February 2006 Volume 15, No.2 APS NEWS www.aps.org/apsnews A Publication of the American Physical Society Inside this issue DOE Picks University of California to Use the Sorting, sorting... Head Los Alamos Management Team New APS Logo he Department of Energy of exceptionally high caliber,” said announced in December its Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman Tdecision to award the contract at a press conference in December to manage Los Alamos National announcing the decision to award the Laboratory to Los Alamos National contract to the UC/Bechtel team. Security, LLC. (LANS), a partner- Bodman stressed that the new con- ship led by the University of tract would not be a continuation of California, partnered with Bechtel the previous contract. “This is a new Corporation, a huge engineering, con- contract, with a new team, marking struction and project management a new approach to management at Los Photo credit: Ernie Tretkoff company. Alamos.” The 2006 March Meeting received more than 6500 abstracts, and The University of California has That new approach includes a new sorting them all into sessions is a highly non-trivial task. Undaunted, For camera ready versions a dedicated group of volunteers, part of which is pictured here, gath- run Los Alamos National Lab since attitude towards monetary compen- of the logo visit the lab was created in 1943. But a sation. The new contract, which http://www.aps.org/logo.cfm ered at APS headquarters in College Park on December 9 and 10 for series of safety, security, and financial begins June 1, has an initial term of this purpose. As the picture shows, a great time was had by all. problems in the past two years cast seven years, with a provision to extend doubt on the university’s ability to it to 20 years. Under the new contract, manage the lab, and the DOE decid- the LANS team will receive up to De Gennes, Ben Lakhdar and Wagner to Deliver ed to put the contract out for a com- $79 million per year, depending on petitive bid. performance. Previously, the Endowed Lectures at March and April Meetings Some at Los Alamos believe the University of California had received problems have been blown out of about $9 million per year to manage This year two named APS lec- was nominated for the Beller of the 2005 UNESCO–L’Oréal proportion, and the contract didn’t the lab. tureships will bring distinguished Lectureship by the Division of prize for Women in Sciences for need to be rebid. Other major labs The new contract “begins a new foreign scientists to speak at the Polymer Physics. her experiments and models on have similar levels of safety and secu- era for Los Alamos,” University of March and April meetings. The The 2006 Marshak lecturer infrared spectroscopy and its rity, said Brad Holian, a Los Alamos California President Robert Dynes speakers were selected by the will be Zohra Ben Lakhdar of the applications to pollution, detec- physicist. “It’s not that Los Alamos said in a statement after the APS Committee on International University of Tunis. She will give tion and medicine. Ben Lakhdar is singularly bad. It seems to me is it announcement. “I believe this was Scientific Affairs (CISA), from a talk at the March Meeting enti- was nominated for the Marshak was a drive to privatize. I think it’s a an excellent decision and one that is nominations submitted by various tled “Scientists in Developing lectureship by the Forum on very bad idea.” right for both Los Alamos and the APS units. Countries: Is there an effective International Physics. The LANS partnership that will country.” The Beller Lectureship was way to support meaningful At the April Meeting, the take over the management of the Details on how operations at the endowed by Esther Hoffman research?” Ben Lakhdar’s Beller Lecture will be given by lab includes the University of lab will change under the new man- Beller for the purpose of bring- research focuses on atomic spec- Albrecht Wagner, director of California, Bechtel Corporation, agement have not been announced. ing distinguished physicists from troscopy, and she is devoting her DESY, the German particle BWX Technologies, and Washington “This new contract will put in abroad as invited speakers at APS career to carrying out applied physics laboratory. Wagner has Group International. They were com- place concrete measures of account- meetings. The lectureship pro- research to meet national needs been a leading proponent of the peting for the contract against a team ability, ensuring that the tax dollars vides support for speakers at the in Tunisia. She is the recipient Endowed Lectures continued on page 11 led by Lockheed Martin and the spent at Los Alamos are well spent,” March and April meetings. University of Texas. said Bodman. The Marshak Lectureship, Taiwan Symposium Caps WYP “Both proposals were strong and UC continued on page 11 endowed by Ruth Marshak in honor of her late husband and Talent Search Program former APS president, Robert APS Commemorates Compton Marshak, provides travel support As a closing event for the World Ambassadors from the United for physicists from a developing Year of Physics, students from States, and also for those from country or Eastern Europe invit- about 20 different countries attend- Argentina, Cameroon, Ghana, ed to speak at APS meetings. ed a special “Physics Young Indonesia, and Tanzania, to the sym- The March Beller lecture will Ambassadors” symposium in posium in Taipei. The American be given by Pierre-Gilles de Taipei from December 31, 2005 to Association of Physics Teachers Gennes, of the Collège de France. January 4, 2006. These students, helped coordinate travel for these De Gennes is a leading exponent ages 10-18, were chosen to attend groups. of soft condensed matter physics. the event through an international At the international symposium, He received the 1991 Nobel Prize program, the WYP 2005 Talent students attended a wide variety of in Physics for his generalization Search. events, including presentations by of physical order descriptors to The International Coordinating distinguished physicists, a “physics complex soft matter. At the March Committee for the Talent Search is fun”session with hands-on activ- Meeting, de Gennes will present was chaired by Beverly Hartline ities, a poster session for the stu- a talk on “The Nature of Memory of Heritage University. The NSF dents to present their work, a Objects in the Brain.” De Gennes provided travel grants for the Young Taiwan Symposium continued on page 3 Photo credit: Mary Butkus On December 12, then APS President-elect (now APS President) Optical Illusion John Hopfield presented a plaque in honor of Arthur H. Compton at For most of 2005, a giant banner Washington University in St. Louis. This was the third plaque to be pre- with the World Year of Physics logo sented as part of the ongoing APS historic sites initiative; the first two hung down the side of the building hous- honored Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, and Michelson and Morley ing the Optical Society of America in at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Compton was a pro- Washington, DC. It became a familiar fessor at Washington University, studying the scattering of X-rays, when sight to commuters as they exited the he discovered the effect named after him in 1922. As part of the presen- Dupont Circle Metro station. But nothing tation ceremony, Hopfield signed the APS Ledger of Historic Sites. lasts forever, and as the World Year of Watching as he signs the Ledger are John Rigden (center), Chairman, Physics faded into memory (see Viewpoint APS Historic Sites Committee, and Mark S. Wrighton, Chancellor, on page 4) so too did the OSA banner. Washington University in St. Louis. Photo credit: Gary Stoiber 2 February 2006 APS NEWS This Month in Physics History February 1968: The Discovery of Pulsars Announced "People on the Earth are not think that a region of the universe n 1967, when Jocelyn Bell, Within a few to resist. They became moving at the same speed as the from which no escape is possible, then a graduate student in weeks Bell noticed even more excited atomic clocks on the satellites." even in principle, is exciting?” Iastronomy, noticed a strange something odd in the when they learned that –Brett Taylor, Radford –Richard Price, University of “bit of scruff” in the data com- data, what she called a a woman was involved University, on why GPS systems Texas at Brownsville, on gravita- ing from her radio telescope, she bit of “scruff.” The in the discovery. Bell would not work without factoring tional waves and black holes, The and her advisor Anthony Hewish signal didn’t look later recalled the media in relativity, Roanoke Times, Brownsville Herald, December 14, initially thought they might have quite like a scintillat- attention in a speech December 28, 2005 2005 detected a signal from an extra- ing source or like about the discovery: “I terrestrial civilization. It turned manmade interfer- had my photograph “The discovery also explains "We can now go inside a [cell] out not be aliens, but it was still ence. She soon real- taken standing on a why this black hole is so bright in structure and see how it feels. We quite exciting: they had discov- ized it was a regular bank, sitting on a bank, standing on a bank X-rays. It's because the black hole are able to interact with the ered the first pulsar. They signal, consistently Jocelyn Bell ca. 1970 can pull gas directly off from the nanoworld." announced their discovery in coming from the same examining bogus outer layers of the giant star." –Gustavo Luengo, L’Oréal, on February 1968.