Outlook for US DOE Budget for FY2008

Robin Staffin, who is the DOE Associate Director of Science for High Energy Physics, presented the outlook of funding for the High Energy Physics program in FY2008. The viewgraphs that were used for that presentation to the HEPAP committee can be found here.

It seems that the funding for HEP isn't spectacular. In fact, it sounds more like trying to just survive until some more definite decision on the ILC (International Linear Collider) is made.

Zz.

Laws of Physics a Kid Can Understand

This is slight different. A series of physics projects and demonstrations is done to illustrate the laws of physics, but with a very sobering implications. Such demonstratons is tied to what would happen in a vehicle collisions, especially when the passengers do not wear seatbelts, and other "moving" activites.

Lessons include "Busting Brains," "Another Day in the Frontal Lobe" and "Stop in the Name of Friction." Students drop tofu and raw eggs -- representing the brain and the skull -- from desktops and ladders to learn about inertia, gravity and Newton's Third Law of Motion -- or specifically what happens when they fly off their skateboards, tumble down a hill on skis and flip off their bicycles without a helmet.

This is certainly where you can kill 2 birds with one stone. Let the kids see how physics applies and the serious implications when one isn't prepared for it.

Zz.

Pentaquark or No Pentaquark?

If you have missed the sage of this "non-discovery", you might want to get up to speed here.

About a couple of years ago, I attended a seminar by Curtis Meyer of Carnegie-Mellon. He presented almost all of the experimental work done on the search, discovery, non-discovery of the pentaquark. I think this talk was the most extensive search of all the experimental evidence ever presented at one place that I have ever attended.

Just based on the experimental evidence alone, when they are put side by side, it is very difficult to be convinced that the pentaquark was actually discovered. Almost without fail, the experiments that did NOT observe the pentaquark have higher statistics, better resolutions, more model-independent analysis, and are able to detect known decay channels that were missing in many of the experiments that claim to detect the pentaquark.

Luckily, I found the the viewgraphs that were used in his talk yesterday. I think this is roughly what was used - I don't remember all of them, but I do remember the salient viewgraphs in this similar talk that probably was given at U. of Miami. Have a look at the collection of expt. data and see if you draw the same conclusion.

Still, it is interesting to note that there have been not a whole lot of new reports since then to support the existence of the pentaquark. So the previously-reported results are seriously in doubt right now.

Zz.

An Interview With Dean Kamen

This is a short interview with Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway (that I had the pleasure to be on for more than 2 hours at Epcot last Sept) and the insulin pump. I like it where he stated the obvious that most quacks just do not get:

If we come up with a great idea but it violates the laws of physics, (it won’t work).

That's a rather good rule to live by.

:)

Zz.

Study Physics to Become a ..... CEO?

OK, so this isn't really something that happens all the time. Still, along with being a politician, it is good to know that someone with a physics background can actually climb the corporate ladder and become the CEO of a major corporation. This is just exactly what Ralph Izzo has done by becoming chairman and chief executive officer of Public Service Enterprise Group.

See kids? Get your physics Ph.D, and throw in an MBA degree, and the sky is the limit!

:)

Zz.

Psychics 'Hired to Find Bin Laden'

Oy vey!

Thanks to Bob Park's What's New for pointing this out. It is reported in the Daily Mail that the British Ministry of Defense tried to hire psychics back in 2002 to find Osama Bin Laden. When the "established" psychics refused to participate (I wonder why...), they hired a bunch of "amateurs" instead!

I mean, you can't make up these things, folks! Just the thought that these people (and let's not forget that the US military has also funded many other dubious pseudosciences like this) have the responsibility to defend us and our well-being, doesn't that make you sleep peacefully at night?

:)

Zz.

The Nature of Time Symposium

Austin College, TX, is hosting a symposium on the nature of time. A list of speakers consisting of physicists and philosophers will be discussing about the nature of time, and if time is nothing more than an illusion or a human invention.

Maybe I'm just not smart enough, or I'm too simplistic in my view, or maybe I'm just a too-pragmatic experimentalist, but I really am puzzled with the constant issue on why time could be not real, or an "illusion". Whenever someone tells me this thing, my question back at him/her has always been "OK, show me how you could describe the complete dynamics of a system without using time". Of course, he/she can't, and it is impossible to do that with the physics that we have right now. So already, time is an essential ingredients in describing our world. Is this the property of something that isn't "real" or an "illusion"? Do you use an illusion as a NECESSARY INGREDIENT in describing ALL of the physical phenomena? I don't think so.

But here's another common argument being put forth : time is relative and isn't absolute, via Special Relativity. My response would be, so is LENGTH, which means that space (which is highly "attached" to time in Special Relativity) is also relative and can change. So how come no one is having a symposium to discuss that space is "not real" and is an "illusion"? Why pick on poor old time only? [pun indented.]

Of course, the experimentalist side of me would say that, unless they have something substantial that we can test, such an exercise is nothing more than (oh, you've gotta see this one coming from a mile away) a waste of time!

:)

Zz.

Physics Teacher Knows How to Get His Students' Attention

Here is another report of a physics teacher that is making a tremendous difference. Mr. Robert Miller teachers physics at the Ottawa's Mother Teresa High School.

Students say Mr. Miller deserves the award. “He has a unique way of teaching,” said David Bae, who didn’t like physics until he took a course with Mr. Miller. “I used to skip a lot, but in his class, I don’t.”

I would say that, even if it is only just ONE student, he has made a difference.

Here's to Mr. Miller!

Zz.

Science Fair Projects

I get very frequent questions on suggestions for science fair or physics projects, especially at the high school level. So I thought I should post a link in here of a place where a collection of science fair websites are posted. I'll also put this as one of the links for this blog.

Science Fair Projects

Zz.

Science Careers In Search of Women

In about 2 weeks, Argonne will be hosting the Science Careers in Search of Women conference. This is the 20th anniversary of this project of introducing girls in high school to scientists and a career in science.

This will be my 4th year of involvement in this effort. I've always tried to volunteer for projects that try to introduce what we do to the general public (see the Argonne Open House report), but this one is rather special. While I'm not from the female gender, I can see how women may have a tougher time getting the encouragement to choose a science career. The previous times that I've been involved with this project have been a lot of fun. I get to host between 10 to 20 high schools students and show them our experimental facilities. Now I can honestly tell you that these girls mean business. They certainly did not take this as a "vacation" from school, because they came here will armed with very intelligent questions. I had so much fun the first time I did this that I volunteered to do this the following year.

It is too bad that we have no women working in our group, which would have been a more effective role model for them. Still, I try to do the best I can short of dressing up in drag.

Zz.

Probably a Good Speech, but Unfortunately, Not-So-Good Reporting

Today is just not a very good day for journalism, or maybe I'm just ornery and picking on them. I earlier mentioned the very bad application of physics by a journalist in analyzing Barack Obama policatical campaign. This, I believe, is new report off a college newspaper from Oklahoma State University. This student report (I presume) is reporting on a speech given by Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek.

I suppose it could be forgiven that this is nothing more than a college newspaper. Still, it reflects very badly that the person doing the reporting is not well-versed in basic, simple science. This would imply that this person also probably didn't quite get what Wilczek was also presenting.

An obvious error would be in this passage:

More than 20 years ago, scientists discovered molecules that changed how they understand the basic materials for life, a 2004 Nobel Laureate recipient said Tuesday.

Dr. Frank Wilczek said quarks and gluons, the molecules discovered, are smaller than electrons and protons.

I seriously doubt that Wilczek would call "quarks and gluons" as "molecules". The fact that this reporter doesn't know what a "molecule" is, is actually quite sad. It reminded me of the survey a while back of the basic science knowledge of the average American, and it was appalling. I'm sure many of them didn't know what a "molecule" was either.

Of course, the other hilarious statement from this report was:

Wilczek is trying to rearrange the formulas to find better ways of understanding physics, he said.

Really now! Is that how theorists come up with new ideas or try to explain existing phenomena? By rearranging formulas?

OK, OK.. I'll stop making fun of this person. Still, in the interest of quality and accuracy, they should have put someone who at least had a year of chemistry to report something like this. Or better yet, get one of the physics undergraduates to write thsi report. They have to eventually learn how to write properly anyway.

Zz.

A Five Degree Difference in Expansion?

I wonder if these people ever consulted either a chemical enginner or a physicist before they file this lawsuit. It seems that a class action lawsuit has been filed against several Florida gas stations. It stems from the fact that when these gas station buys gas wholesale, they pay for it and the taxes when it is being sold at 60 degrees (Fahrenheit). But when the gas is sold to the customer, the fuel is kept at, get this, 65 freaking degrees!!

The suit against Murphy Oil USA, Marathon Oil, 7-Eleven and five other companies claims the defendants have ''exploited physics'' by paying fuel taxes on wholesale gasoline stored at the industry standard 60 degrees, then selling it to customers after it expands in underground tanks that typically generate temperatures of 65 degrees.

Someone call the President and complain!

Now, I'm no expert in the properties of ordinary gasoline. However, I simply cannot imagine that a temperature difference of 5 degrees Fahrenheit (which is considerably smaller than a change of 5 degree Celsius), would make THAT much of a difference in the gasoline's density. In fact, I would think that the inaccuracy of the pump kiosk itself has a bigger impact on the amount of gas you get rather than a mere change in the gas density by a puny 5 degrees.

I honestly am constantly amused at how some people arrive at the decisions that they make.

Zz.

Obama Physics?

I cringe when I read a bastardization of physics like this. I think this news reporter is simply trying to be "cute" in applying a couple of laws of physics to the Barack Obama political campaign (this post will probably make sense only to those in the US, but the implication of it goes beyond the US border).

While I'm sure this is done tongue-in-cheek, in some academic circles, such a practice is done seriously. The Postmodernist movement has attempted to "incorporate" many aspect of physics into social, political, and other human activities and policies. The theory of relativity is a very common victim, followed by quantum mechanics. Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont have detailed several of these in their excellent book "Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science".

I really don't quite understand why some people think that various principles of physics should be applicable to human behavior and policies. Maybe physicists should take this as a compliment because some social and political scientists seem to think that the laws of physics should be applicable in all aspect of our world, including human interactions. However, they are only understanding a very small and narrow aspect of how we do and understand physics, while ignoring others. They obviously do not know about the physics of phase transition, for example, whereby what we know in a particular phase cannot be simply extrapolated into the next phase. In first order phase transition, there is an abrupt change in a number of thermodynamic quantities that completely destroys one's ability to simply extrapolate one's knowledge in one phase into another.

Or what about emergent behavior where by the collective behavior of a system simply cannot be predicted even when one has the complete knowledge of all the interactions at the microscopic level? This throws into doubt about the existence of a "theory of everything", but more importantly, it is a clear signal that one simply cannot weely-neely apply principles known at one level to accurately describe properties at another level. It isn't that obvious, not that easy!

But of course, these postmodernists didn't realize that. All that they can do is extract some superficial aspect of physics and apply it to their hearts content without any evidence that what they are doing is valid. Very nice!

Zz.

Scientists Hit the Road to Make Physics Fun

More reports on various efforts to being fun physics to various students throughout the country. This traveling physics road show certainly has become physics "ambassadors".

Zz.

'Key issues' articles in Reports on Progress in Physics

The journal Reports on Progress in Physics has announced the start of a series of shorter articles that will allow some of the leading figures in various fields of physics to make highly advanced and "speculative" insights into the particular area of their expertise. The following is the announcement from the journal's editorial board:

The Editorial Board of Reports on Progress in Physics has commissioned a series of short articles from world leaders on key physics issues in their field. These essays may raise the key issues, or ask open questions or may even suggest wild ideas. Basically, they give world leading physicists the opportunity to write what they think about the key issues in their field, free from the usual requirement to provide the fair and balanced presentations of the subject normally found in articles in Reports on Progress in Physics. We believe that the readers of the journal will be interested to learn about these exciting ideas.

Just as Hilbert's famous paper of 1900 set the agenda for the next century or more in mathematics, so we hope that this series of papers will define the key issues and open questions in physics for the 21st Century and that the articles will be widely cited and downloaded.

The first of these articles—'Insights from simulations of star formation' by Richard B Larson (Yale University, USA)—is published in the current issue. We trust that readers will find this article and its successors in the series to appear through 2007 and beyond entertaining and stimulating.

It used to be that journals published by the Institute of Physics (IoP) could be read for free during the first 30 days that it appears online. I do not know if this is still the case, but it is worth checking. Furthermore, other journals published by the IoP such as the New Journal of Physics are open access journals. They are always available for free.

Zz.

Science Video Resources

Vega Science Trust, a nonprofit organization in the United Kingdom, has a collection of science videos that one can view right on the web (you may need a Real Player). The site contains more than 50 scientific presentations aimed mostly at college students or the general public. Visitors can also drop by a master class on states of matter or watch a documentary about a conference in which med students hobnob with Nobel laureates.

If you have viewed and "tested" any of the videos and find it useful/useless/etc., could you let me know? Thank you!

Zz.

More on the Plasma Wakefield Accelerator

More follow-up on an earlier report on the latest advancement on the plasma wakefield accelerator. The main players in this work were interviewed in this Stanford news report.

While this is certainly encouraging and a significant advancement in advanced acceleration techniques, the media needs to be tempered in trying to oversell this technique for the sake of selling newspapers with sensational headlines. The use of such technology does NOT depends only on the availability of high gradients. For particle physics and FEL applications, the QUALITY of the particle beam is very stringent. I've mentioned earlier of two factors - energy spread and emittance - which could easily be the showstoppers for ANY acceleration mechanism.

We should not try to oversell any part of science. We have seen what has happened to String Theory, especially after Brian Greene's Elegant Universe TV series and the backlash against String Theory. Our communication to the public especially should not give false expectations, and certainly not with promises that we may never be able to fulfill.

Zz.

Lunar Observatories On A Budget?

Putting observatories on the moon? Why didn't we think of this sooner? It sounds like something reasonable to do, it might be cheaper and more stable, and it has a lot of advantages from what has been described. Just think about it. It's cheap, and it can actually do a lot of science! Those are two factors that the International Space Station does not have!

Zz.

More on US Research Funding

I wrote earlier on the landscape of the US research funding for FY2007 and the President's proposed FY2008. In the latter, there is a significant cutbacks for the National Institute of Health, and funding for biophysics/medicine in general (note that in total amount, the NIH budget still dwarfs over the physical science budget). I mentioned that I have mixed feelings about this, especially as someone who has seen how badly treated the physical sciences were while the NIH was rolling in the money.

The current Presidential Science Adviser John Marburger defended the President's trimming of the NIH budget for the upcoming year in an interview with Science (16 February 2007) this week. Essentially, he echoed what I had said earlier:

"I think the overall federal scientific enterprise is well-funded," Marburger says. "But there's been a ramp-up of expensive programs in some areas, while important programs in other areas are underfunded." He notes that the American Competitiveness Initiative, first proposed last year, attempts to correct that imbalance in the physical sciences by boosting the budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, and the core labs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. And he says that other agencies can thrive with their current budgets by setting priorities and sticking to them.

There is no way the federal government can ever satisfy the demands created by the doubling of the NIH budget [between 1998 and 2003]. It's led to what I call an unregulated research market, with booms and busts that are beyond the ability of the government to control.

[At the same time,] NIH funding got way out of step with funding for the physical sciences. Biomedical research is funded much closer to the level of its needs than are the physical sciences. And there are imbalances within the biomedical research enterprise in which it's not clear that the pattern of expenditures matches the importance of the research. A lot of its $28 billion budget is aimed at treatments and therapies for specific diseases rather than basic cell biology and molecular biology, which raises the question of whether we're spending enough on basic research.

I think many of us look at the military budget and simply DREAM about what we can do with just a small fraction of it, and we're talking about barely 1% to 2% here. The same can be said about the NIH budget. This, by no means, is not meant to diminish the importance of the work being done, especially when it is very transparent what the application is for. However, for too long of a time, basic physical research areas such as high energy physics and nuclear physics have been treated as the ugly stepchild that do not deserve even a decent level of funding. It boggles the mind that, in my lifetime, there's a very strong possibility that all high energy physics collider experiment in the US will be gone by the end of 2009! It is utter destruction of a field of study in the US. All the while, Europe, Japan, and especially China, are ramping up their activities in this field and anticipating some of the most exciting times in the history of this area.

I have said before that the effects of our neglect on basic science won't be felt right away. In fact, by the time we can see the symptoms of neglect, it might almost be too late, and it will take a lot of effort to dig ourselves back out. It would be sad to consider that we are now starting to see the beginning of those symptoms. One can only hope that we have diverted a major disaster with the recovery of the FY2007 budget within the continuing resolution. However, we are still not out of the woods yet, especially when there is still a battle brewing for the FY2008 budget.

Will people suddenly wake up and see what damage they have done to the physical sciences?

Zz.

42 GeV Energy Gain in Plasma Wakefield Accelerator

A new report last week improved the energy gain in electron plasma wakefield accelerator to 42 GeV. The work reported by the SLAC, UCLA, and USC group adds another advancement in the advanced accelerator technique. Previously, other groups have reported improvement in energy gain using laser plasma wakefield technique.

There are still major issues in being able to use such techniques in actual applications. The energy spread is still rather large, and the emittance is also not optimal for applications such as FEL and high energy physics collider, which require very low emittance. However, in making a compact accelerator for applications that do not require such strict parameters, these techniques are showing amazing advancement.

Zz.