WEBSITE AND PRESSROOM
The April Meeting website is
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/APR06/APS_epitome. Click on
"epitome" to see the meeting program, including abstracts. One can
search by topic, name, or affiliation. Make sure to scroll down; and
you might have to click "enter" twice.
Complimentary press registration will allow science writers to attend all scientific sessions. Public information officers, as usual, are welcome. If you wish to come, please reply to Phil Schewe at pschewe@aip.org.
Here is information relating to the press operations at the meeting:
SOME EXPECTED HIGHLIGHTS AND STORY IDEAS FOR THE MEETING
RADIATION MARKERS
Physicists continue to find creative and useful applications for
naturally and artificially created radiation. Vincente Guiseppe of
the University of Maine will explain how radon-222, a naturally
occurring radioactive gas dissolved in groundwater, can provide
information on groundwater mixing and flow (B8.4). Taking advantage
of the fact that fission energy reactors emit large numbers of
antineutrinos, Nathaniel Bowden of Sandia and his colleagues will
explain how these antiparticles might be useful for measuring the
reactor's power and plutonium inventory through the reactor's fuel
cycle (B8.3).
COSMIC RAYS AND BIODIVERSITY
The fossil record shows that Earth's biodiversity fluctuates on an
approximately 62-million-year cycle. Until now, there has been no
satisfactory explanation for this biodiversity oscillation.
University of Kansas researchers Mikhail Medvedev and Adrian Melott
show that this cycle can be explained by a change in the flux of
cosmic rays reaching Earth as the solar system moves through the
galactic plane. This is due to differences is shielding by galactic
magnetic fields, and to variations in cosmic ray production and
propagation the galactic interstellar medium. Cosmic rays can
influence cloud formation and atmospheric chemistry, and thus affect
climate. In addition, energetic cosmic rays produce showers of
energetic particles that can damage organisms' DNA. Other
astrophysical phenomena, such as Gamma Ray Bursts and supernovae,
also have an effect on biodiversity. In a separate talk Melott will
present some new data quantifying some of these effects. (H7.1 and
H7.4)
PLENARY TALKS
Three slates of plenary presentations will cover a cosmic range of
physics topics: At session A1, what Voyager 1 and 2 are up to at the
edge of the solar system; the study of quark gluon plasma; and
results from the MiniBoone neutrino experiment. At session O1: the
cosmological role of neutrinos; learning about astrophysical plasmas
through experiments on Earth; and the physics, engineering, and
social implications of cochlear implants. At session V1: carbon
nanotubes; the search for gravity waves with LIGO; and physics and
engineering issues for the prospective International Linear
Collider. Although they aren't listed as plenary talks, the
presentations in Session B4, aimed at undergraduate physics majors,
should be just as good. Topics include the search for the Higgs
boson, why the expansion of the universe is accelerating, and how
objects---such as Brazil nuts and M&M's---fit into a vessel.
HIGH-ENERGY MACHINES
Particle physics usually means high-energy physics since discerning
the subtle logic of submicroscopic matter requires beams of high
potency. Highlight sessions include J1, which centers around the
10th anniversary of the top quark discovery, and the latest results
from exclusive home of lab-made top quarks, Fermilab's Tevatron
machine. Session C14 looks at a novel accelerator scheme where
beams of muons (heavy cousins of electrons) would be collided.
Colliding beams of electrons with beams of heavy ions (session J2)
is still another way to probe matter, especially in this case, for
looking at the quark content of protons and the nucleus in general.
The principal accelerators on the horizon are the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC), presently under construction at the CERN lab in
Geneva (H5, L1), where high energy protons will be collided head on,
and the International Linear Collider (ILC), where electrons would
be collided. ILC is not yet approved but seems to be gathering more
support (sessions E1, Q6, and other sessions) among scientists as
the natural complement to LHC.
HOW ROUND IS A PULSAR?
Pulsars---spinning neutron stars that emit radio pulses---are some
of the most spherical objects in the sky. Generally, however,
physicists could only measure the shapes of the stars indirectly, by
watching the rate that a pulsar's rotation slows. Data from LIGO
(Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory), a pair of
enormous gravitational wave detectors in Livingston, Louisiana and
Hanford, Washington, has now placed limits on the shape of pulsars,
including the one at the heart of the Crab nebula, through attempts
to directly detect gravitational waves coming from the stars.
Matthew Pitkin (matthew@astro.gla.ac.uk) of the University of
Glasgow,on behalf of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, will present
the analysis of the most recent and most sensitive LIGO data
collected so far, as well as discussing the limits that the current
and forthcoming LIGO data puts on pulsar shapes (C7.2).
ILLICIT NUCLEARISM
The APS Szilard Prize will be given to Paul Richards (Columbia
University), who will talk about how nuclear detonations can be
discerned from a daily background consisting of 1000 earthquakes and
chemical explosions (S4.2). Another APS honor, the Burton Award,
will be presented to David Albright (Institute for Science and
International Security), who will speak on the topic of Pakistan's
AQ. Khan and the illicit nuclear trade.
SCHOLARS AT RISK
The battle for protecting the human rights of scientists did not end
with the Former Soviet Union--it is still going on today. Session L6 will
explore the need to support and provide safe haven for scholars persecuted
for their speech, ethnicity, gender, or citizenship. Human-rights activist and
Cornell senior scientist Yuri Orlov, who is the first recipient of the APS Sakharov
Prize, was one of the early defenders of Sakharov. Orlov will offer personal
reflections on safe haven for scholars at risk and highlight special issues raised
by the fact that scholars at risk in Russia, he reports, are now mostly scientists
falsely accused of espionage. Hadi Hadizadeh, now at Ohio University, is an Iranian
physicist sentenced to over 8 years of prison for advocating democracy and openness.
Hadizadeh will describe the closed-door trials that he and fellow scholars experienced in Iran,
as well as continuing threats for Iranian scholars and other political activists who have
expressed criticisms of the Tehran government. Another talk will focus on the
Scholars at Risk Network (SRN), an academic coalition now headquartered at New York University.
Robert Quinn of SAR will explain the network's efforts to provide refuge for scientists persecuted in
their home countries.
ASTROPHYSICS IN THE LABORATORY
Plasma physicists have produced in a laboratory some of the extreme
conditions and fascinating phenomena observed in the sun and in
space. Plasmas and magnetic fields in space often form loops, which
merge, twist and reconnect, releasing energy and jets of particles.
This magnetic reconnection is believed to underlie many solar
phenomena, but scientists don't have a complete understanding of how
it works, and the details can be hard to study in space. In an
experiment at Swarthmore College, Michael Brown
(doc@swarthmore.edu), along with a group of undergraduate
researchers, generates and merges loops of extremely hot gas
suspended on magnetic fields. These loops have many properties of
the much larger loops observed on the surface of the sun, including
temperatures up to 1 million degrees, strong magnetic fields, and
high velocities. Brown and colleagues have used hundreds of tiny
magnetic detectors to map out the entire complex 3-dimensional
structure of loops in the process of intertwining and reconnecting.
Brown will compare this structure, which had never been mapped out
before, to similar structures in reconnecting magnetic fields in the
magnetosphere. In their newest measurement, the Swarthmore
researchers used Doppler spectroscopy to measure high-velocity
(40km/s), bi-directional jets coming out of a reconnection event.
Interestingly, the researchers say, this same technique has been
applied to the surface of the sun by the SOHO satellite, which has
observed a similar bi-directional flow both towards the earth and
down towards the solar surface. Brown will report on his
observations and compare them to observations in a solar context
(L16.4). In another talk, Hantao Ji of the Princeton Plasma Physics
Lab will describe new advances he has made in understanding fast
magnetic reconnection in a laboratory plasma. (E3.2)
ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE
Beyond reducing the burning of fossil fuels, many things can be done
to lower energy consumption and mitigate CO2 emissions. Arthur
Rosenfeld, eminent physicist, energy-efficiency researcher since the
early days (1970s), and a member of the California Energy
Commission, will show how principles of building design, especially
of roofs, can reduce energy consumption (see
www.ucop.edu/facil/greenbldgs/documents/rosenfeld.pdf). Another
speaker at session W5, Danny Day (Eprida), will discuss two
large-scale "negative emissions" processes for lowering
anthropogenic CO2. These two carbon sequestration approaches are
the agricultural (production of biofuels) and the geological
(underground storage).
WHY ARISTOTLE TOOK SO LONG TO DIE
Aristotle's view of physics and cosmology reigned for many centuries
as the definitive model of physical reality among the philosophical
thinkers of Islam and Christendom, even after Copernicus and Galileo
came on the scene. Dennis Danielson (Univ. of British Columbia)
considers why this was and suggests how, by attempting to see things
from Aristotle's point of view, we might be better able to "avoid
getting stuck in our own orthodoxies" when it comes to untangling
nature's mysteries. (B5.1)
FUNDING RESEARCH IN POOR COUNTRIES
International scientific collaboration and research programs have a
largely unrealized potential to promote innovation and economic
development in poor countries. But as session C4 will show,
governmental (eg, the National Science Foundation or the Humboldt
Foundation) and public/private programs (eg, the US Civilian
Research and Development Foundation) are reaching out to a wider
range of nations and world regions than before. At the session,
Arden Bement, director of the National Science Foundation, will talk
about NSF's international outreach through a variety of initiatives
in Africa (e.g., the Materials Science Network) and elsewhere. At
session E4, officials from UNESCO, the World Bank, and NSF's
International Science and Engineering Division will discuss
burgeoning efforts to develop science, technology, and education
programs for reducing poverty in developing nations. Reza Mansouri,
former deputy minister for research in the Iranian government and
now a visiting professor at McGill, will explain how excellence in
science can accelerate the process of democracy.
PARITY VIOLATION: 50TH ANNIVERSARY
The discovery that nature can tell the difference between left and
right---in other words, the finding that parity is not conserved in
weak-nuclear interactions---had a big impact on physics in the
1950s. Sessions E5 and P10 recount how this happened. Two of the
speakers are C. N. Yang (SUNY-Stony Brook, Emeritus) and T.D. Lee
(Columbia), who won Nobel prizes for their efforts in this
discovery. Another is Leon Lederman (former director of Fermilab),
who will describe a hectic experiment of his performed over a
frantic 36-hour period.
CLICKERS IN THE CLASSROOM
Numerous sessions at the meeting feature research aimed at improving
science education. In paper S10.5, Brian Pyper of Brigham Young
University will describe classroom experiments with "clickers,"
modern personal-response systems that students can use during
lectures to answer questions and provide feedback. Following up on
a June 2005 study showing benefits of using the clickers (Reay et
al., American Journal of Physics, June 2005), Pyper reports that
subsequent, more in-depth experiments with the clickers have
indicated interesting information about how students are able to
gauge their own learning, and have revealed different approaches to
physics material by gender. (S10.5)
COUNTER-TERRORISM
Much of the technology in place and under development to keep us
safe from terrorism here at home and weapons proliferation around
the globe is based on fundamental physics principles. Detectors that
alert us to radioactive materials, biological threats, chemical
weapons, and explosives are all adapted from tools developed
primarily to aid in physics research. Methods for detecting the
shocks that accompany weapons tests and satellite-based monitoring
systems also began as research tools. Edward Hartouni
(hartouni1@llnl.gov) of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
will describe how some detection systems may violate personal
liberties, offend cultural sensibilities, or simply fail to
specifically identify threats. He will also discuss ways that
detection schemes could be made more effective for ensuring national
and international security (C10.3).
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 21 Feb 2009
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