March 2009 Volume 18, No. 3 www.aps.org/publications/apsnews

APS NEWS Spring Prizes & Awards A Publication of the American Physical Society • www.aps.org/publications/apsnews See Insert

March Meeting Covers Broad Spectrum of Research APS President’s Message Stimulates The APS March Meeting, the Changing the substrate on which perconducting phenomena. Strong Member Response largest physics meeting of the year, the graphene sits or the trigger- Cheap, Bendy Photodetectors Thousands of APS members science, Murray told APS mem- will take place March 16-20, 2009 ing of small terraces in a graphene Xiong Gong and his colleagues responded to a letter from APS bers in her letter. APS recom- in Pittsburgh at the David L. Law- sheet are methods for tuning gra- at the University of California, San- president Cherry Murray request- mended investments in scientific rence Convention Center. Scientists phene behavior. Other sessions fea- ta Barbara and CBrite Inc. have de- ing that they contact their sena- infrastructure that would create from around the world will present ture new experimental results (B1), veloped prototypes of low-cost flex- tors regarding the need to include more than 100,000 direct and in- more than 7,000 papers on the lat- electronic behavior (H1), and elec- ible photodetectors that are sensitive science funding in the Senate’s direct jobs. “The investments we est research in condensed matter to infrared, visible, and ultraviolet economic stimulus package. proposed are principally in infra- physics, new materials, chemical light in the wavelength range of 300 In January, the House passed structure in our national labora- 0 Y 2 T – I E 6 C and biological physics, fluids, poly- 1 O to 1450 nanometers. The photode- an economic stimulus bill with tories and universities, high per- S L A mers, and computational physics. I C tectors are made with semiconduct- over $800 billion in spending in- formance computing, in procure- 2 S Y 00 H P A number of sessions will also ad- N ing polymers that work much like tended to jump-start the economy, ments of scientific instruments A 9 archI C R E g dress the role of physics in society, M common commercial silicon-based including a significant boost for and material for projects such as A H n G such as its relevance to education in ti R photodetectors by converting light the physical sciences. The House ITER, and in creation of jobs for e BU developing nations, the quantitative S into electrical signals. They are at bill included $2 billion for the young investigators at our uni- e T T I study of paintings, the greening of P least as sensitive as silicon photo- DOE Office of Science, $2.5 bil- versities to ensure that they have WWW . A P S . O R G / the city of Pittsburgh, and climate M EETI NGS/M A RCH detectors, says Gong, and they have lion for NSF, and $500 million a place to go during these trying change mitigation. M the advantage of covering a very for NIST. economic times. As a result of our Some special sessions to be held tron trajectories in graphene (J1). broad spectral range as well as be- On January 28, Murray sent efforts, many of our recommenda- at the meeting include a session on Iron-Arsenic Superconductors ing flexible and much cheaper to a letter to APS members asking tions were used by the House and Energy and the Environment on These new materials–the first produce. The potential commercial them to thank House Speaker Senate in formulating their pro- Monday evening and special eve- superconductors above a tempera- applications include image sensing, Nancy Pelosi for her hard work in posed stimulus packages,” Mur- ning symposium Wednesday on ture of 50 Kelvin not made from communications, chemical, biologi- support of science funding. ray’s letter said. Windows on our Universe: Break- copper-oxide planes–have made a cal, and environmental monitoring, The stimulus bill under consid- Responding to Murray’s mes- throughs in Observational Cosmol- big splash over the past year. Last remote control, night-time surveil- eration in the Senate in early Feb- sage, 2785 APS members had ogy. year’s meeting featured no session lance, and military applications. ruary included less funding for written to their senators, and 1342 Graphene Stays Hot on this topic; this year; a dozen ses- Gong predicts that the technology physical science than the House had written to thank Pelosi as of More than two dozen sessions sions. Topics include the possible will be commercially available in version. Murray urged APS mem- February 10. are devoted to the study of gra- ways in which electrons pair up on less than five years. (H20.10) bers to write to their senators ask- In early February, the Sen- phene, a two-dimensional form of the Fe-based materials, summa- Nano-Tool Box ing them to include the same lev- ate passed a stimulus bill that carbon. Session A1 looks at how ries of how the materials are made, If you want to build tiny things, el of funding for science in their included much less funding for graphene properties can be tweaked electronic properties, theoretical ex- it’s handy to have some tiny tools. version of the stimulus bill. science than the House bill: $1.2 to produce novel effects and pos- planations, and the manifestation of Abha Misra and colleagues at APS has been actively in- billion for NSF, $330 million for sible applications in micro-circuitry. the Josephson effect and other su- MEETING continued on page 6 volved in promoting funding for MESSAGE continued on page 7

Panel Pushes More Investment in Energy Research By Michael Lucibella mittee (all 3 of them APS Fellows) blocks,” said BESAC chair John fifteen, twenty years is going to clining levels over the last two de- An advisory committee to the called for greater use of green en- Hemminger of the University of invent new energy technology. If cades. In 1989 the US federal gov- Department of Energy has called ergy technologies that would curb California-Irvine, “Areas where we that is us, we’re going to be selling ernment invested on average 10% upon both the private and public carbon dioxide emissions and use just don’t understand how nature that to the world. If that is China of its research budget in energy more renewable energy sources. works.” sectors to increase investment in or Japan or Europe, we’re going to issues compared to only 2% today. Widespread use of these technolo- The report, “New Science for a advanced energy research. Con- be buying that from them,” Hem- gies has been hampered because Secure and Sustainable Energy Fu- In the private sector, the energy in- stituted as a subcommittee of the minger said. dustry reinvests on average 0.23% Basic Energy Sciences Advisory their current capabilities lag far be- ture” (www.sc.doe.gov/bes/reports/ hind the country’s needs. Technolo- list.html) recommended that the The panel also called for great- of its revenue to research, com- Committee (BESAC), the group er financial investment in research put forward a series of recom- gies such as solar power, carbon Department of Energy’s Basic En- pared to 3.3% in the auto industry and development, pointing to de- PANEL continued on page 5 mendations to help curtail global sequestration and superconducting ergy Science Advisory Committee warming and manage the nation’s electrical wires have shown prom- create research “dream teams” of energy needs at a February press ise in labs, but have not yet been the nation’s top scientific minds to APS Honors Rabi and Columbia conference at the Center for Stra- fully developed for large scale hasten the pace of discovery. These tegic and International Studies in commercial use. teams would spearhead research in Washington. “Virtually all of the potential- the cutting edge of energy technol- At the press conference, a panel ly revolutionary technologies in ogy to help protect US national and consisting of the BESAC chair and the energy and environment area economic security. the two co-chairs of the subcom- have what we call scientific road- “Someone over the next ten to LaserFest Website Launched A new website for Laser- “Now that the web- Fest, the 2010 celebration site is up and running, of the 50th anniversary of we hope LaserFest will the laser, has recently been become more accessible– launched. The site, www. hopefully visitors will laserfest.org, contains infor- find the site engaging and mation concerning Laser- informative,” said Nadia Fest events and activities, Ramlagan, APS LaserFest the history of the laser and project coordinator. its impact on society, and its The site’s laser history Photo by David Wentworth potential for the future. section provides informa- Visitors to the site can tion about the early his- On January 29, as part of its historic sites initiative, APS presented a plaque (see inset) to the physics department at Columbia, honoring the achievements sign up to receive updates tory of the laser, from Ein- of I. I. Rabi and also more generally the contributions of the department. Rabi and program announce- stein’s theory of stimulat- was cited specifically for his discovery of the magnetic resonance method.I n the ments. Those with plans or event submission form. LaserFest ed emission to the demon- photo, APS Editor-in-Chief Gene Sprouse (right) and Columbia vice-President ideas for events are encouraged is being organized by APS and stration of the first working laser for Research David Hirsh (center) examine the APS register of historic sites, while Chair of the Columbia Physics Department Andrew Millis (left) looks on. to submit them through the online the Optical Society of America. LASERFEST continued on page 5 2 • March 2009 APS NEWS

Members This Month in Physics History in the Media

“We look at the economic sen- hit in football, The New York March 13, 1930: Clyde Tombaugh’s sibility of an idea and why the Times, January 30, 2009 discovery of Pluto announced market doesn’t understand it and we do.” “Roughly speaking, we predict In early 1930, Pluto was discovered by a farm times a second. Most of the time the photos were Ronald Kahn, Barclays Glob- there could be a 1,000-time boy from Kansas with no formal training in as- the same and Tombaugh would see nothing, but if al Investors, on his approach to reduction in power consumption tronomy. The announcement in March of Pluto’s an object had moved between the two exposures, quantitative finance, The Financial with electronic computers built in discovery was a moment of excitement for both Tombaugh would see a blink. Times, January 26, 2009 this new way, and they could be scientists and the public. It was incredibly tedious work requiring in- something like 1,000 times smaller Clyde Tombaugh was born on February 4, tense concentration, but Tombaugh greatly pre- “What we’ve done is to cre- in size.” 1906 in Illinois, and grew up on a farm in Kan- ferred it to going back to work on the farm, so he ate a situation with a lot of people Robert Wolkow, University of sas. He became interested in astronomy as a teen- persisted. who smell big money and they’re Alberta, on making the world’s ager after observing craters on the moon and rings After months of searching, he had found sev- working very hard. I’m optimistic smallest quantum dots, which around Saturn through his uncle’s three inch tele- eral asteroids, but nothing that fit the criteria for that in a few years, they’re going could be used in making smaller scope. The family soon ordered a better telescope Planet X. Finally, in February 1930, while scan- to lick the problem.” computers, Calgary Herald, Feb- to encourage their son’s interests. When he was ning the plates he had taken a few weeks earlier, John Goodenough, the Univer- ruary 3, 2009 20, Clyde Tombaugh began building he saw something that moved. He sity of Texas at Austin, on battery his own telescopes. determined that the object had By 1928 Tombaugh had built his moved about 3 mm on the plates research, Christian Science Moni- “What we did is show that the third backyard telescope and used between the two exposures, indicat- tor, January 22, 2009 atom is not the limit–that you can it to make drawings of Mars and ing an orbital distance of about 40- go below that.” Jupiter. He sent these to Vesto M. 43 AU, putting it outside the orbit “People are crazy, and I think Hari Manoharan, Stanford Slipher, the director of the Lowell of Neptune at about the right place it’s the dog. I blame it on the dog University, on creating subatomic Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, to be the predicted planet. because people in Europe don’t letters, San Jose Mercury News, asking for comments. After a short Tombaugh told Slipher he had behave this way.” January 31, 2009 Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ameri- correspondence, Slipher offered him found Planet X, and on March 13, a job at the observatory. His task 1930, the Observatory announced can Museum of Natural History, “I view it as a recognition of many would be to search for “Planet X.” the finding of the new object. The on why Americans were so upset at hundreds of scientists who have the demotion of Pluto from planet Planet X had been predicted by announcement date was chosen to gotten seriously involved in policy Percival Lowell. Lowell, a business- Photo courtesy of Lowell coincide with both the anniversary status, The Daily Show, January one way or another, either advising Observatory Archives 28, 2009 man and astronomer known for his of Herschel’s discovery of Uranus in the government, writing for the belief that a network of canals ex- Clyde W. Tombaugh at the 1781 and Percival Lowell’s birthday public, getting involved in schools door of the Pluto discovery “We’ve made tremendous isted on Mars and was evidence of in 1855. or working with federal, state and telescope, Lowell Observa- progress in the last 30 years, and an intelligent alien civilization, built tory, Arizona. The public and astronomers were local government on any number we realize there’s still a significant the Lowell Observatory to prove his enthusiastic about the new planet. of policy issues. It’s a concept I call distance to go. I think there’s no theory. But as it became more and more clear that Later that month the object was officially named the civic scientist.” question fusion will be a viable en- there was no evidence for that theory, he began to Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld, Neal Lane, Rice University, on ergy source. The time scale –that’s focus on searching for a new planet. Lowell had who could make himself invisible. The name was receiving the National Academy of a tricky question.” observed some peculiarity in the orbits of Nep- suggested by an 11 year old girl in England. A sec- Sciences’ Public Welfare Medal, Earl Marmar, MIT, on ITER, tune and Uranus and figured there must be another ondary reason for the name was that the first two The Houston Chronicle, January the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Janu- planet with a mass comparable to Neptune’s orbit- letters are Percival Lowell’s initials. 31, 2009 ary 21, 2009 ing the sun beyond Neptune. Lowell searched for Though exciting, the planet was tiny, just a dot “Evolution has achieved an efficient the planet, which he called Planet X, from 1905 to on the photograph, and some astronomers doubted “Jack Tatum was vicious–that solution to this complex problem.” his death in 1916. whether it was massive enough to affect the orbit helps–but he had a way of popping Harry Swinney, University of For years after Lowell’s death, the Lowell ob- of Uranus and Neptune. with the perfect angle and timing.” Texas at Austin, on the problem of servatory was hampered by an expensive legal Pluto’s mass was not known until 1978, when Timothy Gay, University of walking on sand, MSNBC.com, battle with Lowell’s widow. In 1927 the observa- its moon Charon was discovered. Pluto’s mass Nebraska, on the physics of the February 10, 2009 tory was ready to resume the search for Planet X, is about 0.002 that of Earth, making it much too and it acquired a new 13 inch refracting telescope small to influence the orbit of Neptune. APS Debuts on Facebook and LinkedIn for the search. Ultimately, Pluto lost its planet status. Other Slipher assigned the task to Tombaugh, who objects in the neighborhood of Pluto have been The stereotypical physicist is not many intriguing sites available, but arrived in Flagstaff in January 1929. First, he had discovered in recent years, including several particularly socially adept. Whether after polling some of our members, to use the telescope to make many photographic comparable in size to Pluto. In 2006, much to the or not its members fit that stereo- we decided to begin with Face- plates, systematically taking pictures of regions of disappointment of children around the world, the type, APS felt it was time to take book and LinkedIn,” said Margaret the night sky where the new planet might appear. International Astronomical Union redefined the advantage of networking opportu- Black, Web Content Coordinator. For each region, Tombaugh made two photos, tak- term “planet.” The new definition of a planet re- nities on the web, and recently cre- As online networking begins to en several days apart. He spent many cold nights quires an object to orbit a star, be large enough to ated its own fan page on Facebook play a more prominent role in how in the unheated observatory dome carefully mak- be made round by gravity, and have cleared its or- and a group on LinkedIn. Members scientists communicate, APS hopes ing the observations. bit of other debris. The third criterion disqualifies can use these social and profes- these social media groups will fa- After creating many such pairs of plates, he Pluto, which is now known as a dwarf planet. sional networking sites to start dis- cilitate the exchange of information would compare the two members of each pair. After the discovery of Pluto, Tombaugh re- cussions, review articles, post com- from casual to technical among Distant stars would appear in the same position ceived a scholarship to study astronomy at the ments and notices, share photos, or members. Through Facebook and on both plates, but a planet would have moved in University of Kansas. He began as a freshman check APS updates, all by simply LinkedIn it is easy to leap geo- the several days between the two exposures. Tom- in 1932 and continued to work in astronomy for logging in and searching for “APS graphical and institutional boundar- baugh used a device called a blinking comparator many years. Tombaugh was later known as one of Physics”. ies, meet new colleagues, reconnect to make the comparison. The device would pres- only a few scientists to take UFOs seriously. He APS researched multiple social with former associates, and main- ent him with sections of the two photo plates to died in 1997, mercifully before the demotion of media sites before deciding where tain dialogues long after APS meet- be compared, shifting between the two several his planet to the status of a dwarf. to create APS groups. “There are ings end.

Series II, Vol. 18, No.3 For Nonmembers–Circulation and Fulfillment Division, Treasurer Steven Rolston (Laser Science), TBD (Materials), March 2009 American Institute of Physics, Suite 1NO1, 2 Huntington Joseph W.Serene*, Georgetown University Akif Balantekin* (Nuclear), Janet Conrad (Particles Quadrangle, Melville, NY 11747-4502. Allow at least & Fields), Ronald Ruth (Physics of Beams), David APS NEWS © 2009 The American Physical Society Editor-in-Chief 6 weeks advance notice. For address changes, please Gene Sprouse*, Stony Brook University (on leave) Hammer* (Plasma), TBD (Polymer Physics), (Ohio send both the old and new addresses, and, if possible, Section), Heather Galloway* (Texas Section), TBD (4 Coden: ANWSEN ISSN: 1058-8132 include a mailing label from a recent issue. Requests Past-President Corners Section) from subscribers for missing issues will be honored Arthur Bienenstock*, Stanford University Editor•...... Alan Chodos without charge only if received within 6 months of the ADVISORS Associate Editor...... Ernie Tretkoff General Councillors issue’s actual date of publication. Periodical Postage Paid Art Director and Special Publications Manager...... Kerry G. Johnson Robert Austin, Christina Back*, Marcela Carena, Eliza- Representatives from Other Societies at College Park, MD and at additional mailing offices. beth Beise*, Katherine Freese, Wendell Hill*, Nergis Fred Dylla, AIP; Alexander Dickison, AAPT Design and Production...... Nancy Bennett-Karasik Postmaster: Send address changes to APS News, Mem- Proofreader...... Edward Lee Mavalvala, Jorge Pullin bership Department, American Physical Society, One International Advisors Science Writing Intern ...... Michael Lucibella Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844. International Councillor Sabayasachi Bhattacharya Louis Felipe Rodriguez Jorge, Mexican Physical Society; Shelley Page, Canadian Association of Physicists APS COUNCIL 2009 Chair, Nominating Committee APS News (ISSN: 1058-8132) is published 11X yearly, Editor, APS News, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, Angela Olinto Staff Representatives monthly, except the August/September issue, by the MD 20740-3844, E-mail: [email protected]. President Alan Chodos, Associate Executive Officer; Amy Flatten American Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse, Col- Cherry Murray*, Lawrence Livermore National Chair, Panel on Public Affairs Director of International Affairs; Ted Hodapp, Director lege Park, MD 20740-3844, (301) 209-3200. It contains Subscriptions: APS News is an on-membership publi- Laboratory Duncan Moore of Education and Diversity; Michael Lubell, Director, news of the Society and of its Divisions, Topical Groups, cation delivered by Periodical Mail. Members residing Division, Forum and Section Councillors Public Affairs; Dan Kulp, Editorial Director; Christine Sections, and Forums; advance information on meetings abroad may receive airfreight delivery for a fee of $15. President-Elect Charles Dermer (Astrophysics), P. Julienne (Atomic, Giaccone, Director, Journal Operations; Michael of the Society; and reports to the Society by its commit- Nonmembers: Subscription rates are available at http:// Curtis G. Callan, Jr.*, Princeton University Molecular & Optical Physics), TBD (Biological), Stephens, Controller and Assistant Treasurer tees and task forces, as well as opinions. librarians.aps.org/institutional.html. Nancy Levinger (Chemical), Arthur Epstein (Condensed Vice-President Matter Physics), David Landau (Computational), James Administrator for Governing Committees Letters to the editor are welcomed from the member- Subscription orders, renewals and address changes Barry C. Barish*, Caltech Brasseur* (Fluid Dynamics), Gay Stewart (Forum on Ken Cole ship. Letters must be signed and should include an ad- should be addressed as follows: For APS Members– Education), Amber Stuver, (Forum on Graduate Student dress and daytime telephone number. The APS reserves Membership Department, American Physical Society, Executive Officer Affairs), Roger Stuewer (Forum on History of Physics), the right to select and to edit for length or clarity. All cor- One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844, Stefan Zollner (Forum on Industrial and Applied Phys- Judy R. Franz*, University of Alabama, Huntsville * Members of the APS Executive Board respondence regarding APS News should be directed to: [email protected]. (on leave) ics), David Ernst* (Forum on International Physics), Philip “Bo” Hammer (Forum on Physics and Society), APS NEWS March 2009 • 3

Come Back with my Abstract! ITER and Fusion Energy

By Robert J. Goldston and Ned R. Sauthoff “Burning plasmas” are very hot however, is that we are only part fully ionized gases whose temper- way to developing fusion. Ex- ature is maintained dominantly by tensive worldwide development self-heating from fusion reactions of experimental and theoretical within the plasma. The govern- understanding of fusion plasmas ments of China, Europe, India, Ja- has provided the physics basis pan, Russia, South Korea and the for ITER construction. Research United States (representing more now going on in the domestic fu- than half the world’s population) sion programs of each of the ITER have assessed that we are scientifi- parties is key both to assuring the cally and technologically ready to success of ITER operations and to explore the “burning plasma” state moving beyond ITER to demon- [see the report Burning Plasma, strate that fusion is economically Bringing a Star to Earth, National practical. Academies Press, Washington DC, To put ITER in context, it is 2004], and have embarked on an valuable to compare fusion power international partnership to con- production, energy gain, and pulse struct the ITER Project, near Aix- duration between 1975 and today, Photo by Ken Cole

Sorting abstracts for the April Meeting can get pretty tense, what with sorters competing over whose abstract goes in which session. Here Steve Detweiler of the University of Florida (standing), representing the Topical Group on Gravi- tation, gestures vigorously for more abstracts, while Stan Whitcomb of Caltech looks on. In all, about 20 physicists assembled at APS headquarters on January 17 to sort almost 1000 abstracts for the meeting, which will take place in Denver, May 2 through May 5.

It Takes Two to Tango By Michael S. Lubell, APS Director of Public Affairs The ITER device en-Provence, France. The mission ITER’s goals, and the goals of a When Barack Obama an- dent’s desk, the American public no matter how cogent the intellec- of ITER (“the Way” in Latin) is practical power plant. (The figures nounced in December that Rahm had begun to question’s the bill’s tual content of your message. to “demonstrate the scientific and below are for simultaneous accom- Emanuel would be his White efficacy. Score one for the GOP. Disregarding the importance technological feasibility of fusion plishments, and are rounded.) House Chief of Staff, I winced. What had begun as a ratio- of words and their emotive con- energy for peaceful purposes.” As can be seen, ITER is a very Here was a President-Elect who nal debate over the validity of tent was only one of three errors The basic nuclear reactions that dramatic step beyond present ca- had campaigned on defusing the Keynesian economic theory in President Obama committed. are contemplated for use in ITER, pabilities, and today’s results rep- partisan-charged Washington at- early November ended as a well- By broadening the focus of the and in future fusion power plants, resent an equally dramatic step be- mosphere selecting one of the crafted Republican taunt that bill, he also opened the door for are: yond the first results with strongly most notorious Democratic flame- the stimulus bill was far from House Democrats to add funding D + T → α + n + 17.6 MeV heated plasmas in 1975. Extensive throwers as his second. What was economically stimulating. By the for social programs that Repub- n + 6Li → T + α + 4.8 MeV experimental scaling and large- he thinking? time the House and Senate fin- licans had blocked for more than ITER will enable research on scale computer models point to I’ve known Rahm for the bet- ished tallying the votes in mid- a dozen years. And that gave the key scientific questions that bear success for ITER and possibilities ter part of two decades, and I’ve February, only three Republicans GOP ample ammunition to attack on the feasibility of fusion power for further improvements in both admired him as a brilliant tacti- broke party ranks and joined the the “stimulus package” hyperboli- as well as intellectually fascinating stability and confinement, open- cian, despite his often over-the- Democratic majority in support- cally as a trillion dollar pork proj- questions such as the dynamics of ing the way to options to improve top partisanship. Now, as I’ve ing the legislation. ect. And judging by the polling a complex self-organized system, the operations of ITER and thus to watched our new President stretch In the end, the President won results, the public accepted the his quest for bipartisanship to the the battle over a stimulus bill he charge as fact. Fusion Power Gain Duration breaking point, I only wish he wanted, but he didn’t achieve his Through its persistent use of 1975 100 mW 3x10-7 0.01 sec would let a little of Emanuel’s goal of a bipartisan endorsement. the word “stimulus” to describe bad temper escape from the West The goal was probably unrealistic the recovery legislation, the me- Today ~ 10 MW ≤1 ~ 1 sec Wing, at least once in a while. from the start, but the Administra- dia reinforced the public’s percep- ITER 500 MW 10 300–500 Sec Washington, even in good tion practically put it out of reach tion that Republicans, not Demo- Power Plant 2500 MW 25 1 month times, suffers insufferably from when it shifted the bill’s original crats, were balanced guardians of a climate of backstabbing dis- rationale of job creation and eco- the purse. Given such a landscape non-linear interactions between go further towards a power plant, guised as political rectitude. But nomic stimulus to its final justifi- Republicans had no political up- supra-thermal charged alpha parti- based on research in ITER. Fusion when one party routs the other, cation of economic recovery and side for supporting the legislation. cles and thermal plasma, and evo- power levels depend quadratically as happened in 2008, the losing reinvestment. Yet the new President continued lution of the interacting physical on the plasma pressure. β, the ra- side looks for every opportunity As Frank Luntz points out in to woo them, and his quixotic pre- to pummel the winning team right his book, Words that Work, it’s occupation with changing the cul- phenomena of turbulent transport tio of the particle pressure niTi + from the outset, without ever con- not what you say that matters, it’s ture of Washington, led to a lost and global stability at the physical neTe to the magnetic field pressure 2 sidering white-glove etiquette. what people hear you say. “Jobs” opportunity–portraying the GOP scale of a fusion power plant. (B /2µo), is a key parameter de- Fusion is attractive as an energy termining the global stability lim- So it was no wonder that Re- and “stimulus” are easy for people as a band of obstructionists. source because the basic raw mate- its of plasmas, which determine publicans took immediate ad- to connect with at an emotional President Obama’s errors per- rials, deuterium and lithium-6, are the power producing capabilities. vantage of the opening President and visceral level. “American Re- mitted Senate Republicans to abundant, and because it is physi- ITER can explore β-limits and op- Obama gave them in the debate covery and Reinvestment Act”– utilize the threat of a filibuster cally impossible for a fusion pow- portunities for improving pressure over the $789 billion economic the stimulus bill’s official name– to change the thrust of the leg- er plant to explode like Chernobyl limits. Fusion gain (fusion power stimulus bill. They didn’t have is not only a mouthful, it is an ab- islation. And eventually, three or melt down like Three Mile Is- production divided by the plasma the votes to block its passage, stract concept that contains little moderate northeastern senators, land. The radioactive waste from heating power supplied externally) but with the new occupant of the emotional appeal for the average Susan Collins (R-ME), Olympia White House singularly focused citizen. And Drew Westen, the Snowe (R-ME) and Arlen Specter fusion will not require geological depends on the parameter niTiτE, on his let-us-reason-together man- author of The Political Brain, will (R-PA), found themselves in the storage like Yucca Mountain. No where 1/τE is the decay rate of the large energy storage, long-distance energy stored in the hot plasma tra, they seized control of the eco- tell you that unless you arouse the roles of ultimate arbiters of the energy transmission nor large land when all heating is turned off. nomic message, and by the time emotions of your listeners, you bill’s content. use would be required. The catch, ITER continued on page 7 the legislation reached the Presi- have no chance of engaging them, BELTWAY continued on page 7 4 • March 2009 APS NEWS Letters Back Page Labeled Propaganda I am appalled that Wasif Syed’s for every scientist. For a scientist the history of nuclear weaponry, Back Page (APS News, January of his supposed caliber, why was having sold nuclear technology The Real Reason Water is Blue 2009), which ostensibly purported Khan compelled to steal centri- to Iran, Libya and North Korea, to deal with science and nuclear fuge technology from URENCO, all under the watch of General Dear Editor, situation where vibrations are the policy in Pakistan, was craftily with whom he worked in the Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan is the primary cause of visible coloration, “This Month in Physics His- turned into shameless propagan- Netherlands, to develop Paki- epicenter of global terrorism and although other cases (liquid ammo- da. stan’s nuclear program? Pakistan, tory” is my favorite part of APS nuclear proliferation, a most du- News, and the February column nia, for example) could be found if The article suggests that Abdul after all, has produced eminent bious perfecta. Pakistan, a failed about Raman was particularly desired. Qadir Khan, the illegitimate father physicists such as Nobel Laureate state, is every terrorist’s dream good. It is easy to believe that the I am not sure to whom this ex- of the Pakistani nuclear program, Abdus Salam, after whom the In- question “why is water blue” led planation should be attributed. is a “scientist whose abilities are ternational Centre for Theoretical for obtaining nuclear weapons as Raman eventually to his great dis- Confirmation and popularization not in doubt.” Regardless of eth- Physics in Trieste, Italy is named! clandestinely as they were devel- covery. What is not mentioned in of the vibrational mechanism was nocentric and personal biases, we The clandestine nuclear pro- oped by the state itself. the article is subsequent discussion done by Charles Braun and Sergei can all agree that scientific eth- gram in Pakistan, and its fly-by- of this question, which has shown Smirnov. They have a delightful ics and professional integrity are night operators, are the greatest Jai A. Pathak that water is selectively absorb- paper in the Journal of Chemical two of the greatest litmus tests source of nuclear proliferation in Arlington VA ing in the red. This is familiar to Education (v.70(8), p.612, 1993), divers, who experience the ghostly which is available on Prof. Braun’s blue illumination that sunlight web page at Dartmouth, http:// Blunder May Not Have Been Einstein's provides at depths of 10 meters www.dartmouth.edu/~etrnsfer/ or more. Raman scattering is not water.htm. There you can see the This Month in Physics History later, when I was discussing cos- make the authors’ names sound a significant part of the answer to spectrum of liquid H2O compared (APS News, January 2009) asserts mological problems with Einstein, like the alpha, beta, gamma that this wonderful puzzle. Impurities with D O, which gives convincing that in 1929, “The cosmological he remarked that the introduction open the Greek alphabet. Gamow in water are not either. There are no 2 evidence of the vibrational mecha- constant looked unnecessary, and of the cosmological term was the should not be considered the most electronic transitions in pure water nism. Braun and Smirnov cite Einstein then abandoned it, call- biggest blunder of his life.” reliable source, particularly not for until the ultraviolet, and vibrational various earlier authors, the earliest ing it his greatest blunder.” Actu- Gamow, of course, was a bril- a specific quotation, and it appears transitions are surely deep in the being W. A. P. Luck (1965), and ally, we do not know that Einstein liant physicist, but besides his to me that the “blunder”comment infrared, so what is the explana- called the cosmological constant a physics brilliance he was known may not have really been made by tion? The answer is a great surprise several good pedagogical treat- “blunder” much less his greatest for his waggishness, for example Einstein. to students of optical properties ments, especially by C. F. Bohren. one; we know only that George adding Hans Bethe’s name to a of matter. It is so interesting that I Paraphrasing Bohren, they mention Gamow, in his 1970 biography, paper by Ralph Alpher and him- Jay M. Pasachoff think readers of APS News should that “Light scattering by suspended “My World Line,” asserted “Much self, in the middle position, to Pasadena, CA be fascinated to hear it. Fourth matter is required in order that the harmonics of the symmetric and blue light produced by water’s ab- antisymmetric “O-H stretching vi- sorption can return to the surface brations” lie just at the lower end and be observed.” of the visible energy spectrum, Simultaneous Cross-country Conferences Host Women in Physics and are responsible for the weak Yours truly, absorption. It is the only familiar Philip B. Allen Hundreds of women gathered ences were organized separately APS offers, such as awards and at three simultaneous confer- but focus on the same goals. The scholarships for women, child- Beller, Marshak Lectureships to Enhance ences for undergraduate women conferences were supported by care grants, minority scholar- in physics held January 16-18 at NSF, DOE, and the universities ships, lists of female-friendly March and April Meetings Yale University, the University that hosted them. of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, About 130 women under- departments, professional devel- Two named APS lecture- Physics. opment workshops for women, ships will bring distinguished At the April Meeting, a and the University of Southern graduates from around the Mid- and the PhysTEC programs to foreign scientists to speak Beller Lecture will be given by California. west attended the conference at at the 2009 March and April Christopher Llewellyn-Smith, The conferences gave un- UIUC. prepare future teachers. About meetings. The speakers were of Oxford University, United dergraduate women a chance to In addition, a growing num- half of the students at the con- selected by the APS Commit- Kingdom. Llewellyn-Smith, hear research talks, present their ber of universities are form- ference said they were members own research, learn about grad- ing organizations for women in tee on International Scientific a former Director-General of of APS, according to Plisch. Affairs (CISA), from nomi- uate school and career options, physics. For instance, the So- CERN, was nominated by the Plisch was especially excited nations submitted by various Forum on Physics and Society. and network with other women ciety for Women in Physics at APS units. The 2009 Marshak lecturer in physics. UIUC has meetings and invites by the enthusiastic participation The Beller Lectureship will be Karimat El Sayed, of These conferences have been speakers to talk about career op- of so many women at the con- was endowed by Esther Hoff- Ain Shams University, Egypt. going on for several years. The tions and other topics. ference, as well as seeing seven man Beller for the purpose of At the March Meeting, she will University of Southern Califor- At the UIUC conference female faculty members at the nia held its first conference for bringing distinguished physi- deliver a lecture on Women in Monica Plisch, APS assistant di- university, a contrast to only one cists from abroad as invited Physics in Egypt and the Arab women undergraduates in 2006, rector of education, gave a key- female professor when she at- speakers at APS meetings. The Worlds. El Sayed was nomi- and has been holding them an- note talk in which she described lectureship provides support nated by the Forum on Interna- nually since. In 2008, Yale and the role of APS in improving ed- tended as an undergraduate. “I for speakers at the March and tional Physics. UIUC held their first annual ucation and promoting diversity, really feel like the face of phys- April meetings. conferences. The three confer- highlighting the many programs ics is changing,” she said. The Marshak Lectureship, endowed by Ruth Marshak in honor of her late husband and former APS president, Robert Marshak, provides travel sup- port for physicists from de- veloping countries or Eastern Europe invited to speak at APS meetings. by Michael Lucibella Two Beller lectures will be given at the March Meet- ing. Mikhail I. Dyakonov of the Université Montpellier II, France will present a talk on the spin Hall effect. Dyakonov was nominated for the Beller Lectureship by the Topical Group on Magnetism and its Applications. The other March Meeting Beller lecturer is Sam- uel A. Safran, of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. He will give a talk on “Active re- sponse of biological cells to mechanical stress.” Safran was nominated for the Beller Lec- tureship by the Topical Group on Statistical and Nonlinear © Michael Lucibella 2009 APS NEWS March 2009 • 5

Pound for Pound Education C orner A column on educational programs and publications

Physics Teacher Video APS and the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation recently produced a short video profile of Mary Lee McJimsey, a physics teacher who graduated in 2006 from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, which received substantial funding under the APS-led PhysTEC project to improve its teacher preparation program. The video seeks to showcase a young, dynamic physics teacher who will inspire future undergraduates and high school students to pursue a career in teaching. In the video, McJimsey explains why she loves teaching physics, and describes the impact that PhysTEC and her Knowles Fellowship had on her preparation to be a teacher. PhysTEC is a partnership between APS, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), and the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

The video can be viewed on the PhysTEC website (www.PhysTEC. org) and also on YouTube.

Education special events at the April Meeting Photo by Ken Cole Future Physicists Day All undergraduates attending the April Meeting are invited to participate The APS Executive Board met for the first time this year on February 7 at the APS editorial offices in Ridge, in Future Physicists Days. Events will include undergraduate poster New York, and, following tradition, past-President Arthur Bienenstock of Stanford (left) handed the gavel, and oral sessions, a “Careers for Physicists” lunch session, and symbolic of the APS Presidency, to his successor, Cherry Murray of Livermore National Laboratory. an awards session recognizing the outstanding oral and poster PANEL continued from page 1 presentations of undergraduates. Registration for the meeting is free for undergraduates. For more information, please see the April and 16% in the semiconductor in- “There are revolutionary so- fit from advances in new materials Meeting page on the APS website or contact Cathy Mader at mader@ dustry. lutions; breakthrough solutions sciences and nanotechnology. aps.org. The panel highlighted four that would bring the performance The report calls for fast and ex- areas that need technical break- of the grid to a new level,” said pansive action. Prompted by con- Nuclear Forensics Workshop at Teachers’ Day throughs in basic science in order George Crabtree of the University cerns about depleting fossil fuel The 2009 April Meeting Teachers’ Day will feature a new workshop on to be commercially viable. These of Chicago. reserves and increased greenhouse nuclear forensics, inspired by the 2008 APS/AAAS Nuclear Forensics: projected breakthroughs would al- Carbon capture and seques- gas emissions, the presenters em- Role, State of the Art, Program Needs report. The workshop is part low for more efficient energy gen- tration is another field of intense phasized that a multidisciplinary of an effort APS is leading to develop the first-ever nuclear forensics eration and transmission while re- research aimed at reducing green- approach would be needed to con- curriculum for high school students. The development team, which ducing pollution at the same time. house gas emissions. Carbon front the nation’s energy issues. includes APS and AAAS staff members, high school science The process of transferring dioxide from coal plants would “If you want to stabilize CO teachers, nuclear scientists, and experts in nuclear forensics, plans 2 electricity loses between 8% and be trapped and condensed into a emissions, you’re not going to be to produce about 10 hours of classroom activities. At the workshop, participants will utilize gamma ray spectra to identify hypothetical 10% percent of its energy to heat liquid form, then buried under- able to do it with one technology, unknown radioactive materials that have been interdicted at a border alone. In addition, the national ground. Already coal plants are there’s no magic bullet,” Kastner crossing. power grid is already near full being built to be sequestration said, “You’re going to have to capacity and suffers from some compatible; however it’s unclear introduce a whole bunch of tech- For information and schedules for both the March and April of the worst power outages in exactly what happens to the car- nologies each of which will re- Teachers’ Days, please see www.aps.org/programs/education/ the developed world, costing the bon dioxide after being buried. duce the CO2 emissions by some teachers/teachers-days. APS members are welcome to visit. national economy nearly $80 bil- “Unfortunately if you look at amount.” lion a year. Proposed smart grid these methods, they all raise ques- In addition to the dream teams Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement Program systems and high temperature su- tions. First of all can you really working on these problems, the

The next round of proposals to the NSF’s Course, Curriculum, and perconducting power lines could inject CO2?” said Marc Kastner of panel called for greater recruit- Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) are due May 21st. The CCLI program go a long way to alleviate these MIT, “And once you put it there, ment of students and young re- has, for several decades and under a number of program names, problems. However the supercon- will it stay there?” searchers to help address each is- been one of the most significant funding sources for the improvement ductor’s cooling costs have been Solar cells and improved elec- sue. Programs such as incentives of undergraduate science and math education. Innovations in physics prohibitive, since they can only tric car batteries are the other areas and career awards could be used education, the development of many of the most significant pedagogies operate at temperatures up to 138 the panel highlighted for increased to bring in the next generation of in use today, and renovation of a large number of classrooms and laboratories have received funding from this program. According to Kelvin so far. research. Both would likely bene- energy scientists. the NSF, the program “funds projects that develop faculty expertise, implement educational innovations, assess learning and evaluate Job Fair Attendance Lags in Gloomy Economy innovations, prepare K-12 teachers, or conduct research on STEM teaching and learning.”APS Members are welcome to visit. With the difficult economic About 300 job seekers had reg- sities and secondary schools. Em- climate, both employers and job istered for the job fair by mid-Feb- ployers attending the APS March For more information, go to www.nsf.gov and search on “ccli.” seekers seem to be reluctant to at- ruary. Job seekers may register on Meeting job fair represent a wider tend job fairs this year. As of mid -site, and many are expected to do variety of employers, including New Faculty Workshops February, both the number of job so. Last year, 488 job seekers at- some from industry, academia, and seekers registered for the job fair tended the March Meeting job fair. government. The list of employers Department chairs are invited to nominate recently hired faculty to at the APS March Meeting and the A job fair was also held at the attending the 2009 job fair is ex- attend the next APS, AAPT, and American Astronomical Society (AAS) New Faculty Workshop, which will be held from June 25— number of employers registered American Association of Physics pected to be similar to those who 28, 2009 at the American Center for Physics (ACP) in College Park, were lower than in previous years. Teachers winter meeting in Chi- attended in recent years. Maryland. “Recently hired” means faculty in the first few years of their In 2008, there were 30 employ- cago in February. At that event, the The 2009 APS March Job Fair initial tenure-track appointment. The ideal nominee would be one who ers attending the March Meeting numbers of both job seekers and will be held in the David L. Law- has been teaching for a year or two and who is beginning to realize job fair; as of mid-February, there employers were down from recent rence Convention Center in Pitts- that good teaching may be a more difficult enterprise than he or she were 12 employers registered for years. burgh. Recruitment booths will originally thought. this year’s event. However, more “Job seekers are finding it hard be open Monday, March 16 and were expected to sign up closer to to make the trip,” said Brice. Some Tuesday, March 17. More infor- The nomination deadline is April 1. For more information, see http:// the deadline, according to job fair employers also cannot afford to at- mation about the March meeting www.aapt.org/Events/newfaculty.cfm. coordinator Alix Brice. The dead- tend. job fair is online at http://www. line for employers to register is Employers at the AAPT meet- aps.org/meetings/march/events/ Education Research Report in Science March 2. ing are primarily colleges, univer- jobfair/. In the January 2, 2009 issue of Science, editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts LASERFEST continued from page 1 wrote that the journal “now plan[s] to build on this strong beginning [Science’s three-year-old Education Forum] by recruiting high-quality by Theodore Maiman in 1960. The website also includes in- ing sections include “Women in articles on education from the world’s best experts for every section Visitors can also browse a timeline structions for individuals or corpo- Laser Science” and “50 Laser In- of the magazine.” Accordingly, the magazine included one of its first of the milestones that paved the rations interested in being involved novations,” podcasts, and interac- education research reports, entitled “Why Peer Discussion Improves way for the experimental realiza- in LaserFest. All sponsors will be tive games. Eventually, the site Student Performance on In-Class Concept Questions.” The article, tion of the laser. Specific contri- offered appropriate recognition on will show a calendar of national authored by a team of researchers from the University of Colorado butions from key scientists whose the website and in other LaserFest and local events, listing LaserFest at Boulder that includes Physics Nobel Prize laureate Carl Wieman, work led to the invention of the promotion materials, and donations activities happening in the Wash- describes a study the team performed to determine whether peer laser is available, including Robert to LaserFest are tax deductible. ington DC area and communities discussion had a lasting impact on the conceptual understanding of H. Dicke, Gordon Gould, Charles New material is continually around the US and the world. As students in an introductory science class. Townes, and Arthur Schawlow, being added. Visitors will soon events get underway next year, a as well as a list of Nobel laureates be able to explore how the laser LaserFest blog will document on- whose prize-winning research in- works and how laser light differs going events with weekly entries volved lasers. from regular light. Other upcom- and photos. Focus on

Focus on

6 • March 2009 APS NEWS

MEETING continued from page 1

Caltech are shaping carbon nano- basic tenets of material physics, but titanium dioxide produces peroxide ocus on tubes into minuscule soldering the propagation of cracks has never and other chemicals that can dam- irons. The researchers used electron been well understood. A new theo- age cells when it is exposed to UV beams to carve the world’s small- retical and experimental analysis light. Using cultures of a common est soldering tips from iron-filled offers valuable insights into how a type of skin cell known as “dermal Group on Instrument nanotubes, and demonstrated their material will fare over time. Materi- fibroblasts,” Rafailovich and her and Measurement Science tiny tool by soldering other carbon als break around the weakest points, colleagues showed how titanium nanotubes together. Ultimately, the which are usually impurities or de- dioxide can damage the cells’ DNA By Michael Lucibella nano-soldering iron should be ideal fects in the object’s molecular struc- and lead to cell death. They also for linking together molecular-scale ture. Up to now, it has been very showed that coating the particles This year’s March Meeting anything about it.” mechanical and electronic devices difficult to predict how different with electrically active polymers marks the twenty-fifth anniver- One of the original inspira- (J24.2). Keith Brown of Harvard stresses would cause these defects can protect the cells from damage. sary of the Group on Instru- tions for the group came when will present an innovative proposal to crack and fail. Caltech physi- (J40.7) ment and Measurement Science Rubin was working at the High to move components with the sharp cist Laurent Ponson’s new model Physics And Culture (GIMS), where they will cel- Field Magnet Lab at MIT. During tip of an Atomic Force Microscope describes how a material’s natural Speakers in sessions Q3 and W5 ebrate their quarter century with his time there, he saw what he (AFM). In order to prevent nano- impurities affect its long term du- examine the ways physics relates to a tribute to the group’s founder described as many thousands of objects from sticking to the AFM rability. It has been well known for a variety of artistic ventures, from Lawrence Rubin. people who had come to test their tips, Brown and his fellow research- years that some material impurities the paintings of Van Gogh, Monet, As its name implies, the pri- experiments within the powerful ers are looking to a method that per- can actually increase an object’s life mary focus of GIMS is promot- magnetic fields generated at the mits them to hold objects without by deflecting cracks, but this new and Pollock, to the architecture of ing the development and dissemi- lab. He took notice of the need actually touching them. Applying a model quantifies the process. This medieval Islam and contemporary nation of the best tools and tech- for precision measurement that radio frequency signal to specially- will give engineers a powerful tool China (such as the Olympic Water niques for making all classes of all of the experimenters shared. designed AFM tips allows them to for predicting how brittle substanc- Cube in Beijing), to the overlap of precise measurements. Because In addition he served as an asso- capture small objects while keeping es like clay or glass hold up over science, scientists, and the making the need for accurate data is inte- ciate editor at the Review of Sci- them a small distance away from their lifetimes. (W9.1) of movies in Hollywood. gral to all fields of science, mem- entific Instruments, a publication the AFM tip (V27.2). Andreas Hu- Supersolids 10,000 Physics Majors Focusbers ofon GIMS represent Topic a broad devoted to scientific Groups instruments ber of the Max Planck Institute for In 2004 Penn State physicist Right now, only about 1.4% of cross-section of disciplines. and techniques. He was struck by Biochemistry will describe an im- Moses Chan presented preliminary STEM graduates are in physics. TopicInnovations from the instru- the need for a Groupsdedicated organiza- aging system that provides nano- evidence of superfluid behavior in Both the American Physical Soci- mentation and measurement tech- tion for physicists and technicians meter resolution and is particularly a sample of solid helium. This evi- ety and the American Association nologies have had a huge impact to come together to share their re- well suited to analyzing supercon- dence consisted of the sample, or of Physics Teachers (AAPT) have Focusin every scientific on field. LaboraTopic- search. Groupsductors, semiconductor devices and least part of the sample, remaining issued statements calling for dou- tory applications are constantly When GIMS was founded it even individual molecules. The new stationary even when its container bling the number of undergradu- pushing the cutting edge of re- was the first APS topical group. nanoscope relies on terahertz (THz) was given a quick twist. Since then ate physics majors in this country. search and spurring innovation. Rubin continued to work closely light. Imaging devices usually can’t the experimental observations of (Roughly 5,700 physics baccalaure- Devices such as the boxcar inte- with RSI to help publicize the lat- resolve structures smaller than the Chan have been confirmed in at ate degrees are presented annually.) grator and the lock-in amplifier est research, and remained active wavelength of the light they are us- least six other laboratories. Howev- Theodore Hodapp, APS director of which were just making their de- in GIMS until his retirement in ing, but Huber and colleagues have er, the exact physical mechanisms education and diversity, will pres- buts when the group was starting 2004. Rubin said that though the managed to image objects with responsible for the observation are ent the rationale for having 10,000 are now commonly found in labs technology may have changed resolutions 3000 times smaller than still unclear. What is clear is that physics majors. A main reason is around the world. over the years, the group’s direc- the wavelength of terahertz light, superfluidity in solid helium is quite that an education in physics pre- Outside of pure scientific re- tion has always stayed true to its setting a new record for sub-wave- different from that in liquid helium. pares a student for tackling many search, developments from the original focus on bringing the length resolution (P27.13). (W1 and V16) of the large technical issues facing field can be seen in a wide assort- newest and best information to its A Touching Technique For A Polymer That Beats Like A society. (B3.1) ment of practical applications as members. Identifying Cancer Cells Heart Periodic Table For Quantum- well. Medical technologies, such Today the group comprises Distinguishing between healthy The overall function of certain Dots as MRIs, PET and CAT scans all over 600 members, many of cells and cancerous ones is often an biological tissues like the heart A quantum dot is a tiny speck of depend on the sort of precise in- whom are expected to attend the inexact science, traditionally relying emerges from the fact that its cells semiconducting material in which strumentation that emerges from annual March Meeting. One of on visual identification, analysis of can join together in coordinated the cutting edge of GIMS re- the major highlights at each of cell growth, or genetic tests, among movements like a heartbeat in re- electrons are confined to an essen- search. This ability to precisely the meetings is the presentation other techniques. Researchers at sponse to a triggering signal. Now tially zero-dimensional point. A lone scan and interpret data is used in of the Joseph F. Keithley Award Clarkson University and the Uni- this ability has inspired researchers electron, freed from an atom in the countless commercial electronics for Advances in Measurement versity of Australia have now found to design polymer materials that dot by laser light, along with the mi- ranging from cell phones to tele- Science, given each year to an that they can tell the difference be- can do the same sort of thing. Anna grating vacancy left behind, form a vision sets. individual who has made a ma- tween normal and cancerous cells Balazs of the University of Pitts- composite object called an exciton. The group’s membership often jor contribution to the field. This through touch. The group used an burgh will describe her research on That exciton within the confines of reflects where the major fields of year APS will be honoring Rob- atomic force microscope (AFM) to one such material: a polymer gel the dot constitutes an artificial hy- study are in physics today. Any- ert Schoelkopf of Yale for devel- study the adhesion of silica beads to that’s sensitive to pressure and beats drogen atom, with a unique energy one with an interest in measure- oping the single electron transis- malignant and normal cells cultured like a heart when touched. The spectrum of its own. Maneuver to ment science can join GIMS, so tor to better take high frequency from the human cervix. They found gel contains a metal catalyst, and have two such excitons in the dot the most popular disciplines tend mesoscopic measurements. that analyzing the relative sticki- touching it in one spot induces a cy- and you have an artificial helium to have the largest numbers of In addition, GIMS continues ness of cells is a good way to tell clic chemical reaction that spreads atom. McGill University physicist members in the group. Some of to promote the latest research and cells apart, potentially taking the over the entire material and causes Patanjali Kambhampati will report the most prominent areas of spe- developments through the jour- guesswork out of cell identification the whole gel to vibrate. Balazs has on the first detailed studies of a “he- cialization include research into nals it keeps a close association and leading to a quicker and more developed the first computational lium” quantum dot. Artificial “lithi- all manner of scanning probes, with. Al Macrander, former Chair reliable method of cancer diagnosis. model describing the microscopic um” and indeed many other atoms synchrotron radiation instruments and the current Secretary Trea- Igor Sokolov of Clarkson Univer- shape changes that occur in these seem to be in the offing. (H10.2) and high-field magnets. In addi- surer, is also the current head edi- sity will present the study of their touch-sensitive gels. Balazs and her Quartz-Like CO2 tion, technicians devising new tor of RSI, continuing the group’s novel detection technique (V27.4). group have also designed polymeric Pressures of 100 GPa, equiva- technologies for low temperature close affiliation with the Review. Hybrid Protein-Nanoparticle materials that vibrate in response to lent to a million times atmospheric physics and acoustic and photo- In addition, member Carolyn Memory Unit light and will actually wiggle away pressure, are comparable to the thermal research play a major MacDonald serves as the editor- Researchers in Israel have de- from a light source when exposed chemical strengths of solids made role, reflecting the constant need in-chief of X-ray Optics and In- veloped a novel memory unit that to it. The overall goal of the re- of molecules, such as H , CO , and for new techniques in these fast- strumentation. combines a ring-shaped protein search, she says, is to impart lifelike 2 2 N . Much higher pressures than that moving fields. “GIMS has reached out in- molecule 11 nanometers in diam- functions, such as the sensitivity to 2 can be brought to bear on materials, Founder Lawrence Rubin said directly to instrumentalists and eter with a 5 nanometer particle of touch, to inanimate objects. Touch- either through static methods, such that he originally conceived of young scientists by facilitating silicon. The structure can be electri- sensitive robots and damage sensors as with diamond anvil cells, where the group as a forum where the personal contact with journal cally charged to store a single bit of on airplanes and other vehicles are latest research about instrumenta- editors,” Macrander said, adding information. The achievement is an some of the more obvious applica- pressures can reach 360 GPa, or dy- tion and measurement techniques that it maintains a close connec- example of a promising bottom-up tions. (X4.1) namic methods, such as with laser could be shared. At the time he tion with the Keithley Company approach to building nanoscopic Titanium Dioxide Kills Skin pulses or explosions that can reach saw information about the differ- as well. electronics, rather than the top- Cells pressures over a trillion Pascal ent techniques of measurement Macrander said they are ex- down technique of carving devices Titanium dioxide is a common (TPa). Choong-Shik Yoo, a scien- scattered across numerous differ- pecting over 200 members to at- out of silicon, which is getting in- pigment used in everything from tist at Washington State University, ent fields of physics. tend the March Meeting. Mem- creasingly challenging as technol- paint to sunscreen–even breath will discuss TPa chemistry and will “The whole idea is to get pub- bers will be presenting about 100 ogy moves to ever smaller scales. mints–but despite its ubiquity in report on specific molecular-to- licity to newer techniques and papers on topics ranging from (A28.11) commercial products, its safety nonmolecular transitions observed newer equipment,” Rubin said, real-time monitoring of electron To Crack, Or Not To Crack may be a cause for concern, accord- in his lab under high pressure. “Lord Kelvin once made the spins, to the use of pulsed mag- A brittle material fails because ing to Miriam Rafailovich and her Examples include quartz-like and statement that if you can’t mea- netic fields to study the structural cracks form and ruin its structural colleagues at Stony Brook Univer- silica-like forms of carbon dioxide. sure something you don’t know properties of materials. integrity. This is one of the most sity. The problem, she says, is that (P13.4) APS NEWS March 2009 • 7

ANNOUNCEMENTS Now Appearing in RMP: IN A RECESSION... Call for Proposals: India-U.S. Travel Program Recently Posted Reviews and Colloquia You will find the following in ...employers must hire highly skilled employees and The Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) and the online edition of the American Physical Society (APS) are pleased to announce the jobseekers must set themselves apart. Reviews of Modern Physics launch of two new programs: 1) the India-U.S. Phys- at ics Student Visitation Program, and 2) the India- Register for the upcoming APS March Meeting Job Fair http://rmp.aps.org and give yourself an edge. U.S. Professorship Awards in Physics. Through the Physics Student Visitation Pro- The electronic properties Employers will have access to hundreds of highly skilled gram, U.S. and Indian graduate students may apply for travel funds of graphene candidates and jobseekers will have access to their ideal of U.S. $3,000 to pursue opportunities in physics. The A. H. Castro Neto, F. Guinea, jobs. travel funds could be used to attend a short course or N. M. R. Peres, K. S. Novoselov summer institute, to work temporarily in a laboratory, and A. K. Geim or for another opportunity that the student and the host Theoretical treatments of gra- phene, the one‑atom‑thick allotrope professor believe is worthy of support. The Physics of carbon, are reviewed and placed Student Visitation Program aims to mostly support graduate student into context with respect to the most travel to India by U.S. citizens, while enabling some students of In- recent developments in this very ac- tive and rapidly evolving field. dian citizenship to travel to the United States. The Professorship Awards in Physics funds physicists in India The topics discussed, which in- clude the role of two‑dimensional or the United States wishing to visit overseas to teach short cours- Dirac‑like electronic excitations, the es or provide a physics lecture series delivered at a U.S. or Indian presence of unusual surface (edge) university. Awards will be up to U.S. $4,000. states, the consequences of disor- der, elastic properties, bilayers and Further details about both programs, including proposal guide- stacks, response to magnetic fields, APS March Meeting Job Fair lines, are provided at www.aps.org/programs/international/us-india- and a treatment of complex many travel.cfm. body effects, enable a comprehen- sive understanding of the promise Date: March 16-17, 2009 The upcoming deadline is 31 March 2009. Recipients will be of this unique two‑dimensional ma- Place: David L. Lawrence Convention Center, selected by a joint APS-IUSSTF Review Committee. terial. Pittsburgh, PA

Register today at: http://www.aps.org/careers/ employment/jobfairs.cfm M. Hildred Blewett Scholarship for Women Physicists

ITER continued from page 3 Again in this area ITER is well flux that will emerge from fusion his scholarship has been established to enable positioned to explore opportuni- plasma needs to be captured in a Twomen to return to physics research careers ties for improvements in under- lithium bearing “blanket” to pro- after having had to interrupt those careers for family standing and performance. duce the needed tritium, as well ITER is also well positioned as high quality heat. This blanket reasons. The scholarship consists of an award of up to explore opportunities for very also needs to maintain its required to $45,000. The applicant must currently be a legal long-duration plasma pulses, properties for two to five years resident of the US or Canada. She must be currently which are desirable from the pow- without replacement. ITER will in Canada or the US and must have an affiliation with er-plant perspective. The pulse make dramatic advances in both duration for ITER shown in the of these areas. Furthermore, Eu- a research-active educational institution or national table above is defined by the abil- rope and Japan are working on the lab. She must have completed work toward a PhD. ity to sustain the current in the engineering design and engineer- ITER plasma through induction. A ing validation of a beam-driven solenoid generates changing mag- high-energy neutron source to test Applications are due June 1, 2009. netic flux to drive an electric field the materials being developed for Announcement of the award is expected to be around the plasma torus. This pro- fusion. made by August 1, 2009. cess is well understood, and the We certainly do not claim that projected pulse length of ITER is fusion energy research is easy, all but guaranteed. The 300–500 nor that economically competi- Details and on-line application can be found at http://www.aps.org/ second pulse will be long enough tive energy production is assured. that all of the plasma-facing com- programs/women/scholarships/blewett/index.cfm The international fusion research ponents will come into thermal community has made tremendous steady state, so key steady-state strides, but the distance yet to cov- Contact: Sue Otwell in the APS office at [email protected] physics and engineering issues er is considerable. The world will can be explored. ITER is also continue to be in need of safe new designed to study non-inductive energy sources as our population means to drive current efficiently and so can advance this science grows, as the standard of living towards fusion power plants. hopefully rises everywhere, and as APS Provides Childcare Assistance to Meeting Attendees ITER will utilize non-inductive limits must be respected for emis- sion of CO from energy systems techniques explored in the super- 2 The APS Committee on the to increase both the number and and family responsibilities during conducting devices now on line worldwide. Thus, the international Status of Women in Physics the amount of the awards. These the early stages of their careers in in China and South Korea, and in collaboration to develop fusion as (CSWP) has received a grant funds will augment funds already science and technology. The grant a new energy source, with ITER construction in India and Japan. from the Elsevier Foundation’s provided by the APS. recipients represent a range of its centerpiece, is not only an ex- Achieving the goals for a fu- New Scholars program that will The childcare grant program international institutions pioneer- citing scientific and technological sion power plant will require ad- allow CSWP to make awards of aims to ease the financial disad- ing new approaches to childcare, vances beyond plasma physics, challenge, but also a key part of up to $400 to APS meeting at- vantage parents responsible for mentoring and networking. and will require joint physics and the nation’s and the world’s long- tendees who are bringing small childcare may face in attending A parent-child quiet room is engineering innovation. The very term approach to energy. children or who incur extra ex- meetings, which are essential to high heat and particle fluxes that Robert J. Goldston was Direc- penses in leaving them at home. collaboration, visibility, network- also available at the March Meet- will emerge from fusion plasmas tor of the DOE Princeton Plasma This is the second year that ing, and a successful career. ing for attendees with children. will need to be handled in a way Physics Laboratory from 1997 CSWP has made these grants Within the New Scholars pro- Details on APS CSWP child- that allows the plasma-facing until recently. Ned R. Sauthoff is available. The grant from Elsevi- gram this year, the Elsevier Foun- care grants are at http://www.aps. components to operate for two Head of the U.S. ITER Project er, which was announced in late dation awarded five grants to en- org/meetings/april/services/index. to five years without replace- Office at the Oak Ridge National January, will allow the committee able scholars to balance childcare cfm. ment. The high-energy neutron Laboratory.

MESSAGE continued from page 1 BELTWAY continued from page 3 the DOE Office of Science, and of Energy's Office of Science, The swing-gang whacked frastructure projects that would dict be final, and in a powwow $475 million for NIST. The fi- $400 million for the Advanced away at the House priorities, create several hundred thousand of ten, the science funding was nal House and Senate compro- Research Project Agency-Energy and by the time they were done, blue collar jobs. But the last restored. mise version of the bill, which Collins, Snowe and Specter, chapter of the stimulus saga Science escaped narrowly, (ARPA-E) to support high-risk, President Obama has signed into joined by a cadre of conserva- was still to be written. House but bipartisanship didn’t. Presi- law, provides $3 billion for the high-payoff research into energy tive Democrats, had removed Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) dent Obama may want to change National Science Foundation, sources and energy efficiency, more than $6.5 billion for sci- rejected as unacceptable the the partisan culture of Washing- $1.6 billion for the Department and $580 million for NIST. ence, much of it related to in- Senate’s insistence that its ver- ton, but it takes two to tango. 8 • March 2009 APS NEWS The Back Page

our-hundred years ago Galileo turned a 2-cm the acceleration of the expansion of the Uni- Ftelescope to the sky and increased the sensi- verse in 1998 was finding distant supernovae tivity of human eyes on the Universe by a factor New Eyes on the Universe: to use as cosmic mileposts. Supernovae are of 100–an increase only matched since by that very bright–as bright as their host galaxies– of the Hubble Space Telescope. His discoveries, 400 Years of Physicist Astronomers but very rare–occurring only once in every including the phases of Venus and the resolution 100 years or so. They can now be found rou- of the Milky Way into stars, established the Co- By Michael S. Turner tinely by taking two images of the sky con- pernican paradigm and profoundly changed our taining 1000s of galaxies weeks apart; when view of the Universe. Since then, the sensitiv- the two images are digitally subtracted, the ity of optical telescopes has improved by another factor supernovae jump right out. of 100 million, and we have added radio, infrared, UV, Equally important to the advance of our understand- x-ray, gamma-ray, cosmic-ray, and neutrino eyes on the ing of the Universe has been the addition of “new eyes” Universe. These new and more powerful eyes have con- on the Universe which have revealed otherwise invis- tinued to deliver stunning discoveries. ible objects and have led to stunning discoveries. In the Because physicists have contributed so significantly 1930s physicist Karl Jansky of Bell Labs and amateur to the improvement of the performance of “our eyes on Grote Reber pioneered radio astronomy by detecting dif- the Universe” and in shaping the science of astrophys- fuse emission from our galaxy and a few bright individ- ics, it is appropriate that our Society take part in the cel- ual sources. Today, radio eyes allow us to study rapidly ebration of this anniversary (the International Year of spinning neutron stars, the jets created by the supermas- Astronomy) through the theme–New Eyes on the Uni- sive black holes at the centers of galaxies, and a host of verse: 400 years of telescopes–and content of the April other things invisible to the eye. Meeting. Galileo was not only the first physicist to turn Radio astronomy's greatest hit is the discovery of a telescope to the sky, but the telescope and microscope the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in 1964 by were the first instruments of science that extended our physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. It revealed ability to explore the physical world. mid-nineteenth century, Sir William Huggins compared the the hot beginning of our Universe and much more. To- The telescope Galileo used was a simple refractor. The spectra of the sun and distant stars and showed that both day precision measurements of its anisotropy (a part in 105 sheer weight of a large glass lens makes a refracting tele- are made largely of Hydrogen, making clear that our sun variations in its intensity across the sky) have given us a scope larger than about a 1 meter in diameter impractical. is just a star up close and that we are made of the same glimpse of the Universe when it was only 400,000 years The introduction of the reflecting telescope by Newton in stuff as the cosmos. The ability to remotely analyze the old and before stars and galaxies existed. From measure- 1669 paved the way to virtually all modern telescopes. composition of objects across the Universe and thereby to ments of CMB anisotropy the age, shape and composition Newton made a few other contributions relevant to astron- begin to understand their inner workings created the field of the Universe have been accurately measured and infor- omy including his invention of the fields of gravitational of astrophysics. It is an interesting footnote to history that mation about the earliest moments of creation has been physics and spectroscopy. in 1835, Auguste Comte, a prominent French philosopher, gleaned (e.g., evidence for an early period of inflation). George Ellery Hale, the MIT-educated solar-physicist, stated with great authority that “humans would never be Physicists Herbert Friedman and Riccardo Giacconi was the pre-eminent telescope builder of the 20th centu- able to understand the chemical composition of stars.” pioneered the field of x-ray astronomy. Without x-ray ry. After starting the first Department of Astronomy and Never say never when physicists are involved! eyes we would not be able to see most of the baryons in Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, Hale took as- The first president of the APS, Henry Rowland, revo- the Universe which reside in hot x-ray emitting gas around tronomy to the mountains of California where the seeing lutionized spectroscopy with his gratings, still the work- galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Black holes of all sizes (image quality) is much better. (When observing point-like horse of spectroscopy today. Astronomers take spectra are studied by the x-ray emission from their accretion objects, sensitivity improves as the point-spread function of just about anything they can see (and even things that disks, and the highly asymmetric shape of the Iron lines squared. On the best mountaintops seeing can be 0.3 arc- they can’t see) in the Universe–from the brightest stars seen allow the in falling material to be tracked as it ap- seconds which results in a hundredfold gain.) Four times to the faintest galaxies. Spectra are used to determine ve- proaches the event horizon. Hale built the largest telescope in the world: the 40-inch locities, compositions, and more generally to get at how Masatoshi Koshiba and Raymond Davis opened the refractor at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin and the 60- things work. The redshift of a galaxy determines how big field of neutrino astronomy with their large underground and 100-inch reflectors at Mt. Wilson and the 200-inch re- the Universe was when its light was emitted and through experiments which detected neutrinos from the sun and su- flector at Mt. Palomar, and he left a great scientific legacy Hubble’s law how far away it is; the spectrum of a super- pernova 1987A. Gamma-ray astronomy was secretly born in the discoveries made by these telescopes. nova reveals the exploding shell of material and the newly during the Cold War in 1967 with the detection of gamma Edwin Hubble used the 100-inch Hooker telescope to formed heavy elements. Very stable spectrographs were bursts from black holes forming at the edge of the Uni- solve the riddle of the mysterious nebulae that had been used to detect the small (of order meters per second) peri- verse by the Vela satellites, which were built to monitor the catalogued for more than 100 years. He showed that they odic wobbles in nearby stars caused by the exoplanets that nuclear test ban on Earth. Physicists Robert Leighton and were “island universes” and not gas clouds within our own orbit them. Hundreds of planets have been discovered, and Gary Neugebauer were among the pioneers of infrared as- Milky Way galaxy, thereby enlarging the known Universe in the future, spectra of the exoplanets themselves may re- tronomy; today IR eyes allow astronomers to see through by a factor of 100 billion. Hubble went on to discover the veal the chemical signatures of life that exists on them. the dust surrounding the birth of stars and planets as well expansion of the Universe, revealing our big bang origin. Almost a factor of a million of the gain in sensitivity as the high-redshift universe where the expansion of the The 200-inch was used to discover quasars, now known since Galileo’s time has come from increasing telescope Universe has shifted most of a galaxy’s visible light into to be super-massive black holes powered by the accretion mirror size. Physicists Jerry Nelson and Roger Angel have the infrared. Without devices invented by physicists, x-ray, of matter. This discovery, featured on the cover of Time made innovations in mirror design that have enabled to- gamma-ray, infrared, neutrino and radio astronomy would Magazine in March 1966, opened our eyes to the “extreme day’s large telescopes. Angel introduced molded honey- not be possible. Universe” of relativistic objects like neutron stars and comb mirrors that reduce the weight of large mirrors dra- Four hundred years ago the telescope and the micro- black holes. matically, and Nelson devised a way to make a large mir- scope were essentially the same device, with one turned to Physicist Albert A. Michelson not only showed that the ror from many smaller and lighter segments. These two outer space and the other turned to inner space. The paths speed of light is frame independent, but he also introduced innovations are at the heart of the design of the two 30- deep into inner space and into outer space quickly diverged, interferometry to astronomy. The use of an interferometer meter telescope projects–the Thirty Meter Telescope with with exciting, but seemingly unrelated discoveries in these to combine the light from two telescopes to create a tele- its four-hundred-ninety-two 1.8-meter hexagonal segments vastly different realms of the physical world. Microscopes scope of larger effective diameter–the separation of the and the Giant Magellan Telescope with its seven 8-meter discovered microbes, cells and viruses and explored the two telescopes–vastly increases its resolving power. Today, honeycomb mirrors. These giant telescopes will add an- worlds within them; and most recently, kilometer-sized ac- optical interferometers are in operation at Mt. Wilson and other factor of 100 in sensitivity to our eyes on the sky en- celerators revealed the world of quarks, leptons and gauge on the European Southern Observatory’s Cerro Paranal in abling marvelous discoveries. bosons. At the same time, bigger and bigger telescopes, em- Chile, where the light of four 8-meter telescopes can be Even at the best high-mountain sites atmospheric tur- ploying more and more sophisticated detectors, took us to combined. These interferometers will soon image distant bulence blurs astronomical images and limits seeing. With the edge of the Universe and back to the beginning of time. planetary systems, black hole accretion disks, and the sur- the advent of adaptive optics–the use of flexible mirrors After nearly 400 years of divergence, inner space and outer faces of stars. with real-time control systems–the blurring can be undone. space have come together again. Today, both astronomers Michelson interferometers are also being used in the The critical de-blurring information comes from having a and particle physicists are chasing after dark matter, dark quest to directly detect gravitational waves. At the heart of bright guide star near the distant (usually faint) object of energy, neutrinos, and the birth of the Universe, using tele- the two U.S. LIGO detectors (in Hanford, WA and Livings- interest. Since there are not enough bright stars in the sky scopes and accelerators. The plenary, invited and contributed ton, LA) are 4-km Michelson interferometers which are for this purpose, artificial guide stars are created by shin- talks at the April Meeting illustrate this coming together of used to detect the tiny (10-15 cm) changes in the separation ing high-powered lasers towards the heavens; by excit- quarks and the cosmos with particle physicists talking about of the mirrors due to passing gravitational waves. Soon, ing atoms in the atmosphere they create the needed guide the search for dark matter (the particle, that is) at the Large LIGO and other gravitational-wave detectors around the stars. Next year physics celebrates the 50th anniversary of Hadron Collider and astronomers using telescopes to get at world will be “listening” to the collisions of black holes the invention of the laser. the essence of nothing (dark energy, that is). and neutron stars across the Universe. By monitoring the Photographic plates only capture about 1% of the in- Michael S. Turner is the Rauner Distinguished Service coalescence of two black holes into one larger one, some cident photons, whereas modern quantum devices–CCDs Professor at the University of Chicago’s Kavli Institute for of the most fundamental predictions of general relativity and the like–have efficiencies approaching 100%. More- Cosmological Physics; he is currently Chair-elect of the Di- will be tested. over, a digital image can be exploited in ways that a photo- vision of Astrophysics. He led the National Academies Study Nowhere has the impact of physics on astronomy been graphic image cannot. For example, the key to discovering From Quark to the Cosmos and coined the term dark en- greater than with the introduction of spectroscopy. In the ergy. APS News welcomes and encourages letters and submissions from its members responding to these and other issues. Responses may be sent to: [email protected]