January 2007 Volume 16, No. 1 APS NEWS www.aps.org/publications/apsnews Highlights Wireless Non-Radiative Energy Transfer A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY • WWW.APS.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/APSNEWS Page 6 Particle Physicists Meet Halfway Jacksonville Hosts 2007 April Meeting The 2007 APS April Meeting will cists, a high school teachers’ day, a and registration information, be held April 14-17 in sunny students lunch with the experts, and are available online at Jacksonville, Florida. The scientific the presentation of several APS prizes http://www.aps.org/meetings/april/ program, which focuses on astro- and awards in a special ceremonial index.cfm. The abstract submission physics, particle physics, nuclear session. A public lecture, on the deadline is January 12; post-dead- physics, and related fields, will con- physics of NASCAR, will be given line abstracts received by February 5 sist of three plenary sessions, approx- by Diandra Leslie-Pelecky of the will be assigned as poster presenta- imately 75 invited sessions, more University of Nebraska. tions. Early registration closes on than 100 contributed sessions, and Further details of the program, February 23. poster sessions. Among the invited sessions will April Meeting Plenary Talks be a special Nobel Prize session at Saturday, April 14 Laboratory which both of this year’s laureates, • String Theory, Branes, and if John Mather and George Smoot, will • First Results from Gravity You Wish, the Anthropic speak. Probe B, Francis Everitt, Stanford University Principle, Shamit Kachru, APS units represented at the meet- Stanford University ing include the Divisions of • Two-Dimensional Electron Photo by Kay Kinoshita Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics, Systems, Allan MacDonald, Tuesday, April 17 Particles and Fields, Physics of University of Texas at Austin • The 21-cm Background: A The APS Division of Particles and Fields held a joint meeting with their colleagues Beams, Plasma Physics, and • New Measurement of the Probe of Reionization and the from the Japanese Physical Society in Honolulu. The meeting, which ran from Computational Physics; the Forums Electron Magnetic Moment and Dark Ages, Jacqueline Hewitt, October 29 to November 3, was styled the Joint Meeting of Pacific Region Particle Massachusetts Institute of Physics Communities, with about 650 attendees, from not only the US and Japan on Education, Physics and Society, the Fine Structure Constant, but other Pacific Rim nations such as China, Korea, Canada and Taiwan. International Affairs, History of Gerald Gabrielse, Harvard Technology Shown here enjoying a moment of Hawaii sunshine on Waikiki beach are Physics, and Graduate Student University • The Threat to the Planet: Junko Shigemitsu (Ohio State), Mavourneen Wilcox (U. of Hawaii), Hirokazu Affairs; and the Topical Groups on Monday, April 16 Actions Needed to Avert Ishino (Tokyo Institute of Technology), and Wei Wang (Boston University). Few-Body Systems, Precision • Cosmology After WMAP, Dangerous Climate Change, Measurement and Fundamental David Spergel, Princeton James E. Hansen, NASA Task Force Suggests Enhancements Constants, Gravitation, Plasma University • New Results from RHIC on the for the APS April Meeting Astrophysics, and Hadronic Physics. • The Energy Problem: What Can Spin Structure of Proton, Steven In addition to the regular program, Physicists Do?, Steven Chu, Vigdor, Indiana University The Task Force on the Future of that APS continue to sponsor a year- there will be a professional develop- Lawrence Berkeley National the April Meeting reported to the ly meeting organized by the units tra- ment workshop for women physi- Council at its November meeting. It ditionally associated with the April New Investments Needed in Defense Research, had been constituted a year earlier to meeting, they propose giving the “examine the goals and outcomes of meeting a new title that evokes the Says Task Force on Innovation Report the April meeting from the point of main scientific motifs, such as “A Increased support for defense optics and microelectronics–have The Task Force calls for the view of its various constituencies.” Universe of Physics.” basic research is needed for nation- played a major role in establishing administration to include defense The charge to the task force allowed In addition, the task force recom- al security and economic compet- and maintaining our military supe- basic research in the American it to “suggest enhancements, changes mends that each year, the program itiveness, says the Task Force on the riority. To help American troops Competitiveness Initiative. The in the structure of the meeting, or should identify a small number of Future of American Innovation in retain their advantage on the battle- American Competitiveness even termination of the meeting.” In themes. The themes will describe a report released in November. field in the future, it is critical that Initiative would double, over 10 its report, the task force recommend- topics to be treated in depth, though The report, entitled Measuring new investments be made today in years, the federal funding for basic ed that the April Meeting should con- the meeting as a whole would con- the Moment: Innovation, National areas such as energy storage, mate- research at NSF, DOE’s Office of tinue, but could be enhanced with a tinue to cover the same diversity of Security, and Economic rials research, nanotechnology and Science, and NIST. new name and some highlighted topics. The task force believes that Competitiveness, is a follow-up to high-performance computing,” says Speaking at the November 16 themes. defining some key topics in advance the Task Force’s February 2005 the report. INNOVATION continued on page 5 The April Meeting, which covers would give potential participants an report, which presented bench- particle physics, nuclear physics, additional incentive to attend. They marks showing that the United They liked it! They really liked it! astrophysics and related fields, plays also note the success of the nine ple- States is in danger of losing its a “unifying role for the physics com- nary lectures, and recommend giving competitiveness in science and munity, and provides a valuable forum them more emphasis in pre-meeting engineering. The new report shows for the interplay between physics and publicity. that many of those trends continue. society,” says the task force report. The task force also recommends At the November 16 report Nonetheless, the task force members exploring opportunities for joint meet- release event in Washington, the believe the meeting could benefit ings with other societies, such as Task Force and several national 3 from greater coherence and could AAS, AAPT, AAPM, public policy security experts called for increas- “serve more effectively as a celebra- organizations, divisional meetings, ing defense basic research in par- tion of our science and as an occasion and IEEE divisions, and the occa- ticular. Defense basic research is to explore common interests with sional participation of APS units other central to both economic and other scientific organizations.” than those traditionally represented at national security, but federal spend- The April Meeting serves sever- the April meeting. ing on defense basic research has al different purposes, said task force They also want to encourage unit remained flat for over three chair Chris Quigg of Fermilab. “For program organizers to experiment decades, the Task Force says. many physicists, it’s the excellent with different types of sessions. For The Task Force on the Future of Photo by Ken Cole scientific program that attracts them. instance, some units may want to try American Innovation is a coalition Albert Einstein (aka Marc Spiegel) and Chris Andersen have every reason to People also appreciate the broader holding poster sessions instead of ten of businesses and business organ- get excited. Spiegel starred in, and Andersen directed, a 14-minute APS-pro- plenary talks, physics and society minute talks or creating themed mini- izations, scientific societies, and duced video,“Einstein's Miracle Year,” that was distributed to thousands of mid- talks, education and outreach activi- conferences within the meeting. “The higher education associations, dle-school classrooms in 2005 and 2006. The video was awarded a coveted ties, and a sense of coherence that hope is that by encouraging people to including the APS. The task force CINE Golden Eagle award (clutched in Spiegel's right hand) in the non-telecast children's entertainment and education category in the Spring 2006 competi- couldn’t be had any other way.” look at different ways of using this advocates increased federal sup- tion. APS originally produced the video to accompany the PhysicsQuest proj- The task force made several rec- meeting we can make it better and port for research in the physical ect kits during the World Year of Physics, but the video proved so popular that ommendations intended to raise the more coherent,” said Quigg. sciences and engineering. copies were distributed independently the following year as well. Other recipi- profile of the meeting and increase As for location and scheduling of “Breakthroughs in basic sci- ents of CINE Golden Eagles in past years have included Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Ken Burns. participation. While recommending TASK FORCE continued on page 5 ence–such as those in radar, lasers, 2 January • 2007 APS NEWS Members in the Media This Month in Physics History “You can fit a million of these Columbus Dispatch, December 4, crystals on the end of a human hair.” 2006 January 1925: Wolfgang Pauli John Lindl, Lawrence Livermore “What they’ll be looking for is announces the exclusion principle National Lab, on a new form of man- radioactive contaminants made at made diamond, Tri-Valley Herald, the same time. They’ll do the best November 10, 2006 he year 1925 was an important one for tum numbers made sense physically, since they they can technically. But my guess quantum physics, beginning with Wolfgang related to the electron’s motion around the nucle- “I like the bad ones as much as is that it will take an informant.” TPauli’s January announcement of the exclu- us.