A P S N E W S JUNE 1999 THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 8, NO. 6 [Try the enhanced APS News-online: http://www.aps.org/apsnews] APSCelebrate News APS a Century 100 of years Physics Nobel Luncheon, Exhibits Inspire High School Physics Students and Teachers ressed in their Sunday high school occasion, each Dphysics students and teachers from student and all around the greater Atlanta region and teacher received a beyond gathered with more than 50 signed certificate Nobel laureates in physics and chemistry from the Nobel for a special luncheon on Saturday, March laureate assigned 20, just prior to the APS Centennial to their table, meeting. The purpose of the event was signifying a to promote and highlight the importance symbolic “passing of science education, and also to of the baton.” encourage high school physics students No less a to pursue their scientific studies by luminary than DOE providing an opportunity to meet and Energy Secretary interact with preeminent scientists from Bill Richardson around the world. specifically cited Photo by Swieter Image Above: Nobelist, teacher and student luncheon attendees. “The Nobel laureates get A+ on their the luncheon as “a At left: Students play with Physics Works! plasmasphere. warmth and cordiality to the students,” perfect example said Mildred Sharkey, a former high of how the lessons won Nobel Prizes. The exhibit also fea- completion, the exhibit will travel to school math teacher and educational of science are tured a brief history of the Nobel Prize science museums and teaching centers consultant with the Center for Education handed down,” in and its founder, Alfred Nobel. across the country. Integrating Science, Mathematics and his keynote For those high school students and Computing, housed at the Georgia address on Monday afternoon (see APS teachers who remained for other FACTAL Institute of Technology. “The students News, May 1999). Recalling his boyhood Centennial activities during the week, Nobel Laureates Who Received were so nervous and excited, their hands passion for baseball, he said, “Something Monday, March 22nd, was the official Funding from DoD Before Winning were like ice, but the Nobel laureates like the APS luncheon would have been opening of an interactive exhibit entitled, their Nobel Prize: did everything they could to make it a like my meeting 50 Hank Aarons or Joe Physics Works! Exploring Nature, special time for the kids.” Students DiMaggios. They now have the Saving Lives, Driving Technology. Still Physics (1950-1997): 43% of all attended from a 120-mile radius around experience of a lifetime, one that will something of a work in progress, the US Nobel winners and 28% of all Atlanta, some of whose parents drove fire their ambitions and imaginations for exhibit is intended to “engage and inspire Nobel prize winners worldwide three hours or more to ensure their years to come.” young people, get them excited about were funded by DoD. children didn’t miss the once-in-a-lifetime Immediately following the luncheon, physics, and surprise them with the way Chemistry (1950-1997): 58% of all opportunity. As a memento of the students attended the public opening of it impacts on our daily lives,” says exhibit US Nobel winners and 27.5% of the W.F. Meggers Gallery of Nobel Lau- curator Sara Schechner-Genuth. “The all Nobel prize winners worldwide reates in the Georgia World Congress various elements were designed to explain were funded by DoD. Inside… Center, containing historic autographed crucial experiments and involve young ONR alone funded 41 Nobelists. NEWS photographs of all physicists who have people in the discovery process.” Upon To Advance and Diffuse the Knowledge of Physics ...... 2 II. “The Early Years of The Physical Review.” ORNL Breakthroughs Pave Way for POPA Proposes Statement on What is Science? Spinach-Based Electronic Devices ...... 3 The next generation of optoelectronic and logic he APS Panel on Public Affairs devices may be based on spinach, not silicon. T (POPA), concerned by the growing PROPOSAL: What is Science? Computing with DNA...... 3 influence of pseudoscientific claims, has Science extends and enriches our lives, expands our imagination and liberates us Fragments of DNA can be used to represent been exploring ways of responding. As a first computer data. from the bonds of ignorance and superstition. The endorsing societies wish to af- step, POPA prepared a succinct statement firm the precepts of modern science that are responsible for its success. LLNL Researchers Demonstrate Fusion defining science and describing the rules of on a Tabletop ...... 3 Science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and Laser energy has been converted into kinetic scientific exchange that have made science energy to produce fusion on a laboratory so successful. The definition was adapted organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories. tabletop. from E.O. Wilson’s book, Consilience. The success and credibility of science is anchored in the willingness of scientists to: Bell Labs Reports Progress on ‘Dick At its November meeting, the APS Coun- Tracy’ Watch ...... 5 1) Expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by other cil accepted the statement as a proposal to scientists. This requires the complete and open exchange of data, procedures INTERNATIONAL DESK ...... 5 be shared with other scientific societies. It is Roundtables Address Global Exchange, and materials. Collaboration. hoped that the statement will serve to ini- FESTIVAL PROFILE ...... 6 tiate a dialogue within the scientific 2) Abandon or modify accepted conclusions when confronted with more com- Loving and leaving in the subatomic world community about the best way of dealing plete or reliable experimental evidence. with playwright Matthew Wells. with the problem. In a letter to the Presi- Adherence to these principles provides a mechanism for self-correction that is Congressional Reception ...... 6 dents of other societies, Past President Andrew APS member Congressman Rush Holt was the foundation of the credibility of science. presented with his fellowship certificate. Sessler invited comments on the statement. Some societies, including the American As- Physicists Honored with DAMOP, Shock Accepted as a proposal by the Council of The American Physical Society 11/15/98 Compression Awards ...... 7 sociation of Physics Teachers, have already OPINION endorsed it. Truth, Justice, and the American Way ..... 4 In his letter, Sessler remarked that: “Those APS CENTENNIAL PHOTOGRAPHS ONLINE Commentary on recent U.S. security concerns of us fortunate enough to have chosen ca- and the universality of science. The APS Centennial meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, March 20-26, 1999 was at- reers in science have an obligation to help Letters ...... 4 tended by 11,400 physicists, making it the largest physics meeting in history. non-scientists distinguish the genuine from DEPARTMENTS Highlights included the presence of more than 40 Nobel laureates, a talk by the counterfeit...Our intention in this state- Zero Gravity ...... 4 Stephen Hawking, the unveiling of the Centennial physics wall chart, an interna- ment is to provide a template against which Good News for American Physicists. tional banquet attended by physicists from over 60 nations, a series of public claims can be compared, not to see if they Announcements ...... 11 lectures on everyday physics, and numerous symposia and press conferences on Apker Awards; Call for Nomination are right, but to see if they belong in the some of the most important physics topics of the day. realm of science.” The Back Page ...... 12 A gallery of photographs from these events can be viewed at: Hewlett-Packard’s Chief Scientist, Joel APS members are invited to comment Birnbaum, explores the relationship between http://www.aip.org/physnews/graphics/ physics and the information revolution. on the proposed definition printed at right. APS News June 1999 To Advance & Diffuse the he American Physical Society was established one hundred Tyears ago; the Physical Review six years before that. Together Knowledge of Physics they have shaped and promoted physics research in the 20th century. 100 Years of the American Physical Society This is the second in a series of excerpts from this exhibit to be published in APS News throughout the Centennial year. Curator Sara Schechner Genuth Researchers George Trigg Gnomon Research Ruth Kastner Next month: Meeting and Journal Firsts. Steven Norton Exhibit Director Barrett Ripin Amy Halsted Special thanks also to: Barbara Gill, Debbie Brodbar, Alan Friedman, W. W. APS History Harry Lustig Exhibit Design Puches Design Inc. Havens, Jr., Margaret Malloy, Eugen Merzbacher, Charles Muller, and the staff Journals History R. Mark Wilson Fabrication Malone Displays of the Niels Bohr Library for valuable assistance with the exhibit.

Early Years of the Founding Editors: First Funds Edward L. Nichols, Ernest Cornell University appropriated Physical Review Merritt, and Frederick $500 to start Phys. Rev. in 1893. Bedell The first budget is shown here. The founding of the Physical Three Cornell physicists Review predates that of the worked as a team to manage Bedell American Physical Society, the Physical Review for two although both arose out of the decades. Nichols was chief Merritt same ferment. In the 1890s, among them. As first American physicists had no real secretary of APS, Merritt was instrumental in merging the niche for publishing their activities of Phys. Rev. and research. Editors of the American APS. Cornell University Archives Photos from AIP Niels Bohr Library Journal of Science and Journal of 1999 Journal Budget $26,491,201 the Franklin Institute cared little for physics. To rectify the Rockefeller Hall problem, three Cornell University Home to the Phys. Rev. editorial scientists established the offices on the campus of Cornell Physical Review in 1893. until 1926.

For the first few years, a disproportionate number of papers came from Cornell faculty. Authorship broadened with the journal’s takeover by APS in late 1912. Improving standards for research in U.S. laboratories led to a surge in quality. By the From the Early Physical Review: Determination of h in 1916 1930s, the Physical Review was To verify Einstein’s photoelectric effect and determine Planck’s unarguably the most important constant h, Robert Millikan required very pure physics journal in the world. materials. He devised a “machine shop in a vacuum” Citations to its articles exceeded that enabled him to prepare a fresh, uncontaminated those to Zeitschrift für Physik. surface for every run. Millikan with Michelson, Kinsley, and Gale, circa 1910 (below). First Issue A copy of the first issue of the Physical Review. The Merger Money brought people together: In 1902, Phys. Rev. editors convinced APS councillors to let the journal publish meeting abstracts in exchange for $3 per member. These abstracts often represented better physics than that found in the articles. AIP Niels Bohr Library In 1912, when APS considered establishing See http://focus.aps.org/v3/st23.html its own research journal, the editors averted the plan by ceding Phys. Rev. to APS.

What Did We Publish? Applied science dominated early issues of Phys. Rev., but theoretical discussions were not shunned.

Letter from a ‘typical’ contributor: Harry W. Fisher complained to Merritt of the pounding steam hammers close by his lab in 1895. Cornell University Archives

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2 June 1999 APS News ORNL Breakthroughs Pave Way for Spinach-Based Electronic Devices f a team of researchers at Oak Ridge in smart pixel arrays for use in flat panel dis- I National Laboratory (ORNL) has their plays, and DNA computing (see below). way, the next generation of optoelectronic According to ORNL’s Ida Lee, green plant and logic devices may be based on leaves such as spinach contain two pigment spinach, not silicon. At the APS Centennial protein complexes that perform photosyn- meeting in Atlanta, the scientists thetic functions, essentially using the Sun’s announced that they have discovered new energy to create plant tissue. The proteins methods to orient spinach leaf proteins are known as Photosystem I (PSI) and Pho- — specifically, the photosynthetic reaction tosystem II (PSII). The first step was to isolate centers that convert electromagnetic the proteins from spinach leaves, using a (light) energy into stored chemical energy common food processor to chop up the spin- — in such a way as to enable their use for ach and straining the pulp through a super-high-resolution video imaging, cheesecloth to separate.the juice, after which ultrafast switching, logic devices, and solar a high-speed centrifuge process is used to Images from http://www.aps.org/meet/ CENT99/vpr/laybc31-05.html power generation. isolate the PSIs. The resulting substance is The ORNL work is part of a burgeoning then tested for purity using a scanning tun- new field known broadly as molecular elec- neling microscope. Once isolated, the proteins tronics, in which scientists attempt to use can be rewired to produce fuels such as oxy- isolated, platinized, and selectively ori- various biomaterials to perform complex gen or hydrogen by metallocatalysis and ented by chemical modification of a surface functions that are difficult to achieve with photosynthetic water splitting. Isolated PSI without denaturation.” other kinds of materials, such as semicon- reaction centers — naturally occurring pho- The ultimate goal, of course, is the feasi- ductors. “Natural materials have been tovoltaic and diode structures — can also bility of a “lean clean green machine” that optimized for these functions by billions of be used to generate electrical current operates without using fossil fuels, according ing clean hydrogen fuel, and fixing carbon years of evolution and often perform them when provided with an electrical contact, to Marty Goolsby, manager of ORNL’s Com- dioxide on a ruthenium film to produce better than any human-designed material which the researchers achieved by depos- munications and Public Affairs division. “Such methane fuel and reduce the atmospheric could,” says Paul Kolodner, a researcher with iting platinum — a good electrical a machine could meet many DOE mission content of greenhouse gases,” he says. “It Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, who conductor — on one end of the protein, and goals by generating electrical power, produc- could be a DOE dream machine.” is seeking to exploit the natural anchoring it to a gold surface. electrochromic properties of the protein Critical to the potential of PSI for bacteriohodopsin for reflective flat panel dis- biomolecular electronic applications is the Computing with DNA plays. “Furthermore, organisms manufacture ability to arrange the proteins so that all biological materials all by themselves — all the same ends point in the same direc- ithin the area of organic molecular configured in more general architectures we have to do is feed them and harvest the tion, known as preferred orientation. The Welectronics, DNA computing is an for solving problems of prediction and products.” In contrast, the production of such ORNL team accomplishes this by chemi- emerging interdisciplinary field that classification. devices as integrated circuits requires many cally treating the atomically flat gold surface unites computer science and molecular Adopting a loftier, theoretical approach time-consuming, high-precision and expen- on a mica substrate, achieving the best biology. Scientists create fragments of to the issue, Simon Berkovich of George sive manufacturing steps. In other work in results with mercaptoacetic acid and DNA, whose letters represent computer Washington University speculates that this area, researchers at the University of Mas- mercaptoethanol. The sulfur atom in each data and instructions, and mix them together DNA in a biological organism serves a role sachusetts, Boston, are investigating the use chemical binds strongly to gold, and the in test tubes to solve problems, such as the comparable to a barcode: it is a pseudo- of chemically stabilized films of negatively charged ends selectively bind shortest path through a number of cities. At random number (PRN) that provides bacteriohodopsin in a polymer matrix for all- to the positively charged ends of the PSIs, the APS Centennial meeting in Atlanta, several classification, so that small differences are optical switching and modulation, while at causing them to point in the same direc- researchers reported on recent advances that enough to distinguish between species. It Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies, efforts are tion, says Lee, adding, “These experiments could one day enable the production of a also provides a unique ID number that is geared towards the use of organic materials are the first demonstration that PSI can be DNA-based electronic device. responsible for the biological individuality Allen Mills of Bell Labs/Lucent Technolo- of an organism. “With this hypothesis, the gies believes it is possible to use DNA to essence of the phenomenon of Life un- construct a massive neural network — com- folds as extracorporeal information puters modeled after the human nervous processing in the infrastructure underly- system — with a connectivity of 1 trillion ing the physical world,” says Berkovich. synapses, still a mere 1% of the capacity of The corresponding PRN enables biologi- the human brain. According to Mills, hybrid- cal cells to interact through this ization of pairs of complementary DNA infrastructure by sharing its storage and strands makes possible a representation of bandwidth resources in a Code Division highly parallel selective operations that he Multiple Access (CDMA) mode. Accord- believes could be one key to achieving mo- ing to Berkovich, the differences in the lecular computation. However, significant behavior of dead and living matter results undesired pairings of strands frequently re- from differences in the sizes of molecules sult from small departures from the ideal involved, which affect PRN lengths. A selectivity of DNA hybridization, making it short PRN can pick up only noisy back- difficult to implement the large-scale Bool- ground, while a lengthy PRN can sustain ean operations necessary for DNA-based a robust information exchange. Thus, computing. Neural networks, which do not “The macromolecules of the DNA can require the same high precision as digital serve as CDMA transreceivers for inter- computing, offer a promising solution, es- action with the infrastructure of the physics pecially when combined with new rapid world, and as microtransducers materializ- techniques for the interconversion of digi- ing the control signals into purposeful

Images from http://www.aps.org/meet/CENT99/vpr/laybc31-05.html tal and DNA data. Mills’ design could also be biological events,” he says.

LLNL Researchers Demonstrate Fusion on a Tabletop team of researchers from Lawrence number of fusion neutrons produced by tense pulses of light interact with small A Livermore National Laboratory Ditmire’s device is quite small compared balls of atoms ranging in size from 10 to (LLNL) have converted laser energy into to most large-scale laser fusion experi- 10,000 atoms per ball, an assemblage ion kinetic energy to produce nuclear ments. known as an atomic cluster. When sub- fusion reactions between deuterium The LLNL achievement was made pos- jected to very short pulses of atoms on a laboratory tabletop. Speaking sible by the many studies in recent years high-intensity laser light, these clusters during a packed symposium at the APS of how extremely intense pulses of light eject very fast ions with energies of many Centennial meeting in Atlanta, group interact with matter. By amplifying laser tens of thousands of electron volts, cor- Image courtesy of Ben Stein/AIP leader Todd Ditmire unveiled the device. pulses with very short temporal dura- responding to ions with temperatures Normally fusion research requires the tions, ultrahigh intensity studies have ranging up to 1 billion degress Celsius. energy of massive lasers, or complex become possible with lasers on a table- In their experiment, Ditmire and his that consumed by the laser. Ditmire be- vaccum chambers using superhot gas top scale. For example, says Ditmire, LLNL colleagues focused an intense 35 lieves that the experiment could lead to confined within magnetic fields. The $1 “These unique lasers can now produce femtosecond laser pulse to an intensity the production of small-scale, high-rep- billion stadium-sized National Ignition Fa- light pulses that are only 20 of about 1017 watts per square centime- etition rate, affordable neutron sources. cility being built by LLNL is expected to femtoseconds in duration and, when fo- ter into a jet of ionized gas containing Neutron sources are used in a variety of be the world’s largest laser, producing cused, can produce light intensity above many clusters of deuterium molecules. applications, including neutron radiogra- bolts of nearly two million joules of en- 1017 watts per square centimenter. The Although the fusion reactions achieved phy and materials science studies. Future ergy on a fuel capsule. Ditmire’s laser last four years in particular have yielded by the LLNL team did release energy, work will attempt to increase the yield cost less than $1 million. However the numerous investigations on how such in- the total was only about 10 millionths of of the fusion neutrons to usable levels. 3 APS News June 1999 OPINION

Truth, Justice, and the American Way The Intersection of US Security and the Universality of Science LETTERS Irving A. Lerch, APS International Affairs Quoteworthy Science Misquoted “Science knows no country, because denied entry. At the same time, the DoE has In the April issue of the APS News, J.Robert Oppenheimer is given credit for a knowledge belongs to humanity, and is barred the travel of Department scientists to quote that he himself took from an Indian source, the Bhagavad Gita. Does anyone the torch which illuminates the world. India to attend purely scientific meetings. find it a bit interesting that the “The Bhagavad Gita” originated in India. Oppenheimer Science is the highest personification of The impact on students can be devastat- quoted the following excerpt upon the first atomic weapon exploding at the Trinity the nation because that nation will re- ing. Last summer, a young assistant in the site in Alamagordo, New Mexico, USA: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to main the first which carries the furthest Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Re- burst at once into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am the works of thought and intelligence.” search, was denied a visa to take up graduate become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds.” —Louis Pasteur studies for a PhD degree at Stanford Univer- Wayne Saslow sity. His chosen field is condensed matter Texas A&M University n stentorian 19th century tones, theory. He was denied a visa owing to the I Pasteur expressed anew sentiments first INA technology transfer provisions because promulgated in the 16th century by the at the time, he was a temporary employee philosopher-politician Sir Francis Bacon and zero at the Indian Institute of Science (one of the gravity given cogency in the 20th century by institutes on the “entities list” whose campus philosopher-scientists Thomas Kuhn and includes the Nehru Center). This promising Michael Polanyi: that science is a collective young scientist will probably pursue his stud- Good News for American Physicists enterprise which flourishes in an environment ies in Canada or Europe. by Scott Sandford of open, unfettered exchange. In March, a Chinese physicist invited to While reading the latest issue of APS News, it There is some evidence for this in the few But the 20th century has amplified an- visit Northwestern University was delayed struck me that a significant portion of each years of the APS membership data plotted other aspect of science that is equally cogent: several weeks in obtaining a visa. Upon in- newsletter was devoted to awards, in the in Figure 2. Thus, in addition to the extrapo- science is the raw material of immense na- quiry, the local Congresswoman, Janice form of articles about those who recently lations provided by equations 3 and 4 above, tional power—economic and military. The Schakowsky, was informed by the Consul in received awards, notifications about fast- a third possible “extrapolation” of the APS battle for the soul of American science is our Tokyo embassy: “Applicants who are approaching nomination deadlines for membership into the future would be to as- epitomized in a question: How do we pro- nationals of the Peoples Republic of China, awards, and announcements of new awards sume it maintains a steady value near its tect the national interest while nurturing the and who will be involved in an activity re- that are just being instituted. Out of curiosity, current number, i.e., of order 40,000. very source of our nation’s strength? The sci- lated to materials technology, need an I connected to the APS Web page and ence that built the first atomic bomb was advisory opinion from the State Department Finally, Figure 3 shows a plot of the world discovered a very well-organized series of born in the minds of physicists, chemists and before we can issue a visa.” This includes population as a function of time over the pages that provides excellent information engineers from the US, Germany, Italy, Hun- the largest category of Chinese scholars— 1950 to 1998 time interval, along with cur- about the number and history of the various gary, the UK and elsewhere. In addition, fully one that accounts for thousands of students rent estimates of the world’s future awards sponsored by the APS. 80% in the growth of our economy is tech- and researchers. Widely applied, the policy population. Current UN estimates are that nology driven, much contributed by could desolate important areas of US research. Figure 1 shows a plot of the number of awards the Earth’s population will begin to level off immigrants and visitors to our nation’s research The theory of this provision of the INA is sponsored by the APS as a function of time by the year 2050 or so, but estimates of the universities and government and industrial that such visits result in a hemorrhage of US over the 1950 to 1999 interval. It is appar- final value vary from 7.9 to 11.9 billion. In laboratories. This was illustrated in our March technology. The reality is that the talent and ent that the number of prizes and awards Figure 3, and for the analysis that follows, I Centennial meeting in Atlanta: of 48 awards industry of such visitors contributes to the has been increasing monotonically since 1950. will use a value of 10.0 billion. Examination and prizes, 17 were given to naturalized US advance of the US—and the worldwide— In an attempt to predict the trend of increas- of these three sets of extrapolations, APS citizens, 10 to foreign colleagues (many of technology base. ing awards into the future, I have fit the awards, APS membership, and world popu- whom studied and worked in the US) and Such visa reviews often delay travel be- 1950-1999 award data with both a third-or- lation leads to some startling revelations. 21 to US born citizens (many of whose par- yond the date of the meeting they seek to der polynomial function and an exponential Figure 3 ents and grandparents emigrated to this attend. This was the case in March when a function. Both provide reasonable fits to the country in the years between the world wars). distinguished Chinese physicist sought a visa data, although the third-order polynomial The post-Cold War debate now focuses to participate in the General Assembly of provides a slightly better R value. on the intersection of the globalization of the International Union of Pure and Applied Figure 1 science, our national security and halting the Physics convened in Atlanta the week be- spread of nuclear weapons technologies. The fore the Centennial. controversy engulfing the Los Alamos weap- Very disquieting is the growing per- ons lab concerning the alleged loss through ception that certain visitors, immigrants espionage of nuclear weapons secrets and their descendants constitute a dan- threatens to throttle the exchanges which ger to the US. The Los Alamos imbroglio have so benefitted the non-defense re- which has incriminated a Taiwanese-born SCENARIOS search of all Energy Department labs. And American, has led newspapers around the Third Order APS Awards and Third Or- while Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has country to impugn the patriotism and der APS Membership. Since the best fits promised to fight calls to close the labs loyalty of Chinese-Americans, a deplor- to the APS membership and award numbers against foreign visits [See APS News, May able reminder of the war-time hysteria were provided by the third-order polyno- 1999, p.1], recent hearings on the Hill along which sent Japanese-Americans into in- with proposals for extreme security mea- mial fits, one expects that they provide the ternment camps during World War Two. Figure 2 shows a similar plot of the total APS sures have soured the climate. One most likely future outcomes. As can be seen As we all must acknowledge, Chinese- membership as a function of time over the colleague in a non-weapons lab complained in Figure 4, the extrapolated numbers of Americans have made a glorious 1900 to 1999 time interval, along with the that many visitors—all of whom are invited— APS members and awards cross around contribution to our culture, science, tech- results of similar curve fits. Again, the third- were being treated like “criminals.” January 1, 2104. At this point, APS members nology and security and it is shameful order polynomial provides a better fit than Equally troubling has been the increasing will be receiving, at least on average, one and unjust to claim otherwise. does the exponential, but both provide bet- use of the technology transfer provisions of We have an obligation and a duty to as- ter R values than I have seen presented with Figure 4 the Immigration and Naturalization Act to sure our national security and to prevent confidence at scientific conferences. curtail the granting of visas to visiting scien- defense secrets from falling into unfriendly It should be noted that, other than awards, tists and students. The “Glenn hands. Many of us have served in our armed one of the main topics that fills the pages of Amendment”—enacted into law to prevent forces and know the terrible cost to be borne APS News is the current “glut” of physicists the spread of weapons technologies—is in maintaining our liberties. But we can in the world market and the consequent dif- being used to curtail visits by Indian and Pa- never achieve our objective of safeguard- ficulty that new PhDs are having finding jobs kistani scientists even though applicants are ing our security and increasing the doing physics. As a result, it is possible that not known to be involved in weapons pro- knowledge infrastructure on which that se- the APS membership may be leveling off. grams and their specialties have no curity and our prosperity is founded by discernible applications in weapons design. shackling and isolating our science. It is too Figure 2 The enforcement of this law required the easy to succumb to timidity and opt for the award per year and the APS will have 611 publishing of an “entities list” of institutions cheap way out—to accept the illusion that it members. Sadly, in this scenario, the num- deemed to have played a role in the devel- is better to live safely in a prison than to toil ber of APS members drops to zero on April opment of nuclear weapons. All applicants diligently in the open air. 9th of the same year, so every APS member with ties to these institutions—which encom- “As long as men are free to ask what gets an award in 2104, and then packs up passes the entirety of the elite scientific they must, free to say what they think, his or her office and goes home. On the bright establishments of India and Pakistan—must free to think what they will, freedom side, by the year 2040, the number of APS be reviewed by an interagency task group can never be lost and science can awards will already exceed 1500 per year, a in Washington, DC. The result is that a num- never regress.” ber of students and scientists have been — J. Robert Oppenheimer Continued on page 5 4 June 1999 APS News Bell Labs Reports on Progress Towards “Dick Tracy” Watch

ans of the Dick Tracy watch — a two- step towards the single chip radio. A third we physicists are us- F way, voice-activated video phone that effort also involves the use of silicon ing them as fits around a wrist, introduced in a Jan. 13, micromachining, this time to fabricate high laboratories for 1946 edition of the famous comic strip — quality inductors. Inductors, which are simple studying how elec- will be thrilled to hear that the device may loops of wire, are used in part of a cellular trons behave when soon become a technological reality. phone which determines the proper fre- they are confined to According to Peter Gammel, a researcher quency for communications. “It turns out the dimensions only at Bell Labs, such a device contains many battery life of a cell phone is determined by about 200 times of the features one would like to see in a measurement in the inductors known as larger than the size portable wireless devices, including voice the ‘quality factor,’” says Gammel. “High of individual atoms,” instruction, video capability, seamless quality factor inductors, such as the ones we he said, describing operation and an attractive physical design. are making, can lower the demands on the experiments which At the APS New York State Section battery, another step towards a real-life Dick demonstrate that the meeting held April 20-21 at Bell Labs/ Tracy watch.” (For graphics, see www.aip.org/ electrons in the SET Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, NJ, physnews/graphics.) settle into an unusual Other scientists who gave invited lectures quantum state at

Gammel described three research results Figure courtesyTechnologies. Bell Labs/Lucent which are aiding in bringing this vision at the meeting covered such topics as opti- very low tempera- Using silicon micromachining, a state-of-the-art approach for making silicon closer to fruition, estimating that all the cal micro-machines and plastic transistors. [The tures, similar to the materials with microscopic features, Peter Gammel and his colleagues at necessary components should become talks — which were free and open to the behavior of electrons Bell Labs/Lucent Technologies in New Jersey built a microphone on a silicon integrated circuit, shown above. The base has marks with an approximate technologically available as early as 2005. public — were designed for non-experts.] on magnetic impu- size of just 100 microns (0.1millimeters). The first involves the development of Marc Kastner of MIT described recent work rities in metals. miniature radio frequency filters. In current on the Single Electron Transistor (SET), a new Another Bell Labs researcher, Zhenan Bao, low-cost memory devices. Some proposed cell phones, the radio filter, made of a ce- kind of device that turns on and off every reported on the developing of electronic applications for plastic transistors are: driv- ramic material, is by far the largest single time one electron is added to it, compared devices known as MISFETs—metal-insulator- ing circuits for electronic papers, luggage component. In a second effort, silicon with the transistors currently used in cellular semiconductor field-effect transistors—made tags, price tags, and smart cards. “Plastic micromachining, a state of the art approach phones and laptop computers, which require of thin-film and organic components. Organic transistors are not intended to replace sili- for making silicon materials with microscopic about 1,000 electrons to turn on and off. thin-film MISFETs are potentially useful not con devices, but rather they offer features, is used to incorporate the micro- “While some researchers are struggling to only as large area flexible displays (espe- opportunities for low cost flexible large phone onto a silicon integrated circuit, another make these transistors commercially viable, cially for ultrathin TV screens) but also as area devices,” said Bao.

Zero Gravity, continued from page 4 INTERNATIONAL DESK point at which every APS member can rea- starting on August 4th of the year 2077. sonably expect to receive at least one award Also, in this case, at least some of the during his or her career. Thus, under this sce- membership will be able to enjoy their nario, the years 2040 to 2104 look to be awards for almost 27 years before the International Roundtables bright for American physicists. Society becomes defunct. Third Order APS Awards and Exponen- Exponential APS Awards and Expo- Address Global Exchange, tial APS Membership. This scenario is perhaps nential APS Membership. This scenario the least favorable for physicists of the fu- yields a cross-over of membership and awards Collaboration th ture. A quick examination is sufficient to on October 5 of the year 2264, at which aking advantage of the plethora of important tool inteaching introductory labo- determine that, under these unconstrained point the APS would be distributing about 4 T foreign physicists from around the ratory science, helping junior researchers 11 conditions, the number of APS members and x 10 awards per year. However, as discussed globe who flocked to the APS Centennial avoid isolation, and being better able to awards never cross, and there is no expecta- earlier, this cross-over date ignores the fact meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, in March, APS continue research at a distance. But the tion of every physicist receiving an award that the APS membership will have topped Committee on International Scientific participants believe that personal con- every year, as occurred in the earlier case. out at — and become equal to — the world Affairs (CISA) and the APS Department of tact is still essential. Many believe that Indeed, the number of members pulls rap- population of 10 billion in the year 2200. International Scientific Affairs organized “hands-on” experience is essential to idly away from the number of awards, and The exponential extrapolation of APS awards four roundtable discussions held on learning introductory laboratory science, th the fraction of APS members who receive reaches the 10 billion value on July 24 of Sunday, March 20th. The panels addressed and hence feel that junior researchers awards rapidly drops towards zero. This un- the year 2221, at which point every APS such topics as the potential of virtual should have strong exposure to “hands- constrained case is unlikely, however, since member will again be receiving an average laboratories for research collaborations, on” experiences before going into a it predicts that the mass of American physi- of one award per year. promoting international research and remote mode of research. cists will exceed the mass of the Earth Exponential APS Awards and Level APS educational collaboration, the international Recommendations arising from the sometime around the year 2725 AD. In real- Membership. This is probably the best sce- role of individual physical societies, and discussion included the suggestion that ity, the number of APS members must nario for APS physicists as the exponentially the implications of science and technology national facilities, including computational ultimately top out when it reaches the total increasing number of awards rapidly over- for accelerating research capabilities and facilities, adopt a policy towards greater world population. According to the extrapo- takes the number of APS members and leads economic growth in developing countries. international collaborations and thereby lated world population given in Figure 3, this to a one-member-one-award-in-one-year increase their effective use for first rate should occur around April 16, 2200. At this point on April 13th, 2076. This is slightly more Virtual Laboratories and science. Greater promotion of capacity point, with the APS membership leveled out than a year before the cross-over point pre- Collaborations building to enable strong national science at 10 billion, the third-order increase in awards dicted by the scenario that uses exponentially Facilitated by James Vary (University programs as the fundamental basis of in- will begin to overtake the membership and increasing awards and a third-order polyno- of Iowa) and Galileo Violini, the roundtable ternational cooperation is also needed, the two eventually cross on April 20th of the mial membership, and it has the added on virtual collaboration included partici- along with the promotion of more inter- year 54199 AD. At this point, every APS advantage that the APS survives into the next pants from South Africa, El Salvador, national exchanges of scientists, not limited member, i.e., the entire world’s population, century. The biggest concern may be where Croatia, Sri Lanka, Lithuania, the Ivory to conference participation but including can expect an average of at least one APS to store all the awards, since this case pre- Coast, the Czech Republic, Italy and Chile. longer term bi-directional exchanges and award per year. dicts that every APS member will be Vary used the summary of a report on The participation of post-docs. Third Order APS Awards and Level APS receiving more than 307,000 awards per year Virtual Laboratory: Electronic Support for International Role of the Membership. The outcome is significantly by the year 2100 AD. Cooperative Scientific Research, as a start- happier if one assumes a future APS Happy Conclusion ing point for the discussion. (A copy of Physical Societies membership that levels off at its current the report is available at http:// Another roundtable focused on the in- value of order 40,000. In this case, the Despite the current difficulties associated ternational role of physical societies in with new physicists finding employment, www.iitap.iastate.edu/reports/vl.) There number of APS awards crosses the APS was a general consensus that the Virtual various countries, organized by Shang-Fen membership extrapolation on July 24th, the future career prospects of APS physi- Ren, president of the Chinese Physical So- cists looks bright. In all the cases Laboratory (VL) approach offered prom- 2711, at which point the APS membership ising opportunities for international ciety. While more than 25 scientists is, of course, 40,000. Under these considered, APS physicists can expect their participated in the general discussion, the future careers to be very rewarding (or at collaboration in scientific research and edu- conditions, the one-member-one-award-in- cation, especially for bridging the gap seven featured speakers represented so- one-year point takes an additional 607 least very awarding). However, one sole cieties from a wide range of geographical note of caution remains: The APS member- between developing and developed years to occur compared to the first countries. However, there was emphatic areas. scenario, but it has the advantage that we ship should beware the spectre of the Participants identified current problems “terminal negative third-order coefficient.” agreement that a prerequisite for mean- don’t all have to go home four months later. ingful international cooperation is a strong of particular concern as: decreasing enroll- Exponential APS Awards and Third-Or- Scott Sandford is a physicist in Santa Clara, national science program. ments in physics courses; decreasing der APS Membership. This is one of the California. The above was adapted with One major advantage of VL is the pos- funding to physics; the growing unwilling- most favorable scenarios for American physi- permission from an article in the Annals sibility of video conferencing since facial ness of Engineering Departments to have cists. In this case, the number of awards of Improbable Research [March/April expressions and body language can con- physics courses taught by faculty from the quickly overtakes the number of APS mem- 1999]. The original article has been reposted tribute significantly to better understanding Physics Department; and the responsibil- bers, and every APS member can expect online in honor of the APS Centennial at than conventional email and telephone ity of physicists regarding nuclear weapons an average of at least one award per year, http://www.improbable.com. conversations. VL could also become an Continued on page 6 5 APS News June 1999

FESTIVAL PROFILE Playwright Matthew Wells (inset, left) following the world premiere of his play, Schrödinger’s Girlfriend. (below) Cast members are all smiles after a successful performance: Whitt Brantley and Georgia Ribeau (top right corner) were joined by (from left) Hope Mills, Jen Loving and Leaving in the Apgar, Bill Murphey and (front) Jim Roof. Subatomic World ew York playwright Matthew Wells Centennial-related Physics Festival and Ndeliberately kept his expectations looking for a science-based theatre low for audience turnout at the world piece. Once committed, Wells wrote the premiere of his play, Schrödinger’s entire play in about a month and for- Girlfriend, presented as a staged reading warded the draft to Cairney, who in the Georgia World Congress Center essentially pulled the entire production during the APS Centennial meeting in together in three weeks, aided by what Atlanta. He knew there would be he describes as “a very fine group of scheduling conflicts and competing actors. They were instantly able to rec- special events, not to mention the lure ognize what Matthew intended and of Atlanta restaurants and night life, to embellish upon it.” distract conference goers from the event, Schrödinger’s Girlfriend is best de- and figured if 20-50 people showed up, scribed as “Einstein meets ‘The Blue he could deem the evening a success. Angel,’” according to Wells, referring to But when the lights went down, Wells the 1930s German film starring Marlene was astounded and gratified to find the Dietrich as a husky-voiced cabaret singer room filled almost to capacity with — an abstract, burlesque romantic com- roughly 200 in attendance. And it was a edy “in which Love obeys the crazy laws decidedly appreciative and responsive of subatomic physics.” Physicist Erwin audience, laughing and clapping enthu- Schrödinger is grappling with the logi- siastically throughout the 90-minute cal absurdities that govern subatomic performance. “It was a unique group of behavior when he meets the madden- people who were listening,” says John ingly unavailable Hansi Haas, a cabaret Cairney, a microbiologist at the Institute singer with a knack for theoretical phys- high school courses, although he does adding, “It was another 10-15 years be- of Paper Science and Technology in At- ics who counts Einstein, Niels Bohr and confess to a long-standing interest in fore I started writing anything that was lanta by day and semi-professional actor Max Planck among her many admirers. the subject, beginning in the 1970s actually any good.” and director by night, who was tapped Schrödinger soon succumbs to her when he read a biography of Einstein. Wells has had a few other plays pro- to cast and direct the reading. “They charms as well, until Hansi leaves him “I could never get into the math, but I duced Off-Off-Broadway in New York were informed and erudite and cultured, for yet another physicist: Paul Dirac. It found the concepts behind it, the vi- City, and Schrödinger’s Girlfriend was but also had the specialized knowledge is while plotting his revenge that the dev- suals and analogies, fascinating,” he performed as yet another staged read- of physics that enabled them to get the astated Schrödinger eventually realizes says. His interest in the theater also ing in April, at the Ensemble Theatre jokes.” that the truth of love — as long as you began in high school, with a “very Studio. While also a success, Wells con- Wells first conceived of Schrödinger’s don’t ask the question, the answer can watered down” version of Henry fesses that the audience response wasn’t Girlfriend a few years ago and submit- always be yes — is also a truth of quan- Fielding’s Tom Jones. Wells and his fel- quite as knowing as the physicists in At- ted the idea to the Sloan Foundation, tum physics, and creates the famous low cast members chose to ad-lib large lanta. However, “The main reason the which was looking for original plays with thought experiment that bears his name: portions of dialogue, with Wells feed- APS performance was such a success was scientific themes at the time. Although Schrödinger’s Cat. ing some of the best witticisms to because of John Cairney and his expert he didn’t receive funding for the project, Despite the esoteric content of the various performers. “I realized, in my choice of actors,” he says. “They walked the foundation referred him to the APS’ play, Wells himself has no formal edu- 17-year-old arrogance, that I could into it with very little rehearsal and made Brian Schwartz, who was organizing the cation in science beyond the standard probably write my own plays,” he says, me look like a genius.” Rush Holt Presented with APS Roundtable, continued from page 5 Fellowship at Congressional Reception issues. One potential source of these diffi- Nevertheless, the discussants recognized reshman Congressman Rush Holt in March (see APS News, May 1999), the culties was deemed to be the longstanding the inherent difficulty in seeking to apply F (D-NJ), former assistant director of the wall chart was produced with support from arrogance of physicists. There is also a great general rules to guide cooperations, since Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, was the DOE, NSF, IBM, the Richard Lounsbery need to modify the existing physics teach- these depend strongly on the particular coun- honored as a new APS Fellow at a special Foundation, Lucent Technologies, and United ing curriculum, finding ways to make tries, areas of research, and individuals. They Congressional reception in Washington, DC, Parcel Service. It is being sent with an ac- physics courses more accessible to stem identified many existing programs with fund- in April, in which Centennial timeline wall companying teacher’s guide to every high the emigration of potential physicists into ing already in place for improving international chart was displayed in the Rayburn school and college in the US, and is also avail- engineering disciplines — perhaps by in- collaborations. It was suggested that the APS Building. He was cited “For advancing the able on the Web: [www.timeline.aps.org/APS/ cluding more emphasis on practical attempt to centralize the current information health of science in the U.S. through home_HighRes.html]. Reception attendees problem solving. of available funding sources via its website important contributions to plasma physics had the opportunity to preview the online Finally, it was noted that economists to aid foreign scientists seeking collaborations research, public science education reform, version of the timeline firsthand at a special have shown the positive connection be- in locating such sources. In addition, the par- and public service.” terminal set up for the occasion. tween basic R&D and the economy; ticipants felt that the APS should make an On hand to wit- Holt, who has long been active as a investment in the former usually leads to effort to publicize the availability of this in- ness the occasion volunteer in APS outreach activities, de- a phenomenal return to the latter. The par- formation through advertisements in journals and offer brief com- cided to run for Congress because of his ticipants affirmed the ongoing need to and magazines such as Physics Today and ments were such growing distaste for what he viewed as keep working on this connection repeat- APS News. luminaries as Holt’s political infighting and a growing mean- edly with politicians responsible for Science and Technology: fellow Congress- spiritedness in the 104th and 105th establishing national science policy. Implications for Accelerating man and APS Congress. The result was a surprise up- Research Capabilities and fellow, Vernon set over the incumbent, Republican Promoting International Ehlers (R-MI), Michael Pappas. But he is no neophyte Research and Educational Economic Growth in Photo by Ron Sherman Martha Krebs, direc- when it comes to Capitol Hill, having Collaboration Developing Countries tor of the DOE Office of Science, and Joe worked in the early 1980s in the office Coordinated by Ivan Schuller of the Uni- Kennedy Reed of Lawrence Livermore Dehmer, head of the NSF Physics Divi- of Congressman Bob Edgar as a science, versity of California, San Diego, this National Laboratory led a roundtable discus- sion, as well as APS President Jerome defense and education advisor, as well roundtable on promoting international re- sion on science and technology, focusing on Friedman (MIT). Both the DOE and the as advising on arms control issues during search and educational collaboration had its implications for accelerating research ca- NSF reprised their Centennial exhibits at the Bush administration. A strong sup- approximately 40 international participants pabilities and economic growth in developing the reception, and NSF had several gradu- porter of substantially increased research with a cross section from national labs, uni- countries. Participants included American sci- ate students and young investigators on into alternative energy sources and in- versities and industrial labs. After entists who had some experience with hand to explain their research projects. creased R&D funding, Holt believes it is considerable discussion, the participants first science and technology in developing coun- Entitled A Century of Physics, the critical that there be more scientists in and foremost reaffirmed the importance of tries and scientists from developing countries timeline consists of a series of posters Congress. “A scientific background is motivation behind scientific and educational of Senegal, Algeria, Taiwan and Brazil. “Each narrating and illustrating the history of important for understanding the limita- operations, namely, that these should be of these had an interesting perspective on physics in the 20th century, presenting tions of some policies,” he told the APS driven by real scientific and educational needs, how science and technology can impact an historical and cultural context for may Forum on Physics and Society newslet- and not by high-level bureaucratic decisions. economic growth in developing countries, key discoveries and inventions that de- ter in January. “Scientists are in a position Furthermore, the primary role of such pro- and each had interesting perspectives on how fine the modern era and provide a to define what is possible. There are grams should be to facilitate interactions interaction with the European and American glimpse of the scientific and technologi- examples where policy makers promote between individual scientists, not to cre- scientific communities can accelerate the cal achievements of the future. Officially programs that essentially are prohibited ate new programs and bureaucracies which growth of science and technology in devel- unveiled at the APS Centennial meeting by the laws of science.” may or may not be needed. oping countries,” says Reed. 6 June 1999 APS News Physicists Honored with DAMOP, Shock Compression Awards

hree physicists were honored recently with awards from the APS. Brett Esry Esry began studying atomic physics as an undergraduate at Kansas State Tand Jens Nöckel, both recent PhDs, were selected as co-recipients of the Award University and graduated with a BS in 1993. He continued his studies in atomic for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Atomic, Molecular or Optical Physics physics as a graduate student at the University of Colorado, working with Chris during the APS Centennial Meeting in Atlanta. And Lynn M. Barker of Valyn H. Greene at JILA. International has been selected as the recipient of the 1999 Shock Compression While at JILA, Esry collaborated on a number of problems outside the scope Science Award, to be presented during the Shock Compression of Condensed Matter of his primary thesis work, the many-body theory of Bose-Einstein condensa- meeting in Snowbird, Utah, later this month. tion. These additional problems included a study of Efimov states in the helium trimer, double photoionization in helium, ultracold atomic collisions, and as- 1999 SHOCK COMPRESSION SCIENCE AWARD pects of the decay of metastable ionic molecules. Lynn M. Barker Upon receiving his PhD in 1997, Esry became a postdoctoral fellow at the Valyn International Institute for Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics. His current research in- Citation: “In recognition of his outstanding contributions to terests include few-body problems and time-dependent phenomena as well as the temporal measurement and interpretation of nonlinear Bose-Einstein condensates. This fall he will return to Kansas State University as physical processes in shock-compressed matter.” an assistant professor.

A former U.S. Navy carrier pilot in the Korean War, Barker Jens U. Nöckel earned his MS in physics from the University of Arizona in 1955 and subsequently Max-Planck Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Dresden, completed a year of post-graduate studies at Columbia University in 1962. He Germany spent 27 years at Sandia National Laboratories, making important innovations in Citation: “For research in the emission properties of time-resolved shock-wave instrumentation, and applying new techniques for mea- assymmetric dielectric resonators with chaotic ray dynamics.” suring the dynamic properties of condensed materials. From 1974 to 1981 he was a senior staff consultant with Terra Tek in Salt Lake City, Utah, developing a new Born and raised on the German island of Helgoland, Nöckel fracture toughness test method. Since 1990, he has been president of his own had his first encounters with science through summer jobs company, Valyn International, where he continues to contribute innovations to the at the island’s ornithological and marine biology laborato- VISAR shock wave instrumentation techniques he pioneered in the 1970s. ries. He enrolled in physics at Hamburg University in 1986, and spent a year at Oregon State University in Corvallis as a graduate exchange student. 1999 DAMOP THESIS AWARD He completed his German Diploma degree in Hamburg with a thesis on magnetotransport in semiconductor microsctructures before beginning PhD stud- Brett Esry ies at Yale University in 1992. He initially worked on electronic transport theory Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics before switching the focus of his thesis research to micro-optics in deformed Citation: “For his thesis entitled, Many-body effects in Bose- dielectrics, graduating from Yale in 1997. Since then he has been a staff mem- Einstein condensates of dilute atomic gases.” ber at the Max-Planck Institut in Dresden, continuing to investigate microresonators. Announcements

APS UNDERGRADUATE PHYSICS STUDENT COMPETITION Call for Nominations for Y2K ▼ 1999 APKER AWARDS APS Prizes and Awards For Outstanding Undergraduate Student Research in Physics Members are invited to nominate candidates to the respective committees charged with the privilege of recommending the recipients. A brief description of each prize Endowed by Jean Dickey Apker, in memory of LeRoy Apker and award is given in the March 1999 APS News Honors and Awards insert, available DESCRIPTION online at www.aps.org under the APS News button, along with the addresses of the Two awards are normally made each year: One to a student attending an institution selection committee chairs to whom nominations should be sent. Please refer to the offering a Physics Ph.D. and one to a student attending an institution not offering APS Membership Directory, pages A21-A40, for complete information regarding rules a Physics Ph.D. and eligibility requirements for individual prizes and awards or visit the Prize and Awards • Recipients receive a $5,000 award; finalists receive $1,000. They also receive page on the APS web site at www.aps.org under the Prize and Awards button. an allowance for travel to the Award presentation. PRIZES • Recipients’ and finalists’ home institutions receive $5,000 and $500, respectively, WILL ALLIS PRIZE FOR THE STUDY OF IONIZED GASES to support undergraduate research. HANS A. BETHE PRIZE • Recipients, finalists and their home physics departments will be presented with BIOLOGICAL PHYSICS PRIZE plaques or certificates of achievement. The student’s home institution is TOM W. BONNER PRIZE IN NUCLEAR PHYSICS prominently featured on all awards and news stories of the competition. OLIVER E. BUCKLEY CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS PRIZE • Each nominee will be granted a free APS Student Membership for one year DAVISSON-GERMER PRIZE IN ATOMIC OR SURFACE PHYSICS DANNIE HEINEMAN PRIZE FOR MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS upon receipt of their completed application. HIGH POLYMER PHYSICS PRIZE FRANK ISAKSON PRIZE FOR OPTICAL EFFECTS IN SOLIDS QUALIFICATIONS JULIUS EDGAR LILIENFELD PRIZE • Students who have been enrolled as undergraduates at colleges and universities JAMES C. MCGRODDY PRIZE FOR NEW MATERIALS in the United States at least one quarter/semester during the year preceding the LARS ONSAGER PRIZE 15 June 1999 deadline. GEORGE E. PAKE PRIZE • Students who have an excellent academic record and have demonstrated exceptional W.K.H. PANOFSKY PRIZE IN EXPERIMENTAL PARTICLE PHYSICS potential for scientific research through an original contribution to physics. EARLE K. PLYLER PRIZE FOR MOLECULAR SPECTROSCOPY I. I. RABI PRIZE IN ATOMIC, MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS • Only one candidate may be nominated per department. ANEESUR RAHMAN PRIZE FOR COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICS J. J. SAKURAI PRIZE FOR THEORETICAL PARTICLE PHYSICS APPLICATION PROCEDURE ARTHUR L. SCHAWLOW PRIZE IN LASER SCIENCE The complete nomination package is due on or before 15 June 1999 and should PRIZE TO A FACULTY MEMBER FOR RESEARCH IN AN UNDERGRADUATE INSTITUTION include: ROBERT R. WILSON PRIZE 1. A letter of nomination from the head of the student’s academic department AWARDS 2. An official copy of the student’s academic transcript LEROY APKER AWARD (15 June 1999 Deadline) 3. A description of the original contribution, written by the student such as a JOSEPH A. BURTON FORUM AWARD manuscript or reprint of a research publication or senior thesis (unbound) MARIA GOEPPERT-MAYER AWARD 4. A 1000-word summary, written by the student, describing his or her research JOSEPH F. KEITHLEY AWARD FOR ADVANCES IN MEASUREMENT SCIENCE 5. Two letters of recommendation from physicists who know the candidate’s MEDALS AND LECTURESHIPS individual contribution to the work submitted DAVID ADLER LECTURESHIP AWARD 6. The nominee’s address and telephone number during the summer. EDWARD A. BOUCHET AWARD JOHN H. DILLON MEDAL LEO SZILARD LECTURESHIP AWARD FURTHER INFORMATION (See http://www.aps.org/praw/apker/descrip.html) DISSERTATION AWARDS OUTSTANDING DOCTORAL THESIS RESEARCH IN BEAM PHYSICS AWARD DEADLINE NICHOLAS METROPOLIS AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING DOCTORAL THESIS WORK IN COMPUTA- Send name of proposed candidate and supporting information by 15 June 1999 to: TIONAL PHYSICS Dr. Barrie Ripin, Administrator, Apker Award Selection Committee DISSERTATION AWARD IN NUCLEAR PHYSICS The American Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844; Telephone: (301) 209-3268, Fax: (301) 209-0865, NOMINATION DEADLINE IS JULY 1, 1999, email: [email protected] UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED.

7 APS News June 1999 THE BACK PAGE Physics and the Information Revolution by Joel Birnbaum

n the fourth century B.C., Pythias was creations, spawned of the needs of physics for the enterprise backbone and the eco- A common Icondemned to death by Dionysius, the users, will rank among the most important nomic promise of electronic commerce, theme that under- tyrant of Syracuse, but obtained leave to developments in the history of civilization, telephony and entertainment. lies many schemes go home to arrange his affairs after his and that all aspects of how we work, learn is the push to fabri- friend Damon had agreed to take his and live will be forever changed by them. Moore’s Law cate logic devices place and be executed should Pythias By the end of the next decade, a new Gordon Moore of Intel was the first to on the nanometer- not return. Pythias returned in time to generation of information appliances will have quantify the improvement in gate density length scale, which save Damon, and Dionysius was so struck emerged. They will be much more intuitive when he noticed that the number of transis- will therefore be with this honorable friendship that he to use than today’s small, mobile, general- tors on a chip increased exponentially, and dominated by released both of them. purpose computers. Dedicated to a particular over the past 24 years. That exponential quantum mechani- The decades-old friendship of computer task, they will be named by that task just as growth rate has corresponded to a factor of cal effects. An technology and physics has also been an consumer appliances are: users will think of four increase in the number of bits that can additional huge in- Joel Birnbaum honorable one, and it, too, has produced them in terms of what they do, not how be stored on a memory chip in every de- crease in performance could result from benevolent results. Modern experimental and they do it. We expect appliances to evolve vice generation, about every 3.4 years — an reversible machines executing what has come theoretical physics depend on computing; a to hide their own complexity, just as the one- increase of 16,000 times! This exponential to be known as quantum logic; in principle, debt repaid many times over by fundamen- button, automatically-tuned television set of growth in chip functionality is closely tied to very clever algorithms could exploit the in- tal contributions by physicists to hardware, today has replaced its less complex, but the exponential growth in the chip market, herent parallelism of the superposition of software and systems technologies. harder-to-adjust ancestor. Because of contin- which has been approximately doubling quantum states. If we could solve knotty For many years now, I have dreamed of ued advances in semiconductors and every five years. problems of decoherence, programming and the day when computers would become a software, the information appliances of to- At the present time, there are two rec- input/output, to name a few, quantum logic pervasive technology, part of everyday life morrow will be able to do the same. Many of ognized factors that could bring Moore’s Law would enable the solution of some classes of for most people, and more noticeable by the most interesting appliances will include scaling to an end. The first is economic. The computationally intractable problems, such their absence rather than their presence. sensors and communications capabilities cost of building fabrication facilities to manu- as factorization and search, which are impor- Electric motors are a good example. The and soon whole families of appliances will facture chips has also been increasing tant in cryptography and Fourier analysis. For average American home contains about communicate directly, some wirelessly. As exponentially, about a factor of two every some applications the reversibility and inher- two dozen or more electric motors, bur- network bandwidth increases and be- chip generation. Thus, the cost of manufac- ent parallel nature of quantum logic represent ied in consumer appliances like vacuum comes far less expensive, the cost of turing chips is increasing significantly faster a leap far beyond what ideal nonreversible cleaners, electric toothbrushes, washing appliances will drop sharply since much of than the market is expanding, and at some computing can offer, perhaps by still another machines, and VCRs. In the next genera- the computation to support both the multi- point a saturation effect should slow the ex- nine orders of magnitude or more. tion, the same will be true for computers, media human interface and the application ponential growth to yield a classic s-curve Quantum logic is a fascinating prospect, most of which will be embedded in infor- will reside on the information utility. for expanding populations. but it does not seem likely to me that this mation appliances, enormously powerful However, while wonderfully useful, the The second factor threatening Moore’s can become a reality in any widespread prac- because their parallel architectures will be Internet and Web today are a far cry from an Law is that the engine that has brought us to tical sense before 2025, and many are less tailored to particular tasks and inexpen- information utility, which must have the char- this point, the CMOS (Complementary Metal optimistic than that. In any case, barring some sive because of huge production volumes. acteristics common to all utilities. We should Oxide Semiconductor) field-effect transistor, currently unimagined breakthrough, it is even Just as most electrical consumer appliances notice a utility only when it fails. It must be can only get us part of the way to where we more unlikely that an entire system would are dependent upon the availability of a ubiq- secure, reliable, ubiquitous, and the standards want to go. The Semiconductor Industry As- be built this way. However, there are tre- uitous electric power utility, most information for its use must endure. It must be perceived sociation has established a National mendous advances possible for computing, appliances will derive their computational to have a value great enough to justify the Technology Roadmap that sets as a goal the even if quantum logic never becomes a re- power from a digital information utility. huge investments required. continuation of the current exponential in- ality. A physicist’s workstation of the future However, for any technology to become We know that utilities catalyze new in- creases in capacity and performance up may well run Windows 17 on a Decium, truly pervasive it must transcend being merely dustries. They are also invariably lucrative; through the year 2010. That projection calls with lots of RAM, but with a reconfigurable, manufacturable and commonplace. It must the information infrastructure has already pro- for chips that are 256 times more capable application-specific quantum-switch-based, become intuitively accessible to ordinary duced new Internet-based companies which than current designs with no increase in supercomputer attached. people, and it must deliver sufficient value defy all conventional economic logic. They power dissipation. If this goal is attained, then Winston Churchill observed that the fur- to justify the large investment needed to cre- are just early precursors of new entities for the silicon-based integrated circuit will have ther backward you can look, the farther ate the supporting infrastructure. electronic commerce, communications, elec- accomplished a more than six order of mag- forward you are likely to see. It is possible For many years I despaired of this dream tronic publishing, and internet medicine, to nitude performance improvement, using that history is about to repeat itself, with the ever coming true for computers, because of name just a few of the industries which are energy as a metric, with a single manufactur- introduction of a new disruptive technology the political and economic bickering that already being created or transformed. The ing paradigm. Compared to the advances for computation in the 21st Century. Today, precluded the creation of a standard that notion of an information infrastructure built experienced in most human endeavors, that we have the silicon FET, but we speculate would result in the ability to interconnect upon the standards already set for the Web, increase is extraordinary. that a quantum-state switch could be better. systems easily and freely, and by the need- but extending them to improve robustness, If we are to have any hope of sustaining A large number of laboratories are now en- less, shortsighted profusion of proprietary, performance, manageability, and security as the economic benefits to the national gaged in basic research in the fabrication of arbitrarily different, complex user interfaces. the systems scale to huge numbers of users economy provided by sustaining Moore’s materials into arbitrary shapes and sizes, and Isaac Newton was once asked how he had is at the heart of most industrial efforts today. Law, we have no choice but to develop are searching for the device concept that will achieved his great accomplishments. He an- The fundamental characteristic of an quantum switches and the means to inter- lead to a disruptive new technology. swered modestly that if he had seen far, it information utility is that it transforms connect them. Fundamental limits are now Breakthroughs will require significant was because he had stood on the shoulders computing from a capital investment to becoming an essential issue. It does not make advances in the understanding of funda- of giants. In the computing industry, we have a competitive service, with costs amor- sense to make the enormous investments in mental issues, and will undoubtedly act mostly stood on each other’s feet. tized over many users and paid for by research, development and manufacturing as the foundation for new mathematical usage. We could provide electricity for that will be required to replace semiconduc- and scientific disciplines; those compa- Web and Mosaic our homes by buying a generator, but tor switches by the year 2010, if the new nies that convert the breakthroughs to a And then, just a few years ago, a miracle most of us prefer to subscribe to a ser- technology can have only marginally better new, manufacturable technology will be occurred: Both problems were solved by the vice. For many users, the same will be performance. To achieve incredible ad- the survivors of the quantum age of in- physics community, long the most sophisti- true for computing. I think of the utility vances in the future will require a totally formation processing. It is a noble quest, cated users of computer technology. Out of as a natural evolution of open comput- different type of computational machin- and we computer technologists are be- CERN came the World Wide Web, based on ing which will enable a web of electronic ery. The requirement for inventing a new ing held hostage by the laws of physics. the quarter-century-old Internet, but with services to be built by composition of technology paradigm, coupled with the We can only hope that once again physi- benefits so profound that a de facto connec- existing and new services. It will do for economic rewards that would follow from cists, just like Pythias, will arrive in time tivity standard seemed to emerge overnight computation and services what the Web such a development, has created exciting to save the day. and to spread like wildfire. Soon thereafter, did for data. An HP Labs prototype of an research opportunities for mathematicians, the disarmingly simple Mosaic point-and-click information utility has been running for physicists, physical chemists, and scientists Joel Birnbaum is Chief Scientist at browser technology was invented at NCSA some time; it has all of the attributes of many disciplines as well as for com- Hewlett Packard. The above text was ex- (National Center for Supercomputer Appli- mentioned, and is now being scaled to a puter technologists. In fact, much of the cerpted from his plenary speech at the cations), clearing the way for truly intuitive large number of users. The evolution of current interest in interdisciplinary research APS Centennial meeting in Atlanta, GA. access, and suddenly the basis for a true glo- the information utility will be an industry areas such as nanofabrication, self-assembly The full version can be found online at bal information infrastructure was born. Many phenomenon driven initially by the ac- and molecular electronics is being driven by http://www.hpl.hp.com/speeches/ now believe that taken together these two ceptance of the Internet as a surrogate this search for a new archetype computer. birnbaum_aps.html.

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