The CCNY Physics Department Newsletter Volume 12 Fall 2019 - Spring 2021
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Messenger Extreme Exploration
MESSENGERMESSENGER EEXTREMEXTREME EEXPLORATIONXPLORATION — Deborah Domingue, MESSENGER Deputy Project Scientist, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory The first half of 2004 has been an exciting time for planetary exploration with the successful encounter and sampling of Comet Wild 2 by Stardust, the landing of two Mars rovers, orbital operations at Mars by three spacecraft, and the arrival of Cassini at Saturn. This month we wished “Bon Voyage” to the MESSENGER spacecraft, which successfully launched from Cape Canaveral on August 3, 2004, and began its journey to the innermost planet of our solar system, Mercury. MESSENGER is a MEcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging mission that will orbit Mercury for one Earth year (beginning in March 2011) following three flybys (in January and Septem- ber 2008 and October 2009) of the planet. It will be our first return to Mercury in over 30 years! The Mariner 10 spacecraft flew past Mer- cury three times in 1974 and 1975 and collected information on less than half the planet. MESSENGER will provide the first global map of Mercury, in addition to detailed information on the composition and structure of Mercury’s crust, its geologic history, the nature of Mercury’s thin exosphere and dynamic magnetosphere, and the makeup of its core and polar materials. MERCURY:A PLACE OF EXTREMES Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, has a highly elliptical orbit such that its distance from the Sun ranges from 46 million kilometers (29 million miles) to 70 million kilometers (43 million miles). Because of its slow rotation, Mercury’s day (sunrise to sunrise) actually lasts two Mercury years (88 Earth days of dark and 88 Earth days of daylight). -
6 8 Myriam Sarachik Elected APS Vice President
November 2000 NEWS Volume 9, No. 10 A Publication of The American Physical Society http://www.aps.org/apsnews Myriam Sarachik Elected APS Vice President Members of the APS have chosen Sciences Research at Lucent. Only and government labs, and to pro- Myriam Sarachik, a distinguished two new general councillors were vide the next generation of professor of physics at City College elected, compared to the four educators at our universities,” she of New York’s City University of New elected in previous years, to reflect says. One of her goals as President York, to be the Society’s next vice recent changes in the APS Consti- will be to strengthen the society’s president. Sarachik is the third tution, designed to reduce the size efforts to make a career in physics woman to be elected to the presi- of the APS Council. These changes attractive. “We need to be more ef- dential line in the Society’s 101-year were published in the March 2000 fective in explaining the pleasures history, following C.S. Wu of Colum- issue of APS News. that a career in physics can bring, bia in 1975, and Mildred the satisfaction garnered from VICE PRESIDENT CHAIR-ELECT OF THE Dresselhaus of MIT (who became VICE PRESIDENT teaching, and the excitement of re- Myriam Sarachik NOMINATING COMMITTEE Director of the Department of MYRIAM SARACHIK search and discovery; we must also Susan Coppersmith Energy’s Office of Science in August) City College of New York/CUNY have salaries competitive with other in 1984. Sarachik’s term begins Born in Antwerp, Belgium, professional options,” she says. -
A Brief History of Magnetospheric Physics Before the Spaceflight Era
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MAGNETOSPHERIC PHYSICS BEFORE THE SPACEFLIGHT ERA David P. Stern Laboratoryfor ExtraterrestrialPhysics NASAGoddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt,Maryland Abstract.This review traces early resea/ch on the Earth's aurora, plasma cloud particles required some way of magneticenvironment, covering the period when only penetratingthe "Chapman-Ferrarocavity": Alfv•n (1939) ground:based0bservationswerepossible. Observations of invoked an eleCtric field, but his ideas met resistance. The magneticstorms (1724) and of perturbationsassociated picture grew more complicated with observationsof with the aurora (1741) suggestedthat those phenomena comets(1943, 1951) which suggesteda fast "solarwind" originatedoutside the Earth; correlationof the solarcycle emanatingfrom the Sun's coronaat all times. This flow (1851)with magnetic activity (1852) pointed to theSun's was explainedby Parker's theory (1958), and the perma- involvement.The discovei-yof •solarflares (1859) and nent cavity which it producedaround the Earth was later growingevidence for their associationwith large storms named the "magnetosphere"(1959). As early as 1905, led Birkeland (1900) to proposesolar electronstreams as Birkeland had proposedthat the large magneticperturba- thecause. Though laboratory experiments provided some tions of the polar aurora refleCteda "polar" type of support;the idea ran into theoreticaldifficulties and was magneticstorm whose electric currents descended into the replacedby Chapmanand Ferraro's notion of solarplasma upper atmosphere;that idea, however, was resisted for clouds (1930). Magnetic storms were first attributed more than 50 years. By the time of the International (1911)to a "ringcurrent" of high-energyparticles circling GeophysicalYear (1957-1958), when the first artificial the Earth, but later work (1957) reCOgnizedthat low- satelliteswere launched, most of the importantfeatures of energy particlesundergoing guiding center drifts could the magnetospherehad been glimpsed, but detailed have the same effect. -
Lecture 17: the Solar Wind O Topics to Be Covered
Lecture 17: The solar wind o Topics to be covered: o Solar wind o Inteplanetary magnetic field The solar wind o Biermann (1951) noticed that many comets showed excess ionization and abrupt changes in the outflow of material in their tails - is this due to a solar wind? o Assumed comet orbit perpendicular to line-of-sight (vperp) and tail at angle ! => tan! = vperp/vr o From observations, tan ! ~ 0.074 o But vperp is a projection of vorbit -1 => vperp = vorbit sin ! ~ 33 km s -1 o From 600 comets, vr ~ 450 km s . o See Uni. New Hampshire course (Physics 954) for further details: http://www-ssg.sr.unh.edu/Physics954/Syllabus.html The solar wind o STEREO satellite image sequences of comet tail buffeting and disconnection. Parker’s solar wind o Parker (1958) assumed that the outflow from the Sun is steady, spherically symmetric and isothermal. o As PSun>>PISM => must drive a flow. o Chapman (1957) considered corona to be in hydrostatic equibrium: dP = −ρg dr dP GMS ρ + 2 = 0 Eqn. 1 dr r o If first term >> than second €=> produces an outflow: € dP GM ρ dv + S + ρ = 0 Eqn. 2 dr r2 dt o This is the equation for a steadily expanding solar/stellar wind. € Parker’s solar wind (cont.) dv dv dr dv dP GM ρ dv o As, = = v => + S + ρv = 0 dt dr dt dr dr r2 dr dv 1 dP GM or v + + S = 0 Eqn. 3 dr ρ dr r2 € € o Called the momentum equation. € o Eqn. 3 describes acceleration (1st term) of the gas due to a pressure gradient (2nd term) and gravity (3rd term). -
Primary Years Academy Newsletter
Primary Years Academy Newsletter Issue No. 31 Week of 04/16/2018 IB Coordinator’s Corner Hello PYA Families, As part of our professional practice, we reflect on the work we have done and make changes that ***Please SAVE The DATE*** will make this program stronger and better for Testing Starts (Schedule Attached) our students. The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) does the same thing. The 4/26 50/50 Day—Parent Presentation 6:00 pm IBO has been in the process of reviewing and assessing all of the Primary Years Programs and will be making a few changes to the program in general, in the coming year. We will keep all of our PYA stakeholders informed of the changes as we learn about them. We are looking forward to growing as a school to give our students the best place to learn and grow themselves! Have you heard about our upcoming mission to the Sun? To better under- stand our star’s weather, NASA is sending Parker Solar Probe to orbit the Sun’s atmosphere for the next (nearly) seven years. The probe is equipped Hola familias PYA, with a four-inch carbon composite shell, which will protect the vessel as it Como parte de nuestra práctica profesional, re- travels at record-breaking speeds (450,000 MPH!) through temperatures as flexionamos sobre el trabajo que hemos realiza- hot as 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit. do y realizamos cambios que harán que este Information gathered from this mission will help scientists predict solar programa sea más sólido y mejor para nuestros weather and improve advanced warning systems to safeguard Earth’s tech- estudiantes. -
Annotated Bibliography: Women in Physics, Astronomy, and Related Disciplines
Annotated Bibliography: Women in Physics, Astronomy, and Related Disciplines Abir Am, Pnina and Dorinda Outram, eds. Uneasy Careers and Intimate Lives: Women in Science, 1787-1979. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987. Abir Am and Outram’s volume includes a collection of essays about women in science that highlight the intersection of personal and professional spheres. All of the articles argue that the careers of women scientists are influenced by their family lives and that their family lives are impacted because of their scientific careers. This text is significant in two ways: first, it is one of the earliest examples of scholarship that moves beyond the recovering women in science, but placing them in the context of their home and work environments. Second, it suggests that historians of science can no longer ignore the private lives of their historical subjects. This volume contains four articles relating to women in physics and astronomy: Marilyn Bailey Ogilvie’s “Marital Collaboration: An Approach to Science” (pages 104-125), Sally Gregory Kohlstedt’s “Maria Mitchell and the Advancement of Women in Science” (pages 129-146), Helena M. Pycior’s “Marie Curie’s ‘Anti-Natural Path’: Time Only for Science and Family” (pages 191-215), and Peggy Kidwell’s “Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin: Astronomy in the Family” (pages 216-238). As a unit, the articles would constitute and interesting lesson on personal and professional influences. Individually, the articles could be incorporated into lessons on a single scientist, offering a new perspective on their activities at work and at home. It complements Pycior, Slack, and Abir Am’s Creative Couples in the Sciences and Lykknes, Opitz, and Van Tiggelen’s For Better of For Worse: Collaborative Couples in the Sciences, which also look at the intersection of the personal and professional. -
Walter Elsasser in Mind
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES W A L T E R M . E LSASSER 1904—1991 A Biographical Memoir by H A R R Y RU BIN Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences. Biographical Memoir COPYRIGHT 1995 NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS WASHINGTON D.C. WALTER M. ELSASSER March 20, 1904–October 14, 1991 BY HARRY RUBIN ALTER ELSASSER WAS TRAINED as a theoretical physicist Wand made several important contributions to funda- mental problems of atomic physics, including interpreta- tion of the experiments on electron scattering by Davisson and Germer as an effect of de Broglie’s electron waves and recognition of the shell structure of atomic nuclei. Circum- stances later turned his interests to geophysics, where he had important insights about the radiative transfer of heat in the atmosphere and fathered the generally accepted dy- namo theory of the earth’s magnetism. He devoted a major part of the last fifty years of his life to developing a theory of organisms, concentrating on the basic features that dis- tinguish between living and inanimate matter, and he pro- duced four books on the subject. While his contribution to biology was not widely acknowledged, he felt it would even- tually be seen as his major scientific achievement. BACKGROUND AND YOUTH Walter was born in Mannheim, Germany, the older of two children of Maurice and Johanna Elsasser. His sister, Maria, was three years younger than him. His grandparents were prosperous Jewish merchants, but his father was a law- 103 104 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS yer who was caught up in the great wave of assimilation and both parents became nonpracticing Protestants. -
2008 Annual Report
AMERIC A N P H Y S I C A L S OCIETY 2 0 0 8 A N N U A L R E P O R T APS APS The AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY strives to: Be the leading voice for physics and an authoritative source of physics information for the advancement of physics and the benefit of humanity; Collaborate with national scientific societies for the advancement of science, science education, and the science community; Cooperate with international physics societies to promote physics, to support physicists worldwide, and to foster international collaboration; Have an active, engaged, and diverse membership, and support the activities of its units and members. F R O M T H E PRESIDEN T his past year saw continued growth and APS Gender Equity Conference, in which I played an ac- achievement for APS. Membership in the tive role in 2007. Society grew by close to 1000, exceeding APS staff continued to work to enhance programs 47,000. New student members continue serving the physics community. These include efforts to to dominate the growth, and students be- take physics to the public through the popular Physics came more active in APS governance, Quest program for middle school students. Over 11,000 Twith the first student member of the APS Council tak- kits were distributed to teachers across the country to ing her seat in 2008. Submissions to APS journals contin- provide the materials needed for over 200,000 students ued to increase, and APS added a new online publication, to participate in the 2008 quest. A major emphasis was Physics, while celebrating the 50th anniversary of Physical the ongoing lobbying efforts to increase funding for the Review Letters. -
2001 Annual Report
Cover and inside photos courtesy of the following: V.K. Vlasko-Vlasov, U. Welp (Argonne National Laboratory) and V. Metlushko (University of Illinois at Chicago); CERN; I.S. Aranson et al, Physical Review Letters 84, 3306 (2000); CDMS; RHIC and Brookhaven National Laboratory; Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 088302 (2001); A. Zehl, M. Yoshida, and D.T. Colbert; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; MIT; NASA Glenn Reseach Center. At the start of the year, the Executive Branch of the federal government was in the midst of transition. However, while the government almost appeared to slow to a halt during the transition, news of exciting physics research results continued unabated. During the APS March Meeting in Seattle, a marathon session was held on the new superconductor, magnesium diboride, while at the April Meeting in Washington, DC, excitement was high as the first reports of new precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background strongly supported the idea of an early inflationary universe. Other lead stories included the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) results confirming solar neutrino oscillations, the establishment of CP violation in B-meson decay, and the demonstration of bringing pulses of light to a standstill in such a way that all of the information that they contain is stored in atomic excitations and later recoverable. Heroic efforts by the APS Editorial Office staff throughout the year allowed the completion of the Physical Review On-line Archive, PROLA, so that every paper that APS has ever published is now on-line and readily accessible. Within PROLA, each paper is linked to previous papers to which it refers and also to subsequent papers that cite it. -
2007 Annual Report APS
American Physical Society APS 2007 Annual Report APS The AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY strives to: Be the leading voice for physics and an authoritative source of physics information for the advancement of physics and the benefit of humanity; Collaborate with national scientific societies for the advancement of science, science education, and the science community; Cooperate with international physics societies to promote physics, to support physicists worldwide, and to foster international collaboration; Have an active, engaged, and diverse membership, and support the activities of its units and members. Cover photos: Top: Complementary effect in flowing grains that spontaneously separate similar and well-mixed grains into two charged streams of demixed grains (Troy Shinbrot, Keirnan LaMarche and Ben Glass). Middle: Face-on view of a simulation of Weibel turbulence from intense laser-plasma interactions. (T. Haugbolle and C. Hededal, Niels Bohr Institute). Bottom: A scanning microscope image of platinum-lace nanoballs; liposomes aggregate, providing a foamlike template for a platinum sheet to grow (DOE and Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM). Text paper is 50% sugar cane bagasse pulp, 50% recycled fiber, including 30% post consumer fiber, elemental chlorine free. Cover paper is 50% recycled, including 15% post consumer fiber, elemental chlorine free. Annual Report Design: Leanne Poteet/APS/2008 Charts: Krystal Ferguson/APS/2008 ast year, 2007, started out as a very good year for both the American Physical Society and American physics. APS’ journals and meetings showed solidly growing impact, sales, and attendance — with a good mixture Lof US and foreign contributions. In US research, especially rapid growth was seen in biophysics, optics, as- trophysics, fundamental quantum physics and several other areas. -
Individual and Organizational Donors
INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL Mr. Saumya Nandi and Ms. Martha Delgado Edward & Rose Donnell Foundation Dr. Tim D. Noel and Mrs. Joni L. Noel Mr. and Mrs. John A. Edwardson DONORS Orange Crush, LLC Ms. Amberlynne Farashahi Park Avenue Financial Group Trust Mr. and Mrs. Blair Farwell $100,000 and above Mr. and Mrs. Mark J. Parrell The Field Foundation of Illinois Anonymous (4) The Pritzker Pucker Family Foundation Fortune Brands, Inc. Bank of America Mr. Richard Proulx Franklin Philanthropic Foundation BlackEdge Capital Bruce and Diana Rauner Mr. Philip M. Friedmann The Chicago Community Trust The Regenstein Foundation Futures Industry Association Feeding America Mr. and Mrs. Bradley S. Reid Garvey's Office Products Ms. Susan E. Grabin The Rhoades Foundation GCA Services Group, Inc. Hardison Family Foundation Mr. and Mrs. James H. Roth General Iron Industries Charitable Foundation Mr. and Mrs. Raymond L. Harriman Roundy's Foundation Dr. Glenn S. Gerber and Ms. Linda S. Schurman Hillshire Brands Foundation The Satter Family Foundation Gethsemane United Church of Christ Daniel Haerther Living Trust Mr. and Mrs. Travis Schuler Mr. and Mrs. Brent Gledhill Mr. Albert F. Hofeld Mrs. Rose L. Shure Goldberg Kohn, Ltd. Mr. Michael L. Keiser and Mrs. Rosalind Keiser Julie and Brian Simmons Foundation Golub & Company Kraft Foods Group Foundation SmithBucklin Corporation Google, Inc. Ann Lurie Revocable Trust The Smogolski Family 2008 Mr. and Mrs. Andrew M. Gore Polk Bros. Foundation Charitable Lead Trust W.W. Grainger, Inc. Share Our Strength The Telos Group LLC Grand Kids Foundation Mr. William R. Shepard Stanley and Lucy Lopata Charitable Foundation Ms. -
Physics in Your Future” Introduces Physics and Careers in Physics to Young People, Their Parents, Teachers and Advisors
Cover photos by (clockwise) Neil Schneider, NASA, Argonne National Lab, Angela Seckinger, Neil Schneider, John T. Consoli and R John T. Neil Schneider, Angela Seckinger, National Lab, Argonne NASA, Cover photos by (clockwise) Neil Schneider, ay Manning Choosing a career is a big decision. Most people work as long as 50 years. It’s very important to find work that you’ll enjoy. You’ll have a great selection of rewarding careers to choose from if you study math and science. This booklet Photo by NASA describes some of your possibilities. PHYSICS IS THE BASIS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY It deals with how and why matter and energy act as they do. The laws of physics precisely describe force and motion, gravity, electricity, magnetism, sound, light and heat. They help you understand the physical world and develop products that meet human needs. Mastering physics is challenging. You must work with other people as well as alone. You learn how to solve problems, observe things carefully, make measure- ments and keep accurate records. You can use these valuable skills the rest of your life. They open doors to many good jobs. Physicists ask questions about the physical world and try to find exact answers. They are creative and persistent. Some do basic research. Their aim is to increase our knowledge of the universe. Others do applied research. They use basic knowledge to solve human problems such as food and energy supply, environmental protection, transportation, communication and defense. Over 40,000 physicists work in industry, educational institutions, government, and medical centers today.