Happy New Year

Happy New Year, everyone! May it be a glorious one.

As for physics in the US, the first half or 2/3 will be brutal with the continuing resolution with the budget. I may not even make it to the Particle Accelerator Conference this year because we're trying to save money. We shall see....

Zz.

So You Want To Be A Physicist

If you came here from the PhysicsForums website, you would probably have come across the series of essays that I wrote on this topic. If not, then this will be new to you.

I started writing, in installments, a series of essays on my take of the process one goes through in being a physicist. It started out of the discussion I had with members of our #physics channel on the Undernet IRC server. I then realized that were many issues that most undergraduates and graduate students do not know but should know that are not available in their school brochures and program bulletin. There were also many misconception on not only the profession, but also the process.

So I decided to write what I know of the process in becoming a physicist. The original essays were started on the Undernetphysics Yahoo group. Within a few chapters of the essay, I started getting feedbacks from several people that these were becoming something of value, even though my production rate on these essays was rather slow.

Since then, I have also posted a copy of the essay on the PhysicsForums, and have gotten quite a response there. Other than a copy of a few earlier chapters of the essay posted on PhysicsPost, the thread on the PhysicsForums and the Undernetphysics Yahoo group are the only two places that you can read the complete version of the essays so far.

The series is still ongoing, although the ending could be in sight. I am hoping that, once it is finished, I will re-edit the series (correcting spelling and grammatical errors) and find some place to host the complete essay.

Zz.

Top 10 Stories

Nature has picked it's Top 10 science stories of 2006. Unlike Science journal, there are several physics-related stories and news reports. Check out several of the links on that page. Note that many of them require a subscription or site-wide subscription access.

Zz.

A Physics Lesson

This is pretty elementary for anyone who has taken intro physics, but it still drives the point (no pun intended) on what happens when simply basic physics is ignored - you get car crashes when the roads are wet.

Zz.

As reported here earlier, Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman is leaving Colorado University for University of British Columbia. This news report provides a brief interview of Wieman's reason for leaving Colorado. If I were CU's administrator, I'd would be truly unhappy with the state of my university for a Nobel Laureate to leave under such circumstances. It is a devastating public relations image.

Zz.

Breakthrough of the Year

Science journal editors have compiled and named the breakthrough of the year, and the other 9 runner-ups. The breakthrough of 2006 is the proof of the Poincare Conjecture.

None of the runner-ups are in physics, unfortunately, even though the area of "optical lattice" is an area to watch in 2007.

Zz.

Leading an Underground Laboratory

Stony Brook University is hoping to win the project to build and manage a new underground laboratory in the US. This is the one area that the US is really behind when compared to Europe and Japan.

With the current budget continuing resolution, though, I don't know how realistic it is to expect a decision by Spring 2007 regarding any funding for such a huge project.

Zz.

The Physics of Santa

More on how the jolly bearded man and his reindeer will manage to complete their task tonight.

To everyone who celebrates this time of the year, Season Greetings and a very safe Holidays!

Zz.

Landmark Physical Review Paper - NMR

During this slow physics news period of the holidays, I'll try to highlight some of the webpages that you may have missed. It'll give you some interesting and informative stuff that you might want to read.

This is is part of the APS website series on landmark Physical Review papers. This time, it traces the publication of important work in the discovery and development in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), the father of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) used in the medical field.

Zz.

Monthly Highlights of the Year

PhysicsWeb has listed the highlights of each month for the Year 2006. There are quite a number of significant discoveries and observations here.

Zz.

Last Working Day

Today is the last working day here at the lab. Things are winding down, we're making sure everything that can be shut down gets shut down. Our Division's holiday party will be this evening before everyone leaves for the holidays, so that should be fun, although I think quite a few have left already by looking at the number of vehicles in the parking lot.

It has been a good year, even with our severe budget constraints. Our annual review in March went well (they STILL can't believe we can do that much with so little and so few personnel), the AAC06 workshop we ran in the summer went extremely well, and the results we have from our high-gradient dielectric tube structure got enough heads turning that we received an invited talk to the upcoming PAC next year. So all in all, a very productive year.

The coming year will be a tough one. The continuing budget resolution to stick to the budget for Fiscal Year 2006 will severely affect our program. Our plan on building a second accelerator beamline may be hampered by this, which would mean that our ability to clearly demonstrate that we have achieved the accelerating gradient that we claim will be limited. I think everyone here at the lab is just trying to just stay above water for the next year and hope to come out unscathed by the time Congress gets their act together and do something productive. It does however means that in the meantime, a lot of projects that have been previously approved, would be at a stand-still without the approved funds.

2007 is going to be an adventure.

Zz.

Neutron Radiative Decay Has Been Observed

As published in Nature this week, the first ever observation of a neutron radiative decay has been accomplished[1]. This decay is different from your typical, more familiar neutron beta decay, where a neutron decays into a proton, electron, and an electron antineutrino. In a neutron radiative decay, which occurs in free neutrons, you get the same 3 products PLUS the emission of a photon. This is one particular channel of decay that has been predicted by QED but never observed till now.

Looks like another triumph for QED.

Zz.

[1] J.S. Nico, J. S. et al., Nature v.444, p.1059 (2006).

Edit: News coverage here.

How Does Santa Delivers All Those Gifts In One Night?

Such question comes up every year around this time. Of course, kids have their own explanation on how Santa does it, but so do scientists! In this article, you get the kids' explanations, and also a like to Fermilab where the scientists there have made an estimate on how fast Santa has to move to deliver all those gifts.

However, I think they forgot to factor in extra time for Santa to snack on the cookies and milk.

:)

Zz.

Einstein and Superconductivity

While Einstein is more well-known for his work in Relativity, Photoelectric Effect, attempts at a Unified Field Theory, it is less well-known that at some point, he dabbled in the theoretical aspect of Superconductivity. This preprint gives an overview of Einstein's role, and his thoughts, on the phenomenon.

It is interesting to note that superconductivity is the clearest manifestation of quantum pheonomenon at the macroscopic scale. According to Carver Mead[1]:

Although superconductivity was discovered in 1911, the recognition that superconductors manifest quantum phenomena on a macroscopic scale (4) came too late to play a role in the formulation of quantum mechanics. Through modern experimental methods, however, superconducting structures give us direct access to the quantum nature of matter. The superconducting state is a coherent state formed by the collective interaction of a large fraction of the free electrons in a material. Its properties are dominated by known and controllable interactions within the collective ensemble. The dominant interaction is collective because the properties of each electron depend on the state of the entire ensemble, and it is electromagnetic because it couples to the charges of the electrons. Nowhere in natural phenomena do the basic laws of physics manifest themselves with more crystalline clarity.

Zz.

[1] C.A. Mead, PNAS v.94, p.6013 (1997); or you may be able to access it here.

The Physics of a Golf Swing

I'm sure there are golfers who read this blog. If you are one of them, then this page might be of interest to you, not that it might help since you still need to have the skill to be able to execute the technique.

Zz.

All-Science Auction Sells Modestly

London's Christie first All-Science auction sold modestly. Manuscripts by Einstein and Darwin fetched the big bucks, but a historically-significant box of light bulbs by Edison did not fetch the reserved price.

Zz.

Scientists Search for Own Errors

This is a very good article to read, especially if you are not familiar with how science is done.

The thing that I find ironic is that, for those of us who are in science, and physics in particular, we deal with things that often have degree of certainty significantly higher than, let's say, various ideas and "principles" in social sciences such as politics, economics, etc. Yet, we care a lot more in terms of errors and ambiguities in what we do, while in politics, you very seldom see anything resembling something similar. What you do see are definite statements about something, where people seem to have no qualm to attribute the cause-and-effect with utmost certainty.

I've always said that a science education, and certainly a physics education, is valuable not simply to learn the subject matter, but to learn the process on how we arrive at a conclusion and to what extent is the conclusion valid. Most people seem to not be aware of any kind of "degree of certainty" in the things they hear and accept. Evolution isn't 100% proven? Of course! But it has a higher degree of certainty than MANY other things that one readily accepts! Furthermore, scientific ideas and principle are NEVER proven, unlike mathematics. They only have degree of certainty. The degree of certainty of Newton's Law is so high, we use it to build houses and buildings in which depend our lives on. But is Newton's Law "proven" to be 100% correct? Nope! There is no such thing as 100% correct in physics.

Yet, we see politicians, social scientists, and economists routinely proclaim many of their ideas to be 100% correct. The fallacy perpetuates.....

Zz.

What Would Einstein Tell Us If He Were Still Alive?

This is a rather interesting review of a new book that I hadn't hear about before. It is titled "Please, Mr. Einstein". It has an interesting premise of having Einstein being still alive in this day and age.

Has anyone read this book yet? I would be intersted in hearing another review of it. It certainly sounds like it might be a material for a movie.

Zz.

Physicists Set Record For Network Data Transfer

The recent Supercomputing 2006 Bandwidth Challenge set a record for sustained data transfer. This is in anticipation of the huge amount of data that will be coming out of the LHC once it is operational. Such huge data will also be distributed to many parts of the world and certainly presents a significant computing and network challenge.

I think a lot of people do not realize how much of the technological advancement in computing/networking, especially high-speed networking, have been driven by the needs that came out of physics. Forget about the invention of the World Wide Web at CERN (which many people still don't realize). The need to handle such large amount of data, and to be able to transfer it efficiently to all over the world, have driven many improvement and advances in computing that are now being used in places such as stock exchanges.

There are many things that people see as a direct outcome of scientific research, but there are also many things they take for granted that they do not realize that also came as the byproduct of scientific research. This is one such example.

Zz.

A Looming Crisis in US Science Funding

There is a crisis brewing in the US Science funding. As reported in Science, the present Congress that will be controlled by the Democrat for the upcoming year, has decided to adjourn session without passing a budget for the fiscal year 2007. A continuing resolution has been adopted, and possibly extended till the end of fiscal year 2007. This means that (i) current spending levels will be maintained till end of September and (ii) funds that have been approved as part of the fiscal year 2007 budget would not be approved and available.

This would be disasterious for many scientific projects that are continuing or scheduled to be started in this fiscal year. Already, facilities such as RHIC at Brookhaven, and JLab are looking at not only cutbacks, but also a possible shut down! Maybe other scientific projects are also in limbo because they simply do not have the money to start.

You may read more of the Science report here, but the full article is accessible only via subscription. If you are a US citizen, and if this is something you care about, I urge you to write to your respresentatives and ask them to not take the easy way out and sweep everything under the carpet. The "laziness" at coming up with an appropriate budget and approving the money that have already been allocated will severely affect several important projects. It will take an even MORE money to bring these projects back up to speed later on, so it makes no sense to criple them now.

Oh, what am I saying? Since when do things have to make sense in politics?

Zz.