April 2018 • Vol. 27, No. 4 A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY More from the 2018 March Meeting Pages 3, 4 APS.ORG/APSNEWS Astrophysicist Helms the NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate By Katherine Kornei The new head of the National Science Foundation’s Mathematical Open-Access Pioneer and Community Organizer and Physical Sciences Directorate invokes Einstein when describ- By Frank Zimmermann medicine. While members of ing her job responsibilities. “The M. Keck Observatory W. Since its start in 1998 Physical the accelerator community make question I ask myself is if Einstein Review Accelerators and Beams essential contributions to a broad were proposing [for NSF funding], (PRAB) has been an all-electronic range of sciences, “their peers would he win?,” says Anne Kinney. journal, a daring novelty at the are other accelerator scientists “We want to make sure the answer time and a testing ground for other and their professional interests to that question is always yes.” Physical Review journals. Equally are related to accelerators and In January, Kinney stepped up unheard of, thanks to external beams” [2]. Almost all accelerator to lead one of the NSF’s largest financial sponsorship, PRAB has experts are working at the nexus directorates, which includes five Anne Kinney been made available free of charge of universities, research centers, an international editorial board and divisions: astronomy, chemistry, pool of referees [2]. a very proud example of what you to both authors and readers around and industry, giving rise to unique physics, materials science, and want to make sure you’re always the world. As such, it is a pioneer- collaboration models and research Martin Blume, APS Editor in mathematics. She oversees how Chief at that time, understood supporting,” Kinney says. ing “gold” open-access journal, far methodologies. fundamental research in these areas Kinney, who holds a doctor- ahead of its time. Innovative and To better serve and nurture the intimate connection between is funded—over 40% of the fed- technology and the resulting sci- ate in physics and astronomy forward-looking, PRAB rapidly this community, in 1997 the APS eral support for basic research at from New York University, spent established its reputation as the Division of Physics of Beams ence, and, departing from Physical academic institutions comes from Review tradition, he was willing to 14 years at the Space Telescope world’s premier journal in accel- (DPB) recommended establishing the Mathematical and Physical Science Institute where she was an erators and beams. a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal champion a journal covering all of Sciences Directorate. Kinney is accelerator research [2]. Instrument Scientist working on the Accelerators have been a part devoted to the science and tech- quick to highlight NSF’s previous Faint Object Spectrograph aboard of one-third of all physics Nobel nology of accelerators and beams. As a result, Physical Review and ongoing research success sto- Special Topics - Accelerators and the Hubble Space Telescope. In Prizes awarded since 1939 [1] as It would cover the full breadth of ries, for example its support of the 1999, Kinney joined NASA to lead well as being engines of discov- accelerators and beams, publish Beams (PRST-AB) was approved Laser Interferometer Gravitational- ery for chemistry, biology, and quickly, circulate widely, and have PRAB continued on page 6 Wave Observatory (LIGO). “That’s NSF continued on page 4 Condensed Matter Physics Gets an AI Assist Kavli Symposium: LIGO, Quantum Computers, and More By Sophia Chen limits: As the number of particles 2018 APS March Meeting, in a model approaches values Los Angeles—At the beginning for actual materials, simulations of his equation-filled PowerPoint require supercomputing facilities. presentation, invited speaker Ehsan “It becomes enormously expen- Khatami pulled up a picture of sive,” says Khatami. a puppy. Khatami and other condensed Gesturing matter research- ers think that toward the Barry Barish Shoucheng Zhang Ivan Schuller Manu Prakash Amir Abo-Shaeer puppy’s round, artificial intel- E. Khatami ligence—which doleful eyes, the By Leah Poffenberger (Stanford) spoke next on the years without detecting gravita- San Jose State includes tech- 2018 APS March Meeting, application of physics to global tional waves. The issue, Barish University phys- niques known as Los Angeles—The Kavli health and education chal- noted, was in the sensitivity icist explained machine learn- Foundation Special Symposium lenges in developing countries. of the instrument, which was how he’d used ing and neural brought five distinguished To round out the evening, Dos constrained by seismic noise. artificial intel- networks—can physicists together to share Pueblos Engineering Academy To combat the constant shaking ligence—the be used along- groundbreaking physics, out- founder Amir Abo-Shaeer of Earth, Advanced LIGO was same approach side conven- For a simple model of spins, a neu- of-the-box physics applications, shared his vision for reimag- constructed using techniques that lets Google’s tional computing ral network can distinguish between and ideas for innovative science ined science education to equip found in everyday objects such image recogni- algorithms for a disordered state at high tempera- education. potential future physicists. as cars and noise-cancelling tion software dis- ture (top) and an ordered state be- studying collec- Barry Barish (Caltech) Barish, recipient of the 2017 headphones. Armed with high- tinguish between low the transition temperature (bot- tions of electrons reviewed the history of the Laser Nobel Prize in Physics, kicked powered shock absorbers and puppies and kit- tom). in a material. Interferometer Gravitational- off the three-hour session with active-seismic isolation tech- tens—to identify phases in a quan- Machine learning algorithms can Wave Observatory (LIGO) a discussion of gravitational niques that measured ambient tum condensed matter model. run on an ordinary desktop com- and the latest discoveries in wave detection, beginning with shaking and corrected for it, Simulation of exotic phases puter beefed up with additional gravitational wave detection. Einstein’s 1916 prediction of Advanced LIGO went online and emergent phenomena is a hot graphical processing units—com- Shoucheng Zhang (Stanford) their existence. Experimental in September 2014. Within topic in condensed matter physics puter chips that are popularly used and Ivan Schuller (University verification took a further 100 five days, it detected the first research, but conventional com- to display video game graphics of California at San Diego) both years. As Barish described, evidence of gravitational puting methods are reaching their AI ASSIST continued on page 5 gave presentations on the future gravitational waves remained waves. Since then, it has seen of computing: Zhang on the dis- elusive for a century because four events caused by black covery of a particle which could no instrument existed that was hole mergers and one—most be critical to topological quan- sensitive enough to detect the recently—from merging neutron tum computing, and Schuller on small stretching of space indi- stars. This neutron star merger the development of computers cating passage of a wave until was also observed by astrono- that mimic the human brain. Advanced LIGO in 2014. mers around the world, creating Creator of the Paperfuge—a Barish became a principal “what we now call multi-mes- simple toy repurposed as a investigator for LIGO in 1994, senger astronomy,” says Barish. medical centrifuge that requires and the instrument began tak- It also solved a mystery: “It was no electricity—Manu Prakash ing data in 1995 and ran for 11 KAVLI continued on page 7 Revised 4/18/18 2 • April 2018 Spotlight on Development This Month in Physics History The Millie Dresselhaus Fund April 17, 1969: Robert R. Wilson’s APS is pleased to announce Congressional Testimony on Founding Fermilab the establishment of the Millie Dresselhaus Fund for Science ver the last five decades or so, Fermilab scien- moments each week with Fermi.” and Society to honor the remark- Otists have made some of the most fundamental Wilson was among those who witnessed the able scientific career and inspiring discoveries in particle physics, garnering numerous Trinity Test, from a bunker 10,000 yards north of community legacy of Mildred S. Nobel Prizes along the way. But the facility may Ground Zero. Noticing that part of the mushroom Dresselhaus. A campaign has been never have been built had a handful of physicists— cloud of radioactive debris had peeled off and was launched to endow this fund and chief among them the lab’s first director, Robert heading for the bunker, he ordered everyone in it, we invite you to consider support- R. Wilson—not convinced the U.S. Congress of including soldiers—“using a vocabulary everyone ing this effort. the project’s value. could understand”—into trucks for evacuation. Millie, as she was known to Born in Frontier, Wyoming, in 1914, Wilson “As we left, that cloud of radioactive debris was everyone, made important con- had a lifelong love of the great outdoors, regal- right on top of us and it was spooky,” he recalled. tributions to science through her ing physics colleagues with tales of his life as a “We were lucky though. About 25 miles later it research on carbon, semimet- Mildred S. Dresselhaus cowboy in the Wild West. (“Most of them turned came down on a bunch of cattle and turned their als, and nanomaterials and other out to be true,” physicist Dale Corson told the New hair white.” travel grants for undergradu- nanostructural systems. Her contri- York Times for Wilson’s obituary in 2000.) He also After the war ended, Wilson moved to the ate women who lack sufficient butions have won significant acco- had a mechanical bent, tin- Laboratory of Nuclear resources to attend these confer- lades in and of themselves—but kering with pumps and vac- Studies at Cornell and ences.