May 2003 NEWS Volume 12, No.5 A Publication of The American Physical Society http://www.aps.org/apsnews New DOE Security Guidelines Impose Dear Congressman... Restrictions on National Labs By Pamela Zerbinos New interim security guidelines Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley would be applied to us.” outlined by the US Department of National Laboratory, the National Re- The prior exemption meant that Energy (DOE) are causing upheavals newable Energy Laboratory, the labs did not have to collect and in the way some national laborato- Princeton Plasma Physics Labora- report certain information on ries handle their identification and tory, Stanford Linear Accelerator foreigners, including biographical and access procedures. The guidelines Center, and the Thomas Jefferson personal data; passport and visa in- went into effect on April 4. The re- National Accelerator Laboratory. formation; the purpose of the visit; strictive measures taken include tying These were exempt from much of the actual areas and subjects to be laboratory identification and access the previous DOE directives con- visited, and the host and sponsoring cards to visa status, as well as rescind- cerning foreign visitors and organization of the visit. Under the ing the exemptions granted to seven assignments, because the work they new policy, this information is now to national labs due to the unclassified perform is not classified. “Everyone be collected and entered into DOE’s nature of their work. Final regula- expects a higher security standard Foreign Access Central Tracking Sys- tions are expected to be approved when you’re designing nuclear weap- tem (FACTS). This translates into later this year. ons,” said John Womersley, interviewing every foreign visitor to The seven labs directly affected co-spokesperson for Fermilab’s the seven labs to ensure that the DOE by the new guidelines are Ames Labo- DZero experiment. “What we were has their information on file. It also Photo Credit: Jessica Clark ratory, Fermi National Accelerator unprepared for is that this standard necessitates issuing new ID badges Harvey Gould of Clark University (standing) offers some tied to their visas; when the visa ex- advice to William Jensen of UMass-Boston, who is preparing to write to his pires, so does the ID badge. Scientists representatives in Congress using special software provided by the APS Office March Meeting Prize and Award Recipients must go through the interviewing pro- of Public Affairs. More than 2000 letters to Congress were written by attendees at the March meeting. See GUIDELINES on page 2 Co-Author Question Dominates Ethics Panel Discussion Last year’s high-profile cases of tific ethics at the APS March Meet- that dominated the audience con- scientific fraud may have been ing in Austin, Texas. The panelists cerns and subsequent discussion resolved, but the aftershocks are provided a broad overview of the Pierre Hohenberg (Yale Univer- still rippling through the physics various issues involved, but it was sity) distinguished between two community, as became apparent the question of the responsibility types of ethical issues: those re- during a panel discussion on scien- of co-authors in cases of fraud lated to the applications or misuse of science, and those related to the Photo Credit: Eller’s Photography 2003 process of scientific research Prize and Award recipients at the March meeting gather together for a group (scientific misconduct). “Physicists photo with sponsors of two of the awards. They are listed left to right, with an “Left-Handed” Materials Could asterisk denoting the sponsors. Front row: Phaedon Avouris, Ivan Schuller, Jason have led the way in questioning Alicea, Giacinto Scoles, Arthur Ashkin, Andrew Lovinger, Dhiraj Sardar. Back Make Perfect Lenses the ethics of such scientific appli- row: Boris Altshuler, Ruud Tromp, Kennedy Reed, C. Paul Robinson, Kevin cations as nuclear weapons, for Lehmann, Steven White, Russell Donnelly (*), Pierre Hohenberg, George Flynn, The controversy over whether Snell’s law—the index of refraction example,” he said. But most of the Leon Radziemski (*). left-handed materials (LHMs) can of the material is negative. Permit- speakers agreed that in the past, be realized appears to be resolved, tivity (epsilon) is a measure of a the physics community has felt thanks to new experimental results material’s response to an applied overly secure in the fact that, reported by speakers at the APS electric field, while permeability because of its reliance on repro- Physics Hits the Road at March Meeting in Austin, Texas. (mu) is a measure of the material’s ducibility of results, physics would LHMs are defined as materials with response to an applied magnetic remain largely unaffected by the a negative index of refraction. LHMs field. type of blatant misconduct that Colorado Conference bend microwave and light beams the It is rare for a material to have plagued biomedicine in the 1980s By Pamela Zerbinos opposite way to ordinary lenses, and either negative permittivity or nega- and 1990s. because they can, in principle, fo- tive permeability, much less both, Then came allegations that In late February, all roads led hands-on physics experiments to cus light without the need for and until a few years ago, no such Victor Ninov (Lawrence Berkeley to Fort Collins, Colorado, as local communities, neighboring curved surfaces, they have the po- materials were known nor thought National Laboratory) had fabri- around 5,000 members of the states, and even foreign coun- tential of making the “perfect” lens likely to exist. They certainly do not cated data to support the general public and 55 mobile tries. and entirely new classes of elec- occur naturally. But in 1999, John discovery of Element 118. It was physics program coordinators “We don’t do a show,” Jones tronic and optical devices. Pendry of Imperial College showed See ETHICS PANEL on page 3 from 38 institutions descended said. “We want to give folks a In 1968 Victor Veselago of the how negative-epsilon materials on Colorado State University for sense that science is something Lebedev Physics Institute in could be built from rows of wires the Little Shop of Physics open they can do.” Moscow argued that a material with and negative-mu materials from ar- house and the first “Physics on Once a year, the program also both a negative electric permittivity rays of tiny resonant rings. His HHighlights the Road” conference. hosts an open house. The first and magnetic permeability would material consisted of The event began on February year, around 200 people came; result in novel optical phenomena alternating layers of metal rods and 22, with Colorado’s 12th annual this year, more than 5,000 stu- when light passed through it, includ- “C” shaped rings lodged on a hon- Little Shop of Physics open dents, children and parents ing a reverse Doppler shift (wherein eycomb array of printed circuit 8 The Back house. The Little Shop of Physics strolled through two ballrooms the light from a source coming to- boards. Following his prescriptions, Page was started in 1992 by Brian and looked at 150 physics dis- ward you would be reddened and Sheldon Schultz and David Smith Can Title IX Do for Women In Science Jones, who hits the road once a plays that had been set up by the light from a receding source of the University of and Engineering week or so with a troupe of un- Jones and 20 CSU science majors. would be blue-shifted), reverse Cer- California, San Diego, succeeded in What It Has Done for Women In Sports? dergraduate students and takes See COLORADO on page 4 enkov radiation, and an inverse See LENSES on page 5 by Debra R. Rolison 2 May 2003 NEWS This Month in Physics History May 1888: Tesla Patents “Electric Transmission of Power” “DNA has a water layer under prac- behavior of left-handed materials, tically any conditions. We have Dallas Morning News, March 10, 2003 systematically changed the number of ✶✶✶ Electric power is an aspect generators, motors and trans- water layers and shown that the con- “There are media people ‘embed- of modern life that most of us formers, eventually holding ductivity arises from water molecules, ded’ with the teams that are going to take for granted. And while the 40 basic US patents. These not the electrons on the DNA.” do the (weapons of mass destruc- general public associates were bought by George —George Gruner, UCLA, on whether tion) inspection assessment. Any Thomas Edison with its inven- Westinghouse, who was deter- DNA conducts electricity, New good police reporter knows how not tion and the development of mined to supply America with Scientist, March 29, 2003 to be fooled by faked evidence.” transmission processes, the the Tesla system, which even- ✶✶✶ —Jay Davis, Livermore National Labo- methods used today are largely tually won out as the superior “Manned programs are exorbi- ratory (retired), on how credible the evidence due to the efforts of Nikola technology and became the tantly expensive. If we are serious coming out of Iraq will be, San Francisco Tesla. standard power in the 20th about doing science, we cannot spend Chronicle, March 25, 2003 Tesla was born in July 1856 century. bladeless turbine, wireless as much on manned programs.” ✶✶✶ in Smiljan, Lika, a region of After receiving a patent on the communications, wireless trans- —Vernon Ehlers, US Congress (R-MI), “The fact that there appears to Croatia, the son of a Serbian electric transmission of power in mission of electrical energy, and on the space program, New Scientist, be an angular cutoff hints at a spe- Orthodox priest. He studied at May of 1888, Tesla subsequently remote control. Yet even today, March 8, 2003 cial distance scale in the universe.” the Polytechnic Institute in demonstrated alternating current most history books credit ✶✶✶ —Gary Hinshaw, Goddard Space Graaz, Austria, and the Univer- electricity at the World Columbian Guglielmo Marconi with inven- “You’ve got regular stuff doing Flight Center, on whether the universe sity of Prague, initially intending Exposition in Chicago in 1893.