Einstein's Wife

The documentary "Einstein's Wife" appeared on US Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) in 2003. However, the controversy surrounding the documentary hasn't subsided even now. This is certainly true between the producer of the documentary, Geraldine Hilton, and physicist/historian Allen Esterson.

The whole issue here is whether Einstein's first wife, Mileva Maric, played a significant but uncredited role in producing the 3 papers by Einstein during his miraculous year of 1905. The PBS Ombudsman has produced a detailed account of the whole transaction and point-counterpoint between these two parties. It is VERY long, and very tedious. However, PBS should be commended in publishing this openly for other readers to follow.

Zz.

Update on Continuing Resolution of US Budget

I wrote earlier on the predicament that US science funding is in for the fiscal year 2007, due to Congress action (or inaction) by adopting the 2006 budget. I also copied the letter from the American Physical Society that gave the link to write to various US congress representatives to highlight the harm it would do to science, and physics in particular, if this is adopted till the end of the current fiscal year.

This is now a positive development on this matter. It appears that the US Congress is ready to pass a resolution adopting the 2007 budget for science funding. This means that many of the alloted money for the DOE and NSF could be restored.

House Joint Resolution 20, which will be taken up tomorrow by the full House, gives NSF a $334 million increase in its $4.3 billion research account, the full 7.7% boost requested under ACI. DOE's $3.6 billion Office of Science would increase by only $200 million rather than the $505 million requested. But the legislation wipes out some $130 million in congressional earmarks in 2006 and gives office head Raymond Orbach the right to add that amount to DOE research programs. Likewise, NIST research would grow by $60 million (the administration requested a $104 million jump) because the legislation frees up $137 million in earmarks.

However, pay attention also to this part of the report:

Last month, the new Democratic majority in Congress said it planned to extend that rule for the remaining 8 months of FY2007, with minimal adjustments to deal with pressing problems caused by a year-long budget freeze.

That's when the scientific community went to work. Professional and academic organizations joined other science advocates in pushing for research spending to be considered a national priority. They urged legislators to support a 2007 budget proposal by President George W. Bush, called the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) (ScienceNOW, 26 September 2006:), that called for a nearly $1 billion increase in the research budgets at NSF, DOE's Office of Science, and NIST in 2007 as part of a 10-year doubling, and to find additional money for NIH, which was scheduled for a 1% reduction.

So, if you had participated in this, and had written to your representatives, I would like to sent my sincere thanks! While we are not out of the woods yet (and I'll wait till this is signed by the president to start celebrating), it does mean that many of the programs and projects that were slated either to be cut, suspended, or even totally eliminated, might survive after all. Science in the US would have had a huge hole to dig itself out of if this didn't change.

So again, thank you, people. Way to go!

Zz.

Einstein Museum Set to Open in Switzerland

A permanent exhibit on Albert Einstein is set to open in Bern, Switzerland. This is where Einstein had his miraculous year in 1905 while working in Bern at the Swiss Patent office.

Y'know, we have Hall of Fame all over the place. We have Tennis Hall of Fame, Baseball Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, etc... etc. Maybe, just maybe, it might be good to have Physics Hall of Fame! It's about time we honor physicists who have made significant impact in the history of human civilization. Of course, where would one build such a thing? How about in Sweden, home of the Nobel Prizes? Or maybe at the Cavendish Lab in England? What about at the venerable Bell Labs where practically most of our modern electronics came from? I dunno, and maybe, it isn't going to be such a major attraction to the general public ("Kids, where do you want to go for your vacation?" "Dad, let's go to the Physics Hall of Fame!"). Still, I think with the right attraction built into the facility (a superfast rollercoaster called the SUPERCURRENT that floats via magnetic levitation - see, I have this all planned!), we can use it to highlight why physics played a major role in shaping the world we have now.

Now... what do we do about a mascot?

Zz.

Want A Job At The US Patent Office?

The US Patent Office is seeking new recruits. They are desperately short of employees especially with the increase in patent filing. They also need good candidates after the debacle a few years ago of patent officers actively involved in the "free energy" embarassement.

Besides, you will be following in Einstein's footsteps, sort of.

:)

Zz.

Forum on Physics and Society

The January issue of the Forum on Physics and Society newsletter is now online. This is an exceptionally informative issue, especially the articles written by 3 different current and former Presidential Science Advisers, including the embattled current Adviser, John Marburger.

Don't miss it.

Zz.

A Gyroball in Baseball?

I don't know why this is stirring up such a fuss, but it does. It appears that there are claims being made that the Japanese Boston Red Sox baseball pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka can throw what is known as the "gyroball". Instead of a baseball with a horizontal spin, causing it to sink faster or float longer, the gyroball has a vertical spin (what most people think a gyroscope should be like). A ball having that kind of a spin moving through air will curve either to the left or to the right, depending on the direction of the spin.

The physics here isn't the big deal, or surprise. What people are doubtful is whether the human arm, in the conventional mechanics of throwing a baseball pitch, can impart that kind of a spin. I wouldn't know since I don't play baseball. I suppose if one can change the throwing mechanics, such a ball might be possible. After all, I've seen tennis player from a far wide position on the court hitting a ball around the net post to curl the ball back into the court. One really does not need a pure vertical spin to do this, just a component of it.

Zz.

UK to Screen Foreign Students in Nuclear Physics and Biochemistry

The United Kingdom may force graduate students in nuclear physics and biochemistry to undergo background security checks amid fears that these students might use their knowledge to make weapons. This is in line with what the US is already doing in visa applications for students in certain "sensitive" subject area.

Wait till these people realize that people working in accelerator physics, studying waveguides in physics/electrical engineering, even nanotechnology, etc... etc. can also make "weapons". Oy vey...

Zz.

Anthony Leggett to Join the Faculty of University of Waterloo

There seems to be a trend in the migration towards Canada of top physicists. It has been announced that Nobel Laureate Anthony Leggett will be Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Distinguished Research Chair at the University of Waterloo. He follows the footsteps of another Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman, who earlier bolted Colorado University for University of British Columbia. However, unlike Wieman, Leggett still retains his position at the University of Illinois. It appears that he's having a joint appointment with Waterloo, spending 2 months a year there.

Hey, I guess if you're a Nobel Laureate, you can probably write your own ticket. Still, it certainly appears that universities in Canada are in a very aggressive period of recruiting well-known physicists for their institutions.

Zz.

Single-Electron Tunneling Refrigerator

This has always been something that fascinates me, and I suppose, until now, there hasn't been anything that would allow this to be of practical use.

This report presents the latest advancement in tunneling refrigerator, which might actually be practical for cooling large particles. I like how they use the coulomb blockade junction to ensure that the electrons tunnel through one at a time, and so the "hottest" electrons would have the highest probability to tunnel first.

Another cool report [pun intended]!

Zz.

Harbury Brown-Twiss on Bosons and Fermions

The bunching and antibunching effects due to bosons and fermions, respectively, have been observed in the same Harbury Brown-Twiss apparatus for the first time. This was done using ultra-cold helium gasses, He4 (bosons) and He3 (fermions). This is the clearest comparision of quantum correlation between these two types of "particles".

Zz.

UK Universities Unite for Joint Graduate Program

To bolster the quality of their graduate program, 3 UK universities are joining together to form a joint graduate physics school. In light of the decline in physics enrollment, resulting in the recent closure of the Reading University physics department, Birmingham, Nottingham and Warwick universities have combined their forces (no pun intended) to form a program which they hope will attract top-notch students from across the world.

It appears that this is becoming a trend in the UK, in light of a similar but larger aliance already formed in Scotland. It is commendable that they are at least trying to do something to tackled this problem.

Zz.

Students Dressed Up As Icons

Students at a middle school dressed up as famous figures that have made an impact. As expected, someone dressed up at Einstein. But what caught my attention was this description:

There weren't any awards for best costume, but Craig Dudd's version of Albert Einstein was hard to miss. Craig, 14, spray-painted his hair white, sported a white mustache and borrowed a white laboratory coat from a local orthodontist.

There are, of course, 2 things wrong with this:

1. Einstein was not an experimentalist, and there's hardly any chance of him ever having any need to wear a lab coat;

2. Most physicists do not wear a lab coat, even experimentalists. I don't even have one, and I know for a fact that in all my years working as an experimentalist, I have never see a physicist wearing one.

I think kids like these do not have access or interactions with scientists, and physicists in particular. So of course, the popular misconception on what a scientist should look like based on what they've read, or seen in the popular media would be the one they have. I suppose in the scheme of things, this is the least problematic of all the misconceptions students have about science and scientists. Still, I wonder if this is a symptom of the distance between "fiction" and "reality" that the students have about science.

Zz.

Irrational Fears of Radiation

A while back, I wrote an essay about the need of scientists to be "Shallow, Perky, and Superficial", in dealing with non-scientists about science issues. This is because, in my experience, the public is not impressed, and usually cannot digest or comprehend, straight, boring facts. Often, bells and whistles, and how one delivers the messages are more important than the validity of the message itself.

Today comes another piece of news about a very common scenario - the irrational fears of radiation. We have seen this happened many times, starting back in the 70's the the Three Mile Island incident that since then has crippled the advancement in the use of nuclear power in the US. It is also the source of the shut down of a very productive research reactor, the High Flux Beam Reactor, at Brookhaven. In the latest incident, a retired health physicist tries to set things straight about the amount of radiation that is expected from a proposed detonation of a chemical explosive at the Nevada Test Site called "Divine Strake". There are several important points being made in that article with regards to comparing the level of radiation that people get in everyday activities. People do not realize this, yet, they fear something when a number is given to them. Why? Because they do not have any reference point on what that value means. If you tell them you're getting 1 mrem, it means nothing to them. However, if you tell them that, in a year, the average background radiation that one would expect to get is 360 mrem, then that number now can be put in perspective.

This is something every scientist should understand when communicating with the general public. It is not sufficient to simply lay out the facts. Telling the public that they will be getting so-and-so amount of radiation is not enough, because the public has no way to digest that number and to put it in context with other amounts that they are getting. Whenever something like this is report, one must include other typical numbers so that the public has a reference point to compare to.

During the last Argonne Open House this past Oct, 2006, we had a large cloud chamber as a demonstration item. People who took a look at it were impressed, but many weren't sure what they were. We had a poster next to the chamber explaining them what they're seeing, i.e. in identifying the different type of tracks they see with the possible particles. Many were surprised when they read that these are "radiation" particles (alpha, beta, and muons), and asked where they're coming from. Many thought that the lab grounds were radioactive! When they were told that these really are background radiation that they would find even in their own home, many were shocked! They looked at the large number of tracks in the cloud chamber and suddenly realized that all of these particles are bombarding them right that very second! All I could say to them during this time was "This is the environment that we have evolved in!"

Of course, that statement in itself could open up another can of worms, but I think everyone who got to see the cloud chamber got the point.

Zz.

IU Physics Majors Increases by 30%

It was reported earlier that the number of US high school students enrolled in physics reached record level. As a result, there is a surge in the number of physics majors in colleges. Indiana University is the first to report a significant increase in the number of students majoring in physics.

They are also quite progressive in recognizing that many students may not want to continue in the traditional physics program by going on to getting a Ph.D. More and more schools are offering non-traditional paths for students to be more employable by the time they receive their undergraduate degree.

Zz.

Man Traveling 69 MPH When He Hit Awning

OK, whatever happened, this is NOT a good way to illustrate the laws of physics under any circumstances. Whatever made them ask a physicist to calculate the speed that this guy had when he hit the awning is beyond me, considering that any high school physics student could have done that!

[ZapperZ slaps himself silly]

Zz.

A Neutral, Molecular Synchrotron

Another cool invention. Physicists in Germany has managed for the first time to produce a neutral particle synchrotron[1]!

A synchrotron is usually a circular storage ring where charged particles, usually electrons, moves around in circles close to the speed of light. They are accelerated by a combination of electric (RF) fields and using magnetic fields to steer and focus. In this new invention, polar molecules such ammonia, have been accelerated in a rather small ring, 81 cm in circumference.

Again, a very interesting work that promises to open up a whole world of possibilities. The abstract for this work can be found here.

Zz.

[1] C.E. Heiner, et al., Nature Physics Published online: 21 January 2007 | doi:10.1038/nphys513

Communications of Legitimate Physics Ideas - Pt. 2

Previously, I mentioned the most important means of communications of physics ideas - via publication in a peer-reviewed journal. In this posting, I will mention the other significant means of communications in physics, via presentations at various conferences, seminars, workshops, etc.

The reason why there are numerous conferences and workshops throughout the world within a year is because this is actually one of the most effective and quickest means to communicate. One can actually meet and hear the person who actually did the work. You can easily ask questions to a person, something that can't be done very well when reading a published paper. A talk or presentation also tends to be more elaborate, containing detail information that may not have been included in a paper. Not only that, due to the sometime lengthy process of publishing a paper, by the time a paper appears in print, it may already be old news. On the other hand, information gathered at a conference could be some data that was only obtained just the previous week. So one can get a good sense of the state of knowledge that everyone has, or is working on, at that instant. Relying simply on what is in publication could mean one is several months behind on what is important. This is especially true in fast-moving fields such as high-Tc superconductivity.

Personally, I find that it is vital that one attends such conferences in one's field regularly. Not only is it useful to hear various speakers present their work, but more often than not, some of the most important information is obtained in the hallways or over coffee during a conversation. The latest PRL publication that I had was an idea that was born during a coffee break conversation in between sessions at a workshop! One cannot overemphasize the importance of such face-to-face discussion. Physics is seldom done in isolation, since most of us are not Einstein or Planck.

While it isn't a formal part of the curriculum for most graduate students in physics, I know for a fact that attending and presenting one's work while still in a graduate program is a vital part of the training of becoming a physicist. One should not be satisfied that a doctorate degree in physics if one has not stood in front of experts in the field and present one's work. One's ability to communicate one's work effectively is almost as important as the knowledge itself.

There are several major conferences throughout the year. However, the largest yearly physics conference in the world is the APS March Meeting. This regularly attracts between 5000 to 7000 attendees. It is the largest because the division of Condensed Matter/Material science is one of the division that meets during this meeting. In fact, during the APS Centenial Celebration in 1999 at the Atlanta Convention Center, there was a record of 13,000 attendees, which was hailed as the largest ever gathering of scientists in the history of human civilization. The APS March Meeting is the conference that most graduate students, especially those in condensed matter/material science, cut their teeth and made their first ever presentation of their work in front of experts in their fields. Yours truly was one of those.

You may visit the APS webpage to learn more about this meeting, and all other conferences that they organize. There are also a lot of events that are also open to the general public. So if any of these meetings are in your city (they move around each year), it is a good idea to see if you can attend some of them.

Zz.

Nobel Laureates Discuss Energy Use

This is a rather interesting event. Six of UC-Berkeley Nobel Laureates sat down and discuss the energy consumption and problem in the US. Even if this doesn't amount to anything, it is still fascinating to hear the opinions of people who are at the top of their field and, presumably, because of their stature, can influence the direction of research to some extent, at least at their institution.

Zz.

Satellite Kill Creates Space Hazard

So, how does China's successful test of destroying one of its satellite could possibly be hazardous and could affect you? Read more about it here.

Zz.

Duke University Returns Laser to Physicist Who Made It

This is a VERY strange story. A legal dispute occurred over the ownership of a research laser.

There are many thing unanswered from reading this story. Who paid for the laser in the first place? I can't believe this guy built it out of his own pocket while he was a graduate student. How did it go with him to Stanford? Who paid for it to be completed? This is not cheap! A university usually keep the facility especially if it also supported it via providing support for that faculty member. The fact that this thing was shipped from Stanford to Duke University has many issues unanswered.

A very unusual story indeed!

Zz.,