November 2006 Volume 15, No. 10 APS NEWS www.aps.org/apsnews Highlights The Physics of Global Terrorism A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY • WWW.APS.ORG/APSNEWS Page 8 APS Task Force Recommends Ways APS Interviews Apker Finalists to Better Serve Industrial Members The APS Apker Award is given The APS can and should do Nowadays, many industrial annually for outstanding research more to serve the needs of its physicists work in small compa- by an undergraduate. Finalists are chosen in two categories: from insti- industrial members, according to nies, rather than the giant basic tutions that award PhD degrees, a task force on industrial physics research labs of the past, such as and from institutions not awarding that submitted its report to the Bell Labs, GE, IBM, Dupont, and the PhD. The finalists meet with Executive Board in September. Xerox. Today’s industrial physi- the selection committee for a day The task force was formed to cists work on projects that are more of interviews, which this year took assess the situation of APS activ- applied, closer to project develop- place on September 11 at SLAC. ities for industrial physicists and ment. There are still physicists in The committee then recommends make recommendations of how large firms, but the nature of their recipients in each of the two cate- APS can better serve this segment work has changed, said task force gories to the APS Executive Board. of the membership. chair Charles Duke. “The global Shown here are six of the seven About 20% of regular APS economy has changed the game. finalists. They are (l to r): Hugh Photo Credit: Diana Rogers, SLAC members are industrial physicists. Industrial physics is a whole lot Churchill (Oberlin), Matthew Pellicione (RPI), Inna Vishik (Stanford), Benjamin Heidenreich (Amherst), Over the past 20 years, this propor- more important,” said Duke. Huanqian Loh (MIT), and Timothy Cronin (Swarthmore). The seventh finalist, Stephanie Moyerman of tion has been falling, even as the Increasingly, support of physics Harvey Mudd, was in Europe on a fellowship, and was prevented from returning to the US by the con- ditions of the grant. The committee conducted her interview via teleconference from London. The recip- percentage of physics PhDs research and development is moti- ients of the 2006 Apker Award will be reported in the next issue of APS News. employed by industry has been vated primarily by economic increasing. In the 1990s, 56% of impact. “In the era of the global physics PhDs worked in industry, economy, if physics as a profession April Plenary Speakers Set up from 36% in the 1950s. wants more investment, it has to As APS News goes to press, eight Gerald Gabrielse, Harvard, “String Theory, Branes, and, if you “At a time when the importance deliver economic prosperity, and of the nine plenary lectures at the “New Measurement of the Electron wish, the Anthropic Principle” of physics to the nation is increas- the people who do that are indus- APS April meeting in Jacksonville, Magnetic Moment and the Fine David Spergel, Princeton, ingly felt via its contributions to trial physicists. Industrial physics April 14-17, 2007, have been Structure Constant” “Cosmology After WMAP” economic growth and prosperity, is very important for the health of confirmed.The slate features many James E. Hansen, NASA, “The Steven Vigdor, Indiana,“New the role of the physicists who make physics in general, and physics distinguished speakers on a broad Threat to the Planet: Actions Needed Results from RHIC on the Spin these contributions in the APS has societies,” said Duke. range of topics. They are: to Avert Dangerous Climate Change” Structure of the Proton” declined to the point of being “It’s a very different world,” Steven Chu, LBL, “The Energy Jacqueline Hewitt, MIT, “The Meeting attendees will be able to almost invisible in the major APS said APS Executive Officer Judy Problem: What Can Physicists Do?” 21cm Background: A Probe of register online at http://www.aps.org activities,” the report says in its Franz. It is important for APS to Francis Everitt, Stanford, “First Reionization and the Dark Ages” /meet/APR07/ starting in early introduction. See TASK FORCE on page 5 Results from Gravity Probe B” Shamit Kachru, Stanford, November. Fellowship Nominations Go Electronic New Website Targets a Broader Audience Starting this year, any APS mem- 2008 deadlines, however, all the which every member is entitled. ber wishing to nominate a colleague paper should have been flushed out Those who have already set up their The address will be the same, but dents and educators, librarians, and for Fellowship will do so using the of the system. the look and feel will be very dif- the public (“physics enthusiasts”). userID and password but may have web. The previous system of down- As the system has worked up to ferent. This month APS unveils its The new website will emphasize forgotten them, can call or email loading, filling out and mailing in a now, sponsors had to mail in their new and improved website at the programs and resources APS Shelly Johnston at 301-209-3268, paper form has been discontinued. nominations, which were then logged www.aps.org. offers for these groups, while still [email protected] . Sponsors with- While most of the current con- catering to the needs of the primary The web-based form allows the into the system manually. Multiple out passwords can obtain them from tent will still be available on the new audience, APS members. The new sponsor to enter all the candidate's copies of each nomination had to be a link located on the Fellowship log- information, to upload support let- made, and then packages of nomi- site, it is intended to be better organ- site will also highlight other APS in page. ters, and to designate a co-sponsor nations had to be sent to the relevant ized, more attractive, easier to nav- websites, including the APS jour- “We have tried to eliminate all the (Fellowship nominations require two units’ Fellowship committees. With igate, and more useful to a wider nals, PhysicsCentral, and Physical bugs,” says Alan Chodos, APS audience. Review Focus. “This will raise APS members as sponsors). about 400 nominations received each Because Fellowship nominations year, a large expenditure of time and Associate Executive Officer, “but This is the first major redesign awareness of the whole family of undoubtedly some will remain. We since the APS site was launched in APS websites,” said webmaster are active for two years, the 2007 money has been involved. hope our members will be under- 1995. In 2005, the APS Executive Sara Conners. process will be a hybrid one, in which The web-based nomination sys- standing as we work to fix any resid- Board decided to update the site, in Content is organized to make the nominations submitted before tem is available at URL http://fellow- ual problems.” Sponsors who have order to better highlight APS pro- things easier to find. The site has the 2006 deadlines will still be in ship.aps.org. Since only APS mem- grams and services, especially those been designed with “user-centered paper, while the nominations that bers can sponsor Fellowship nomi- trouble in submitting their nomina- for groups other than APS mem- principles,” said Conners. arrive after the 2006 deadline will do nations, access to the form requires tions should contact Shelly Johnston bers, including policy makers, stu- WEBSITE continued on page 7 so electronically. By the time of the an APS userID and password, to as above. Mather, Smoot Share 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics APS fellow John C. Mather on the Cosmic Background universe, it was (NASA Goddard Space Flight Explorer (COBE) project. This unclear why the Center) shared the 2006 Nobel orbiting spacecraft was the first to universe con- Prize in physics with detect faint temperature tained stars and George Smoot variations in the cosmic galaxies rather (Lawrence Berkeley microwave back- than an evenly John C. Mather National ground (CMB) radi- distributed dust Laboratory) for ation–the faint cloud. Theorists “their discovery of microwave signals had predicted that the blackbody from space that are a sensitive meas- form and remnants of the Big urement of anisotropy of the Bang. The CMB was microwaves from Photo credit: Sara Conners cosmic microwave first observed experi- the sky would George Smoot APS web content coordinator Kelly Osborn contemplates all the hard work background radiation.” mentally in the 1960s by reveal minute by many people that made possible the transition from the old APS web site Mather and Smoot will split a 10M Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at temperature fluctuations, which rep- (left screen) to the new (right screen). After the launch of the new site, she Swedish Kroner (~$1.4M) prize. Bell Labs, for which they later resent variations in the density of will work with APS IT staff to keep it running, to update the content, and to The Nobel Prize Committee received the Nobel Prize. matter in the early universe. It was implement improvements as needed. cited the physicists for their work Prior to the COBE map of the MATHER, SMOOT continued on page 5 2 November • 2006 APS NEWS Members in the Media This Month in Physics History “The only way for someone to “Everyone knows what an icicle is kill string theory will be to come up and what it looks like, so this research November, 1783: Intrepid physicist first to fly with a better one.” is very accessible. I think it is amaz- Sean Carroll, Caltech, USA ing that science and math can explain n November 21, 1783, physicist Jean Francois cinated Parisians.