December 2007 Volume 16, No. 11 www.aps.org/publications/apsnews Physicist is New York Times APS NEWS War Correspondent A PublicAtion of the AmericAn PhysicAl society • www.APs.org/PublicAtions/APsnews see page 5 Fellows by the Bay The Big Easy Hosts 2008 March Meeting The 2008 APS March Meet- ics sing-along, and a High Conditional Quantum Evolu- ing will be held March 10-14 School Teachers’ Day on Tues- tion; and Ethics Education. in New Orleans, Louisiana. It day, March 11, which will be The 5th APS Workshop on is the largest annual gathering held at LIGO-Livingston. Opportunities in Biological of professional physicists in In addition to the regular Physics, organized by the Di- the country. The scientific vision of Biological Phys- program will feature more ics, will be held on Sunday, than 90 invited sessions March 9. and 550 contributed ses- On Saturday, March 8 sions, at which approxi- and Sunday, March 9, the mately 7000 papers will Division of Polymer Phys- be presented, covering ics will host a special short the latest research in areas course: High-throughput represented by the APS Approaches to Polymer divisions of condensed Physics and Materials Sci- matter physics, materials ence. Photo by Darlene logan physics, polymer phys- New Orleans is an excit- APs fellows (l to r) Janice button-shafer (berkeley), george trilling (berkeley), ics, chemical physics, ing city, and has achieved and Elliott Bloom (SLAC) enjoy the Bay Area Fellows reception that APS hosted biological physics, fluid significant recovery from at the berkeley faculty club on october 16. frances hellman, chair of the uc dynamics, laser science, hurricane Katrina. The berkeley Physics Department, served as the local host. APs President-elect computational physics, French Quarter is thriving Arthur bienenstock of stanford chaired the program, which featured remarks by APs executive officer Judy franz, Director of education and Diversity ted and atomic, molecular and the many fine restau- hodapp, and Director of Public Affairs michael lubell. in addition, as the picture and optical physics. rants and shops are within indicates, there was plenty of time for the Fellows to enjoy the refreshments and Also taking part will be walking distance of most each other’s company. the APS topical groups on of the conference hotels. Instrument and Measure- The headquarters hotel is April Meeting Plenary Speakers Set ment Science, Magne- the New Orleans Marriott Eight of the nine plenary lec- University of Tennessee, “Science tism and its Applications, on Canal Street, just steps tures at the APS April Meeting in of Rare Isotopes: Connecting Nu- Shock Compression of away from the French St. Louis, Missouri, April 12-15, clei with the Universe” Condensed Matter, Sta- Quarter. A guide to attrac- 2008, have been confirmed. The Michael Peskin, SLAC, “Dark tistical and Nonlinear Physics, technical program, there will tions in New Orleans, compiled slate features many distinguished Matter in the Cosmos and in the and Quantum Information, as be eight half-day tutorials of- for APS by Jim McGuire, chair speakers on a broad range of top- Laboratory” well as the forums on Industrial fered on Sunday, March 9.The of the physics department at ics. They are: Michael Kramer, University and Applied Physics, Physics tutorial topics are: Basics of Tulane University, is available Bruce Remington LLNL, of Manchester, “The Double Pul- and Society, History of Phys- Density Functional Theory, online at the meeting website. “Probing Matter at the Extremes: sar: A Unique Gravity Lab” ics, International Physics, Edu- Static and Time-Dependent; This year small child care New Frontiers in High Energy Sara Seager, MIT, “Exoplan- cation, and Graduate Student Spintronics; Fundamentals of grants of $200 will be avail- Density Physics” ets: Interiors, Atmospheres, and the Affairs. Quantum Entanglement; Neu- able to assist meeting attendees Roger Blandford, Stanford, Search for Habitable Worlds” Special scheduled events tron and Synchrotron Scatter- bringing small children. The “Recent Developments in Plasma Robert Cahn, LBNL, “New include the annual prize and ing in Novel Materials; Will application form is available Astrophysics” Paths to Fundamental Physical award presentation, a one-day Carbon Replace Silicon? The on the meeting website. A par- Paul Chu, University of Hous- Law.” workshop on energy research Future of Graphitic Electronics; ent-child quiet room will also ton, “High Temperature Supercon- Information and registration for graduate students and post- Nanomagnetism: Manufacture, be available. ductivity 20 Years Later: Achieve- for the April Meeting is online at docs, a panel discussion with Physics, Devices, and Model- More info about the meet- ments, Promises and Challenges” http://www.aps.org/meetings/april/ APS journal editors, a students ing; Quantum Noise, Quantum ing: http://www.aps.org/meet- Witek Nazarewicz, ORNL/ index.cfm. lunch with the experts, a phys- Limited Measurements, and ings/march/index.cfm New Insights Into QGPs and Supernovae Highlight 2007 DNP Meeting Apker Recipients Study Galaxy Clusters, Nuclear physicists from around attempting to pass through it–both the world converged on Newport properties that standard QCD calcu- Entangled Photons News Virginia for the annual fall lations have not been able to explain meeting of the APS Division of satisfactorily. The LeRoy Apker Award is research on the dynamics of gal- The recipient in the non- Nuclear Physics (DNP), held Octo- To help resolve this issue, theo- given for outstanding research axy clusters in the Sloan Digital PhD category is Bryce Gadway ber 11-13. Among the highlights of retical physicists are turning to string accomplishments in physics by Sky Survey. He is currently a of Colgate University. In his the technical program were talks on theory (particularly the gauge-string an undergradu- senior-year research, the latest news from the Relativistic duality), which has revealed a deep ate. Two catego- conducted under the Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), new in- connection between quantum gravity ries are recog- supervision of Kiko sights into nucleosynthesis gleaned and gauge theories similar to QCD, nized, one for an Galvez, he created from observations of metal-poor according to MIT’s Hong Liu. Along undergraduate at an ensemble of single stars, and the latest research on quark with several other speakers, he dis- an institution that photons entangled in gluon plasmas, including potential cussed examples where string theory grants the PhD, their polarization and insights to be gleaned from string techniques have been used to shed and the other for direction of momen- theory. light on existing data from RHIC, an undergradu- tum, and used them to Odd Coupling. Collisions and to make at least one prediction ate at an institu- test theories of nature of high-energy gold nuclei at that can be experimentally tested in tion that does not based on non-con- Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy the near future. grant the PhD. textual realism. The Ion Collider (RHIC) create explod- Princeton University’s Steven This year’s re- experimental results Photo by Shelly Johnston ing droplets of quark-gluon plasma Gubser has been finding interest- cipient in the ruled out realism or bryce gadway Matthew Becker (QGP), the stuff that filled the uni- ing comparisons between QCD and PhD category is non-contextuality, or verse microseconds after the Big string theory computations regard- Matthew Becker both. Gadway is now a Bang. However, the QGP turns out ing thermalization time, energy loss of the University of Michigan. graduate student at the University graduate student at Stony Brook to be close to an ideal liquid, and by heavy quarks, and the formation Working under Timothy McKay, of Chicago, pursuing his PhD in University, pursuing a PhD in also attenuates high-energy quarks DNP MEETING continued on page 7 he conducted his senior thesis astrophysics and cosmology. physics. 2 • December 2007 APS NEWS Members in the Media This Month in Physics History December 1938: Discovery of Nuclear Fission “The award reminds us that Ashok Gadgil, Lawrence expert advice can influence Berkeley National Laborato- n December 1938, over Christmas vacation, with neutrons, found what appeared to be isotopes people and policy, that some- ry, on a plan in which wealthy Iphysicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch made a of barium among the decay products. They couldn’t times governments do listen to countries pay for clean energy startling discovery that would immediately revo- explain it, since it was thought that a tiny neutron reason and that the idea that rea- for poor countries in exchange lutionize nuclear physics and lead to the atomic couldn’t possibly cause the nucleus to crack in two son can guide human action is for carbon credits, Providence bomb. Trying to explain a puzzling finding made to produce much lighter elements. Hahn sent a let- very much alive, if not yet fully Journal, October 22, 2007 by nuclear chemist Otto Hahn in Berlin, Meitner ter to Meitner describing the puzzling finding. realized.” and Frisch realized that something previously Over the Christmas holiday, Meitner had a visit Michael Oppenheimer, Princ- “There’s a two-thirds chance thought impossible was actually happening: that a from her nephew, Otto Frisch, a physicist who eton University, on the Nobel there will be a disaster, and uranium nucleus had split in two. worked in Copenhagen at Niels Bohr’s institute. Lise Meitner was born in Vienna in 1878. She Mietner shared Hahn’s letter with Frisch. They peace prize, The New York that’s in the best scenario.” grew up in an intellectual family, and studied phys- knew that Hahn was a good chemist and had not Times, October 13, 2007 Steve Chu, Lawrence Berke- ics at the University of Vienna, receiving a doctor- made a mistake, but the results didn’t make sense. ley National Laboratory, on “It’s a sad thing to turn a sat- ate in 1906.