January 2013 • Vol. 22, No. 1 Diversity Corner A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY see page 3 WWW.APS.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/APSNEWS April Meeting Features Latest Research and More At the Big Board The 2013 APS April Meet- Gravitation, Hadronic Physics, sity of California, Davis will talk ing will take place at the Shera- and Precision Measurements & about his work using data from ton Denver Downtown Hotel in Fundamental Constants. NASA’s Planck satellite to glean Denver, Colorado from April 13 insights into the standard cosmo- through 16. logical model. Florencia Canelli The annual meeting is expected from ETH Zurich will highlight to attract about 1,200 attendees the recent discovery of the Higgs and will feature 72 invited ses- boson at the Large Hadron Col- sions, more than 120 contributed lider at CERN. Sam Zeller from sessions, three plenary sessions, Fermilab will also focus on high poster sessions and an outreach energy physics, highlighting new event. experiments and developments in The meeting highlights the determining the value of the neu- latest research from the APS Di- trino mixing angle, and the search visions of Particles and Fields, Plenary sessions throughout the for charge parity violation. Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics, meeting will highlight some of the A second plenary session will and Beam Physics, as well as the latest developments in research, be about “The quantum in 1913, Photo by Michael Lucibella Topical Group on Gravitation and as well as some recently revealed 2013, and the future.” John Heil- General Relativity. In addition, the history. bron from University of Califor- In early December, 170 physicists from all over the country descended on APS headquarters in College Park, MD, to perform the onerous but very Forums on Education, Graduate The Kavli Foundation Keynote nia, Berkeley will look back on important task of sorting the 8,303 contributed abstracts that were submit- Student Affairs, History of Phys- Plenary session is titled “Recent the personal life of Niels Bohr ted to the 2013 March Meeting. In the photo, Wolfgang Losert (University of ics, International Physics, and advances in physics at the CERN through recently uncovered letters Maryland), Pupa Gilbert (University of Wisconsin) and Eric Hudson (Penn Physics and Society will be par- Large Hadron Collider, neutrino and correspondence before and State University) line up their sessions at the meeting's legendary big board. ticipating, along with the Topical physics, and the study of the cos- while formulating his model of the The March Meeting will take place in Baltimore, March 18-22. Groups on Energy Research and mic microwave background.” atom. Deborah Jin at the Univer- Applications, Few-Body Systems, Lloyd Knox from the Univer- MEETING continued on page 7 Despite Challenges, New President Sees a Great Time for Physics Bringing Star Power to NIF Michael S. Turner, the Bruce V. sic research and for physics. Not & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished unrelated to that is the public ap- Service Professor, and Director preciation of science. Science is of the Kavli Institute for Cosmo- definitely center stage in this coun- logical Physics at the Univer- try and around the world. People sity of Chicago, assumed the APS see science as being the key to presidency on January 1st 2013. In innovation. But when you get on the following interview with APS center stage, sometimes they throw News, he discusses tomatoes. There are his priorities for the a number of issues, Society during his particularly in the Photo courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory presidential year. US where science On November 27, APS brought the star power of 125 APS Fellows to Livermore, for a tour of the National Ignition Facility Congratulations is not completely (NIF), followed by a reception at a nearby winery. Fellows from Livermore Lab (the site of NIF) were joined by busloads on taking office as appreciated for from both Berkeley and Stanford. At the reception, in addition to enjoying the food accompanied by some of the local APS President! what it is and what vintages, the Fellows heard from APS President Bob Byer of Stanford, Executive Officer Kate Kirby, Treasurer/Publisher It’s a great honor it isn’t. So I think Joe Serene, and Director of Public Affairs Michael Lubell, as well as some words of welcome from NIF Director Edward to serve as Presi- APS has to be a Moses. In the photo, a subset of the attendees is captured at the entrance to the Ignition Facility. APS President Byer is dent of APS. The voice for science. at far left in the 2nd row. American Physical Our nation has big Society is a fantas- problems, for ex- tic organization: it ample energy and Neutrino Experiment Passes Funding Hurdle publishes the best Michael S. Turner climate, and sci- journals, is a strong ence is the key to By Michael Lucibella ground. ing Laboratory, or DUSEL, run in advocate for physics, serves soci- solving these problems. APS has The Sanford Underground conjunction with the National Sci- ety by giving science advice, and played a role in providing the best The Department of Energy’s next generation neutrino experi- Research Facility, located at the ence Foundation. However in De- engages in education and outreach. scientific advice to the public and former Homestake gold mine in cember of 2010 the NSF backed What really makes APS a great or- to the government, and that’s even ment has passed its latest round of reviews and is moving towards Lead, South Dakota, will be home out of the project and the scope ganization is that it has the respect more important now. to the LBNE. Fermilab will shoot of experiments at the mine had to of its members–the members re- An important challenge to construction. The Long Baseline Neutrino Experiment, or LBNE, a beam of neutrinos through 1300 be reduced. The plan shrank from ally think very well of APS. And the Society itself has to do with kilometers of rock to the detectors dozens of underground multidisci- last but not least there are excel- publishing. For almost 120 years passed the department’s “Critical Decision 1” review on December at Homestake. Located on the sur- plinary scientific projects to three lent dedicated people working for we’ve published the Physical Re- face of the underground research physics experiments, a dark matter it. So my goal is not to screw it up, view, which I would call the lead- 10, which outlined the project’s budget and overall plan. facility, the detectors will look for detector, a search for neutrinoless and maybe even make it better. ing set of journals in physics, ac- the hierarchy of neutrino masses double-beta decay, and the LBNE. What do you see as the most counting for 30% of the citations The experiment will push lim- its of existing technology by de- and evidence of charge parity vio- The designers of the LBNE pressing issues facing the physics in physics. We’re at a time where lation in hopes of finding clues to proposed a budget of about $1.7 community right now? people are looking at new models ploying a new generation of detec- tors to attempt to unravel the mass why matter won out over antimat- billion, but the DOE demanded The most pressing issues have for publishing, in particular open ter in the early universe. more reductions. They dropped to do with science budgets. Im- access. The survival of the Physi- hierarchy of neutrinos. However, budget compromises mean that The planned experiments have the proposed near detector that portant decisions will be made in cal Review in this brave new age been significantly scaled back would have measured neutrinos at Washington that affect the way is very important, and we’re re- the project will have to take on a limited scientific scope unless from their original scope. When the beam’s Fermilab origin. After that science is funded in the US, ally going to have to stay on top of it was first conceived, the LBNE a review that included evaluat- and so APS needs to be a strong publishing. outside investment can be secured to move the detectors deep under- was to be a part of the Deep Un- ing other sites and other kinds of voice both for science and for ba- PRESIDENT continued on page 6 derground Science and Engineer- NEUTRINO continue on page 6 2 • January 2013 Members This Month in Physics History in the Media January 2, 1839: First Daguerrotype of the Moon aking high-resolution, col- He failed to find private in- copies was to use two separate “It was the influence of him and the observations to agree all at Torful pictures of the stars is vestors for his work, so Daguerre cameras side by side. Also, be- my mom teaching me to always be once. But it may not ever happen now a mainstay of astronomy approached the French Academy cause Daguerre had patented his curious about the next layer of the that way.” research, whether from ground- of Sciences on January 7, 1839 invention in England, photogra- universe that drove me into phys- Gary Zank, University of Ala- based telescopes or instruments about his invention. Initially, he phers needed a license to make ics in the first place. It has been a bama in Huntsville on whether like the Hubble Space Telescope, withheld the specific details of daguerrotypes there, opening a great treat to get to work with my Voyager I has exited the solar sys- but this wasn’t always the case. the process, revealing the secret door for competitors. An Eng- father at Sanford Lab while I was tem, The Los Angeles Times, De- Before the invention of photog- only to the academy’s secretary, lishman named William Henry completing my master’s degree cember 3, 2012.