with different research groups. During the Second World War, he worked in a group developing a radar based system for guiding bombs. But his goal was always physics research. After the War, Bell Labs, somewhat reluctantly, let him pursue microwave spectroscopy, on the basis of a technical report he wrote suggesting that molecules might serve as circuit elements at high frequencies which were important for communication.
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright by Paul Harold Rubinson 2008
    Copyright by Paul Harold Rubinson 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Paul Harold Rubinson certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Containing Science: The U.S. National Security State and Scientists’ Challenge to Nuclear Weapons during the Cold War Committee: —————————————————— Mark A. Lawrence, Supervisor —————————————————— Francis J. Gavin —————————————————— Bruce J. Hunt —————————————————— David M. Oshinsky —————————————————— Michael B. Stoff Containing Science: The U.S. National Security State and Scientists’ Challenge to Nuclear Weapons during the Cold War by Paul Harold Rubinson, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2008 Acknowledgements Thanks first and foremost to Mark Lawrence for his guidance, support, and enthusiasm throughout this project. It would be impossible to overstate how essential his insight and mentoring have been to this dissertation and my career in general. Just as important has been his camaraderie, which made the researching and writing of this dissertation infinitely more rewarding. Thanks as well to Bruce Hunt for his support. Especially helpful was his incisive feedback, which both encouraged me to think through my ideas more thoroughly, and reined me in when my writing overshot my argument. I offer my sincerest gratitude to the Smith Richardson Foundation and Yale University International Security Studies for the Predoctoral Fellowship that allowed me to do the bulk of the writing of this dissertation. Thanks also to the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University, and John Gaddis and the incomparable Ann Carter-Drier at ISS.
    [Show full text]
  • Title: the Distribution of an Illustrated Timeline Wall Chart and Teacher's Guide of 20Fh Century Physics
    REPORT NSF GRANT #PHY-98143318 Title: The Distribution of an Illustrated Timeline Wall Chart and Teacher’s Guide of 20fhCentury Physics DOE Patent Clearance Granted December 26,2000 Principal Investigator, Brian Schwartz, The American Physical Society 1 Physics Ellipse College Park, MD 20740 301-209-3223 [email protected] BACKGROUND The American Physi a1 Society s part of its centennial celebration in March of 1999 decided to develop a timeline wall chart on the history of 20thcentury physics. This resulted in eleven consecutive posters, which when mounted side by side, create a %foot mural. The timeline exhibits and describes the millstones of physics in images and words. The timeline functions as a chronology, a work of art, a permanent open textbook, and a gigantic photo album covering a hundred years in the life of the community of physicists and the existence of the American Physical Society . Each of the eleven posters begins with a brief essay that places a major scientific achievement of the decade in its historical context. Large portraits of the essays’ subjects include youthful photographs of Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and Richard Feynman among others, to help put a face on science. Below the essays, a total of over 130 individual discoveries and inventions, explained in dated text boxes with accompanying images, form the backbone of the timeline. For ease of comprehension, this wealth of material is organized into five color- coded story lines the stretch horizontally across the hundred years of the 20th century. The five story lines are: Cosmic Scale, relate the story of astrophysics and cosmology; Human Scale, refers to the physics of the more familiar distances from the global to the microscopic; Atomic Scale, focuses on the submicroscopic This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government.
    [Show full text]
  • Wolfgang Pauli Niels Bohr Paul Dirac Max Planck Richard Feynman
    Wolfgang Pauli Niels Bohr Paul Dirac Max Planck Richard Feynman Louis de Broglie Norman Ramsey Willis Lamb Otto Stern Werner Heisenberg Walther Gerlach Ernest Rutherford Satyendranath Bose Max Born Erwin Schrödinger Eugene Wigner Arnold Sommerfeld Julian Schwinger David Bohm Enrico Fermi Albert Einstein Where discovery meets practice Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology IQ ST in Baden-Württemberg . Introduction “But I do not wish to be forced into abandoning strict These two quotes by Albert Einstein not only express his well­ more securely, develop new types of computer or construct highly causality without having defended it quite differently known aversion to quantum theory, they also come from two quite accurate measuring equipment. than I have so far. The idea that an electron exposed to a different periods of his life. The first is from a letter dated 19 April Thus quantum theory extends beyond the field of physics into other 1924 to Max Born regarding the latter’s statistical interpretation of areas, e.g. mathematics, engineering, chemistry, and even biology. beam freely chooses the moment and direction in which quantum mechanics. The second is from Einstein’s last lecture as Let us look at a few examples which illustrate this. The field of crypt­ it wants to move is unbearable to me. If that is the case, part of a series of classes by the American physicist John Archibald ography uses number theory, which constitutes a subdiscipline of then I would rather be a cobbler or a casino employee Wheeler in 1954 at Princeton. pure mathematics. Producing a quantum computer with new types than a physicist.” The realization that, in the quantum world, objects only exist when of gates on the basis of the superposition principle from quantum they are measured – and this is what is behind the moon/mouse mechanics requires the involvement of engineering.
    [Show full text]
  • Turning Point in the Development of Quantum Mechanics and the Early Years of the Mossbauer Effect*
    Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory FERMILAB-Conf-76/87-THY October 1976 A TURNING POINT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTUM MECHANICS AND THE EARLY YEARS OF THE MOSSBAUER EFFECT* Harry J. Lipkin' Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60^39 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory"; Batavia, Illinois 60S10 It is interesting to hear about the exciting early days recalled by Professors Wigner and Wick. I learned quantum theory at a later period, which might be called a turning point in its development, when the general attitude toward quantum mechanics and the study of physics was very different from what it is today. As an undergraduate student in electrical engineering in 19^0 in the United States I found a certain disagreement between the faculty and the students about the "relevance'- of the curriculum. Students thought a k-year course in electrical engineering should include more electronics than a one-semester 3-hour course. But the establishment emphasized the study of power machinery and power transmission because 95'/° of their graduates would eventually get jobs in power. Electronics, they said, was fun for students who were radio hams but useless on the job market. Students at that time did not have today's attitudes and did not stage massive demonstrations and protests against the curriculum. Instead a few of us who wished to learn more interesting things satisfied all the requirements of the engineering school and spent as much extra time as possible listening to fascinating courses in the physics building. There we had the opportunity to listen to two recently-arrived Europeans, Bruno Rossi and Hans Bethe.
    [Show full text]
  • Laser Spectroscopy to Resolve Hyperfine Structure of Rubidium
    Laser spectroscopy to resolve hyperfine structure of rubidium Hannah Saddler, Adam Egbert, and Will Weigand (Dated: 12 November 2015) This experiment had two main goals: to create an absorption spectrum for rubidium using the technique of absorption spectroscopy and to resolve the hyperfine structures for the two rubidium isotopes using saturation absorption spectroscopy. The absorption spectrum was used to determine the frequency difference between the ground state and first excited state for both isotopes. The calculated frequency difference was 6950 MHz ± 90 MHz for rubidium 87 and 3060 MHz ± 60 MHz for rubidium 85. Both values agree with the literature values. The hyperfine structure for rubidium 87 was able to be resolved using this experimental setup. The energy differences were determined to be 260 MHz ± 10 MHz and 150 MHz ± 10 Mhz MHz. The hyperfine structure for rubidium 85 was unable to be resolved using this experimental setup. Additionally the theory of doppler broadening was used to make measurements of the full width half maximum. These values were used to calculate a temperature of 310K ± 40 K which makes sense because the experiments were performed at room temperature. I. INTRODUCTION in the theory section and how they were manipulated and used to derive the results from the recorded data. Addi- tionally there is an explanation of experimental error and The era of modern spectroscopy began with the in- uncertainty associated the results. Section V is a conclu- vention of the laser. The word laser was originally an sion that ties the results of the experiment we performed acronym that stood for light amplification by stimulated to the usefulness of the technique of laser spectroscopy.
    [Show full text]
  • Laser Spectroscopy Experiments
    Hyperfine Spectrum of Rubidium: laser spectroscopy experiments Physics 480W (Dated: Sp19 Paper #4) I. OBJECTIVES FOR THESE EXPERIMENTS We wish to use the technique of absorption spec- troscopy to probe and detect the energy level structure of atomic Rubidium, Rb I, whose ground state is split by a tiny amount on account of nuclear magnetism. In effect, the spectroscopy we do today tells us about nuclear prop- erties and so combines atomic and nuclear physics. The main result of this experiment, the 4th of the semester, is to 1. measure the hyperfine splitting for each isotope, and compare with accepted values, with the fol- lowing details in mind: (a) what is the hyperfine splitting of the ground 2 state, S1=2 term? Do we need saturation- absorption techniques for this? (b) what are the hyperfine splittings of the ex- 2 cited state, P3=2 term, that can be reached with a nominal wavelength of 780nm from the ground state? Here we need saturation- absorption techniques to perform sub-Doppler FIG. 1. Note the four 'blobs'. Why are there four? Which spectroscopy, certainly. Help the reader un- 85 are associated with Rb37, and so on. If all goes swimm- derstand what is entailed in the technique, ingly, we'll get an absorption spectrum that looks much line both experimentally and theoretically. You the figure below the setup. The etalon data will be needed to will need to explain what `saturation' means. make the abscissa something proportional to frequency. The The saturation intensity is an important fig- accepted value of the gap between the 2 outermost dips is ure of merit.
    [Show full text]
  • Sidney D. Drell Professional Biography
    Sidney D. Drell Professional Biography Present Position Professor Emeritus, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University (Deputy Director before retiring in 1998) Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1998 Present Activities Member, JASON, The MITRE Corporation Member, Board of Governors, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel Professional and Honorary Societies American Physical Society (Fellow) - President, 1986 National Academy of Sciences American Academy of Arts and Sciences American Philosophical Society Academia Europaea Awards and Honors Prize Fellowship of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, November (1984-1989) Ernest Orlando Lawrence Memorial Award (1972) for research in Theoretical Physics (Atomic Energy Commission) University of Illinois Alumni Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering (1973); Alumni Achievement Award (1988) Guggenheim Fellowship, (1961-1962) and (1971-1972) Richtmyer Memorial Lecturer to the American Association of Physics Teachers, San Francisco, California (1978) Leo Szilard Award for Physics in the Public Interest (1980) presented by the American Physical Society Honorary Doctors Degrees: University of Illinois (1981); Tel Aviv University (2001), Weizmann Institute of Science (2001) 1983 Honoree of the Natural Resources Defense Council for work in arms control Lewis M. Terman Professor and Fellow, Stanford University (1979-1984) 1993 Hilliard Roderick Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Science, Arms Control, and International Security 1994 Woodrow Wilson Award, Princeton University, for “Distinguished Achievement in the Nation's Service” 1994 Co-recipient of the 1989 “Ettore Majorana - Erice - Science for Peace Prize” 1995 John P. McGovern Science and Society Medalist of Sigma Xi 1996 Gian Carlo Wick Commemorative Medal Award, ICSC–World Laboratory 1997 Distinguished Associate Award of U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • The Concept of the Photon—Revisited
    The concept of the photon—revisited Ashok Muthukrishnan,1 Marlan O. Scully,1,2 and M. Suhail Zubairy1,3 1Institute for Quantum Studies and Department of Physics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843 2Departments of Chemistry and Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 3Department of Electronics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan The photon concept is one of the most debated issues in the history of physical science. Some thirty years ago, we published an article in Physics Today entitled “The Concept of the Photon,”1 in which we described the “photon” as a classical electromagnetic field plus the fluctuations associated with the vacuum. However, subsequent developments required us to envision the photon as an intrinsically quantum mechanical entity, whose basic physics is much deeper than can be explained by the simple ‘classical wave plus vacuum fluctuations’ picture. These ideas and the extensions of our conceptual understanding are discussed in detail in our recent quantum optics book.2 In this article we revisit the photon concept based on examples from these sources and more. © 2003 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 270.0270, 260.0260. he “photon” is a quintessentially twentieth-century con- on are vacuum fluctuations (as in our earlier article1), and as- Tcept, intimately tied to the birth of quantum mechanics pects of many-particle correlations (as in our recent book2). and quantum electrodynamics. However, the root of the idea Examples of the first are spontaneous emission, Lamb shift, may be said to be much older, as old as the historical debate and the scattering of atoms off the vacuum field at the en- on the nature of light itself – whether it is a wave or a particle trance to a micromaser.
    [Show full text]
  • Works of Love
    reader.ad section 9/21/05 12:38 PM Page 2 AMAZING LIGHT: Visions for Discovery AN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM IN HONOR OF THE 90TH BIRTHDAY YEAR OF CHARLES TOWNES October 6-8, 2005 — University of California, Berkeley Amazing Light Symposium and Gala Celebration c/o Metanexus Institute 3624 Market Street, Suite 301, Philadelphia, PA 19104 215.789.2200, [email protected] www.foundationalquestions.net/townes Saturday, October 8, 2005 We explore. What path to explore is important, as well as what we notice along the path. And there are always unturned stones along even well-trod paths. Discovery awaits those who spot and take the trouble to turn the stones. -- Charles H. Townes Table of Contents Table of Contents.............................................................................................................. 3 Welcome Letter................................................................................................................. 5 Conference Supporters and Organizers ............................................................................ 7 Sponsors.......................................................................................................................... 13 Program Agenda ............................................................................................................. 29 Amazing Light Young Scholars Competition................................................................. 37 Amazing Light Laser Challenge Website Competition.................................................. 41 Foundational
    [Show full text]
  • Advanced Information on the Nobel Prize in Physics, 5 October 2004
    Advanced information on the Nobel Prize in Physics, 5 October 2004 Information Department, P.O. Box 50005, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 673 95 00, Fax: +46 8 15 56 70, E-mail: [email protected], Website: www.kva.se Asymptotic Freedom and Quantum ChromoDynamics: the Key to the Understanding of the Strong Nuclear Forces The Basic Forces in Nature We know of two fundamental forces on the macroscopic scale that we experience in daily life: the gravitational force that binds our solar system together and keeps us on earth, and the electromagnetic force between electrically charged objects. Both are mediated over a distance and the force is proportional to the inverse square of the distance between the objects. Isaac Newton described the gravitational force in his Principia in 1687, and in 1915 Albert Einstein (Nobel Prize, 1921 for the photoelectric effect) presented his General Theory of Relativity for the gravitational force, which generalized Newton’s theory. Einstein’s theory is perhaps the greatest achievement in the history of science and the most celebrated one. The laws for the electromagnetic force were formulated by James Clark Maxwell in 1873, also a great leap forward in human endeavour. With the advent of quantum mechanics in the first decades of the 20th century it was realized that the electromagnetic field, including light, is quantized and can be seen as a stream of particles, photons. In this picture, the electromagnetic force can be thought of as a bombardment of photons, as when one object is thrown to another to transmit a force.
    [Show full text]
  • Sidney D. Drell 1926–2016
    Sidney D. Drell 1926–2016 A Biographical Memoir by Robert Jaffe and Raymond Jeanloz ©2018 National Academy of Sciences. Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences. SIDNEY daVID DRELL September 13, 1926–December 21, 2016 Elected to the NAS, 1969 Sidney David Drell, professor emeritus at Stanford Univer- sity and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, died shortly after his 90th birthday in Palo Alto, California. In a career spanning nearly 70 years, Sid—as he was universally known—achieved prominence as a theoretical physicist, public servant, and humanitarian. Sid contributed incisively to our understanding of the elec- tromagnetic properties of matter. He created the theory group at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) and led it through the most creative period in elementary particle physics. The Drell-Yan mechanism is the process through which many particles of the Standard Model, including the famous Higgs boson, were discovered. By Robert Jaffe and Raymond Jeanloz Sid advised Presidents and Cabinet Members on matters ranging from nuclear weapons to intelligence, speaking truth to power but with keen insight for offering politically effective advice. His special friendships with Wolfgang (Pief) Panofsky, Andrei Sakharov, and George Shultz highlighted his work at the interface between science and human affairs. He advocated widely for the intellectual freedom of scientists and in his later years campaigned tirelessly to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Early life1 and work Sid Drell was born on September 13, 1926 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on a small street between Oriental Avenue and Boardwalk—“among the places on the Monopoly board,” as he was fond of saying.
    [Show full text]