APS NewsA P S N E W S[Try the enhanced APS News-online: http://www.aps.org/apsnews]

MAY 1999 THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY VOLUME 8, NO. 5

Inside…NEWS100 Years of the APS ..................................... 2

First installment of the history of the APS from theTo Advance and Diffuse... Centennial Exhibit.

Festival Profile .............................................. 3Felice Frankel: Envisioning Science Through theCamera’s Eye

FIP Objects to State DepartmentAdvisory ....................................................... 4

FIP complains about chilling effects of restrictionson scientific visit visas.

Physicists Step Out in Style at FernbankGala ............................................................... 5

Tuxedos and gowns, fine dining and dancingwere the order of the day for those attending theAPS Centennial gala celebration at Atlanta’sFernbank Museum.

ESPN2 Series Investigates the Science inSports ............................................................ 9

ESPN unveils a new season of SportsFigures, aninnovative, award-winning educational televi-sion series.

SPS Symposia Showcase UndergradResearch ..................................................... 10

Four undergraduate symposia were sponsoredby the Society of Physics Students.

Sessler Reviews the APS ........................... 10APS Past President Andrew Sessler invoked a glo-rious past as evidence of a hopeful future.

OPINIONBrief Review of 20th Century Physics ......... 4

Highlights from D. Allan Bromley’s opening ple-nary lecture at the APS Centennial meeting.

Letters ........................................................... 4DEPARTMENTSBook Review ................................................. 3

Celebrating Scientific Silliness with the Best of AIR.Inside the Beltway ........................................ 9

Cornpone and Southern ComfortZero Gravity .................................................. 9

The Official 1998 Pigasus AwardsAnnouncements ......................................... 11

Meeting Briefs; Apker Awards; Call for Nomina-tion; Physics in the 20th Century.

The Back Page ............................................ 12Freeman J. Dyson explores the science and poli-tics of climate.

Richardson Vows to Keep DOELabs Open in Keynote Address

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B ill Richardson, US Secretary ofEnergy, delivered the keynote

address at the APS Centennial meetingon Monday evening, March 22, to apacked room of physicists in town forthe biggest physics meeting in the world.Also presiding at the event — whichculminated with the unveiling of the APStimeline wall chart — were APS PresidentJerome Friedman (Massachusetts Instituteof Technology), William Brinkman ofLucent Technologies, and RobertEisenstein of the National ScienceFoundation.

Richardson opened with a recognition ofthe vital role physics has played in the lastcentury. “This century of physics has donemore than merely make significant discov-eries... it has fundamentally altered how wethink of the universe and of the forces thatbind it together,” he said. “Whether it is basicscience, national defense, energy researchor environmental quality, physics is the en-abler and provider of solutions, an inseparablepart of our livelihoods.”

But the majority of Richardson’s talk fo-cused on the future, beginning with asummation of President Clinton’s efforts topromote world leadership in basic science,mathematics and engineering for the US,emphasizing the goals set out in the 1994study Science in the National Interest, un-dertaken by the presidential Council of

Over five thousand local andvisiting spectators—scientists and

the general public alike—crowded intothe Atlanta Civic Center Wednesdayevening, March 24, to catch a glimpse ofbest-selling author and theoreticalphysicist Stephen Hawking, in town toaccept the 1999 APS LilienfeldLectureship Prize and give a free publiclecture. Those unable to obtain ticketsto the lecture watched it televised liveon screens in the adjacent SciTrekScience Museum. Even those physicistsskeptical of Hawking’s highlymathematical, often speculative, andheavily debated theories — and knackfor generating publicity — were on handto witness what was unquestionably an“Event.” [Said one, “This is something yousee once in a lifetime.”]

Hawking, 56, is the Lucasian professorof mathematics at Cambridge Universityin England — a chair once held by IsaacNewton — and author of A Brief Historyof Time, which has been translated into40 languages since its publication in 1988.Microsoft technical guru Nathan Myhrvold,a former postdoctoral student ofHawking’s, has said that the wheelchair-bound theorist has “sold more books onphysics than Madonna has on sex,” andHawking himself estimates that Brief His-tory “has sold about one copy for every750 men, women and children in theworld.” His latest book is Black Holes andBaby Universes, published in 1997.

The Lilienfeld prize check and certifi-cate were presented by APS PresidentElect James Langer (University of Califor-nia, Santa Barbara) to thunderous applausefrom the packed auditorium. Hawking,who suffers from amyotrophic lateral scle-rosis — an incurable degenerativeneuromuscular disorder more commonlyknown as Lou Gehrig’s disease — thendelivered his lecture on the computerizedsynthetic speech machine he uses to com-municate with the outside world. Entitled“The Universe in a Nutshell,” the subjectmatter was nothing new to those who haveread his best-selling books — namely, thatthe universe is a self-contained systemwithout boundaries, and that time has nomeaning outside the laws of physics —but the addition of illustrative cartoon

graphics on three large screens behind himadded considerable visual impact to theconcepts.

At a press conference the day before,Hawking played recorded answers toquestions submitted previously by report-ers. Most notably, he endorsed the recentdiscovery that the universe may be ex-panding at an ever-increasing rate — listedas the “Breakthrough of the Year” by Sci-ence magazine in 1998. Initially skeptical,Hawking told reporters that after examin-ing the data collected from distantsupernova blasts, he has “reconsidered”his “theoretical preferences” about thecosmological constant that would causespace to inflate more quickly with time. “Inow think it is very reasonable that thereshould be a cosmological constant,” he said.“I have had more time to consider the ob-servations, and they look quite good.”Furthermore, he believes there is notenough known matter in the universe tohalt its expansion, and thus “the universemay keep flying apart forever.”

Hawking also said that he believesthere is a 50-50 chance that scientists willachieve a Grand Unified Theory (GUT)within the next 20 years. One of the bestcandidates, he said, is the so- called “Mtheory,” an extension of string theory thatallows multiple universes to arise from anever-changing quantum foam of space-time. However, he refused to identify anysingle example as the greatest development

Hawking Draws Packed House to Atlanta Civic Center

Advisors. These include enhancing connec-tions between fundamental research andnational goals; stimulating partnerships thatpromote investments in fundamental scienceand engineering, and raising the scientific andtechnological literacy of all Americans. Inaddition, the Information Technology for the21st Century initiative, will, he said, “enableus to develop and deploy new, faster com-puters for advanced simulation,” providing“powerful tools to design a new generationof cars, develop new pharmaceuticals, andhelp us improve our weather and climateresearch.”

Another area of concern to Richardson —one that has been echoed by many scien-tists and government representatives alikein recent years — is the need to improvecommunication between the Americanpeople and the physics community. To mostAmericans, physics is an inaccessible subjectthat “many people gladly left behind in highschool,” he said. Translating physics researchinto plain English — “decoding” it for thepublic similar to the way in which medicalbreakthroughs are presented for general con-sumption — is critical for accomplishing this.

Richardson also took the opportunity torespond to recent Congressional calls forheightened security at DOE laboratories. Theissue came to the fore in recent weeks aftera Taiwan-born American Los Alamos scientistwas accused of passing nuclear secrets to Continued on page 10

The entrance to the APS Centennial gala celebration at the Fernbank Science Museum, Atlanta,Georgia. For more photos from the gala and city-wide Physics Festival, see pages 5 - 8.

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China. Richardson vowed to “maintain andstrengthen the tall fences that protect thenation’s secrets,” but added, “We can’t beintimidated into closing ourselves off. It iscritical that our laboratories — which houseso many of our important research facilities

and our finest scientists — do not becomeisolated from the world.”

Pledging to fight any proposal to closeoff American science, Richardson empha-sized the DOE’s dedication to technological

APS Established onMay 20, 1899

More onAPS origins

begin onpage 2.

APS News May 1999

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To Advance & Diffuse theKnowledge of Physics100 Years of the American Physical Society

Curator Sara Schechner GenuthGnomon Research

Exhibit Director Barrett Ripin

APS History Harry Lustig

Journals History R. Mark Wilson

The American PhysicalSociety was

established one hundredyears ago; the PhysicalReview six years before that.Together they have shapedand promoted physicsresearch in the 20th century.

This exhibit, commissionedfor the APS Centennial,looks at the evolution of theAmerican Physical Societyand its research journals,their responsiveness to theneeds of science, and theirdynamic relationship withAmerican culture.

APS News will serializeexcerpts from this exhibitthroughout the Centennialyear. Next month: Early Yearsof the Physical Review.

Researchers George TriggRuth KastnerSteven NortonAmy Halsted

Exhibit Design Puches Design Inc.Fabrication Malone Displays

APS NewsCoden: ANWSEN ISSN: 1058-8132Series II, Vol. 8, No. 5 May 1999© 1999 The American Physical Society

Editor ................................ Barrett H. RipinAssociate Editor .......... Jennifer OuelletteDesign and Production ........ Alicia ChangCopy Editing .............. Danita Boonchaisri

APS News (ISSN: 1058-8132) is published 11X yearly, monthly,except the August/September issue, by the American Physical Society,One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844, (301) 209-3200. Itcontains news of the Society and of its Divisions, Topical Groups,Sections and Forums; advance information on meetings of the Society;and reports to the Society by its committees and task forces, as well asopinions.

Letters to the editor are welcomed from the membership. Letters mustbe signed and should include an address and daytime telephonenumber. The APS reserves the right to select and to edit for length orclarity. All correspondence regarding APS News should be directed to:Editor, APS News, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20749-3844,E-mail: letters@aps.org.

Subscriptions: APS News is an on-membership publication de-livered by Periodical Mail. Members residing abroad may receiveairfreight delivery for a fee of $20. Nonmembers: Subscriptionrates are: domestic $160; Canada, Mexico, Central and SouthAmerica, and Caribbean $180; Air Freight Europe, Asia, Africa andOceania $210.

Subscription orders, renewals and address changes shouldbe addressed as follows: For APS Members—Membership De-partment, The American Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse,College Park, MD 20740-3844, membership@aps.org. For Non-members—Circulation and Fulfillment Division, American Insti-tute of Physics, 500 Sunnyside Blvd., Woodbury, NY 11797. Allowat least 6 weeks advance notice. For address changes, please sendboth the old and new addresses, and, if possible, include a mailinglabel from a recent issue. Requests from subscribers for missingissues will be honored without charge only if received within 6months of the issue’s actual date of publication.

Periodical Postage Paid at College Park, MD and at additionalmailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to APS News,Membership Department, The American Physical Society, OnePhysics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844.

APS COUNCIL 1999PresidentJerome Friedman*, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPresident-ElectJames S. Langer*, University of California, Santa Barbara

Vice-PresidentGeorge H. Trilling*, Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryExecutive OfficerJudy R. Franz*, University of Alabama, Huntsville (on leave)TreasurerThomas McIlrath*, University of Maryland (emeritus)Editor-in-ChiefMartin Blume*, Brookhaven National LaboratoryPast-PresidentAndrew M. Sessler*, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory

General CouncillorsDaniel Auerbach, Beverly Berger, Philip Bucksbaum, L. CraigDavis, S. James Gates*, Donald Hamann*, Leon Lederman, CynthiaMcIntyre, Roberto Peccei, Paul Peercy*, Helen Quinn, SusanSeestrom*, James Trefil, Virginia Trimble*, Ronald Walsworth, SauLan Wu

Chair, Nominating CommitteeDaniel Kleppner

Chair, Panel on Public AffairsDenis McWhan

Division and Forum CouncillorsSteven Holt (Astrophysics), Eric Heller*, Harold Metcalf(Atomic, Molecular and Optical), Robert Callender (Bio-logical) , Stephen Leone (Chemical), E. Dan Dahlberg,David Aspnes*, Arthur Hebard, Zachary Fisk* (Condensed

Matter), Warren Pickett (Computational) , Jerry Gollub(Fluid Dynamics), James Wynne (Forum on Education),Gloria Lubkin (Forum on History of Physics), Matt Richter(Forum on Industrial & Applied Physics), Myriam Sarachik(Forum on International Physics), Dietrich Schroeer (Fo-rum on Physics and Society), Andrew Lovinger (High Poly-mer) , Daniel Grischkowsky (Laser Science) , HowardBirnbaum (Materials) , John Schiffer, John D. Walecka(Nuclear) , Robert Cohn, Sally Dawson (Particles andFields) , Robert Siemann (Physics of Beams) , RichardHazeltine, William Kruer (Plasma)*Members of APS Executive Board

ADVISORSSectional RepresentativesGeorge Rawitscher, New England; William Standish, New York;Perry P. Yaney, Ohio; Joseph Hamilton, Southeastern; StephenBaker, Texas

Representatives from Other SocietiesThomas O’Kuma, AAPT; Marc Brodsky, AIP

Staff RepresentativesBarrett Ripin, Associate Executive Officer; Irving Lerch, Directorof International Affairs; Ramon Lopez, Director of Education andOutreach; Robert L. Park, Director, Public Information; MichaelLubell, Director, Public Affairs; Stanley Brown, AdministrativeEditor; Charles Muller, Director, Editoral Office Services, MichaelStephens, Controller and Assistant Treasurer

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Albert A. MichelsonFirst vice-president and secondpresident.

COST OF DOINGBUSINESSAPS Budget (1899) $285

APS Budget (1999) $37,253,325

Henry A. RowlandFirst president of APS, and physics professorat Johns Hopkins. His presidential addressset the tone for the Society:

“To encourage the growth of any science, thebest thing we can do is to meet together in itsinterest, to discuss its problems, to criticiseeach other’s work and, best of all, to providemeans by which the better portion of it may bemade known to the world.”

MarciaKeithMarcia Keith ofMount Holyoke,in her lab, andIsabelle Stone ofVassar wereamong the 36foundingmembers.

Arthur Gordon Webster“Father of the American Physical Society”Professor of physics at Clark University, Websterorganized the first APS meeting at FayerweatherHall, Columbia University on 20 May 1899.

Mission:“To promote theadvancement anddiffusion of theknowledge ofphysics.” Adopted1899.

FayerweatherHallColumbia Universitywas the site of thefirst meeting andremained the home ofAPS for 60 years.

Origins of APSMoving ForcesIn 1899, thirty-six scientists met in New York to form a physics society.What was the context? What needs impelled them?

Physics in America was a meager profession by European standards ofthe late 19th century. Its first professors were not appointed until the 1870s,and they often paid for apparatus out of their own pockets. Universityadministrators respected teaching more than research. The publicapplauded technological achievements over abstract ones.

In spite of these deterrents, the aspirations of Americanphysicists were on the rise. So too were their numbers.

During the 19th century, physical sciences became increasinglyspecialized. In one discipline after another, scientists formed their ownprofessional societies. Section B of the AAAS had been the primarymeeting ground for physicists, but it met only once a year.

Physicists were inspired by the formation of the AmericanChemical Society and the American Mathematical Society.

In the 1890s, Americans were startled by news that European scientistshad discovered x-rays, radioactivity, and the electron. New friendshipswere forged at international electrical meetings in Chicago.

U.S. physicists wanted to be part of the international community.To do this, they needed to meet more often and raise researchstandards in America.

Thus, self-definition, professionalization, and aspiration were the bedrockon which the American Physical Society was built.

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May 1999 APS News

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Revelers at the APS Centennial gala hosted by the Fernbank Museum

in Atlanta (see page 2) had theopportunity to view a new exhibit ofwork by renowned sc ient i f icphotographer Felice Frankel. Frankelis currently artist in residence inscience and technology and a researchscientist in electrical engineering andcomputer science at the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology (MIT). Herphotographs, taken in collaborationwith scientific researchers, haveappeared on the covers and insidepages of such noteworthy publicationsas Nature, Science, the Journal ofPhysical Chemistry, and CellularBiology, as well as a number of MITpublications.

Constructed around the theme of“Envisioning Physics,” Frankel’sFernbank exhibit was commissionedby the APS specifically for the Cen-tenn ia l meet ing . L ike mos t o fFrankel’s work, the photographs arespare, composed of three-dimen-sional forms and structures recordedon two dimensions, and carefully fo-cused upon the particular point ofscientific investigation. “For me,form, shape and composition are in-tegral to a scientific image,” she saysof her work. “I compose data, mak-ing it readable and comprehensible,and the scientists with whom I workagree that visually clarified informa-tion adds another dimension to theexchange of ideas.”

Frankel earned her undergraduatedegree in biology and worked as a labo-ratory assistant at Columbia University,conducting research on subcellular sys-tems before leaving to raise a family.She subsequently established a solidreputation as a photographer of land-scapes and architecture, eventuallypublishing a book entitled ModernLandscape Architecture. Her successresulted in her being awarded a Loebfellowship from Harvard University’sGraduate School of Design, giving herthe freedom to pursue any course ofstudy she desired in 1991, at the ageof 47. While her colleagues in the pro-gram opted for the usual architectureand design courses, Frankel found her-self rediscovering her passion forscience, taking classes with E.O. Wil-son and Stephen J. Gould, amongothers.

The turning point came when sheaudi ted a course wi th GeorgeWhitesides, a professor of chemistrywho presented lectures “in a veryimaginative and visual way,” saysFrankel. Intrigued enough to want towork in his laboratory, she intro-duced herself, and he offered her theopportunity to come up with a pho-tograph to accompany an article he’dsubmitted to Science magazine. Theimage she created wound up grac-ing the cover, and with Whiteside’scontinued support and encourage-ment, she found herself embarked onan entirely new career: science pho-tography.

“It was one of the those unbeliev-ably serendipitous situations,” shenow says. “If I had started with an-other research group, this probablymight not have happened.” In 1997she coau tho red a book w i thWhitesides, entitled On The Surfaceof Things: Images of the Extraordi-nary in Science (Chronicle Books),

Envisioning Science Through theCamera’s Eye

based on an exhibit of the same titlewhich is presently traveling aroundthe country.

A strong proponent of the impor-tance of the visual element incommunicating science to a broaderpublic, Frankel is dedicated to provid-ing researchers and students of sciencealike with “a visual vocabulary” of sci-ence. “Too often the visual beauty ofscientific research seems to be keptsecret,” she says. “Scientists are trainedto be suspicious of visually stunningdisplays, often dismissing them as un-necessary or superficial, and thusremain largely unaware of the valueof the visual poetry of their own work.”

To this end, Frankel has receiveda grant from the National ScienceFoundation to develop a guidebookfor students and researchers on howto incorporate powerful visual im-ages into the communication of theirdata. “It’s literally a how-to recipebook,” she says, crossing all spectraof the various fields of research.Along with several colleagues, she isalso organizing a major conferenceon envisioning science and technol-ogy, to be held at MIT in June 2001.

The conference, entitled “Image andMeaning” will gather together research-ers in all disciplines, as well as journaleditors, art directors, science and bio-medical imagers, photographers,illustrators, animators, museum exhibi-tors, writers, and TV and film producers— anyone involved in the visual pre-sentation of science to the generalpublic.

The unique process by whichFrankel creates her own images is de-cidedly collaborative in nature. Shemeets with willing researchers, learnsas much as she can about their work,and uses their input to create an im-age that captures the essence of theresearch. However, she balks at el-evating her photographs to the levelof art. “I do not view myself as anartist because an artist has a personalagenda and a very particular pointof view, that of communicating thepart of herself she wants the worldto perceive,” she says, adding thatthe primary purpose of her imagesis to communicate scientific informa-tion. “To suggest that art and scienceare related may dangerously redefineeach. Scientific images may be beau-tiful and even artistic, but they arenot art, and art is not science.”

An online version of FeliceFrankel’s exhibit, “Envisioning Phys-ics,” is at http://web.mit.edu/feliceF/www/aps1.html. In addition, the en-tire exhibit is available for touring atselect venues around the country. In-terested parties should contact Frankeldirectly at felicef@mit.edu, or (617)253-5604.

FESTIVAL PROFILE

Ferrofluid on a glass surface, with 7 circularmagnets. From On the Surface of Things,Images of the Extraordinary in Science byFelice Frankel and George M. Whitesides

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Buried amid the commemorativevolumes, posters, T-shirts, Einstein

mousepads, and other trinkets on sale at theAPS Centennial meeting in Atlanta, I stumbledacross The Best of Annals of ImprobableResearch (AIR), edited by Marc Abrahams,emcee of the notorious Ig Nobel Prizeceremony, held annually at HarvardUniversity every fall. Numb from an endlessparade of sessions earnestly detailing theunquestionable glories of science past andpresent, the volume provided me with anunabashedly gleeful celebration of scientificsilliness. It’s impossible not to love a journalthat reviews the cafeterias at the world’s greatresearch institutions, rating not only foodquality and trendiness of the setting, but alsothe number of photos of bearded mendisplayed on its hallowed walls.

The book opens with a brief history ofAIR — including its early origin as the Jour-nal of Irreproducible Results — and a reprintof the first ground-breaking article by the lateAlexander Kohn in 1955, entitled “Kineticsof Inactivation of Glassware,” which exploredthe high degree of breakability of glass prod-ucts. Likewise, the entire seven-year historyof the Ig Nobel Prize ceremonies are high-lighted, including entertaining photographsof the festivities, snippets of the more amus-ing “acceptance speeches,” and shortenedversions of a few of the original papers hon-ored in the ceremony.

The bulk of the volume is devoted to agenerous sampling of humorous “papers” thathave appeared in the pages of AIR over theyears, subdivided according to specialty. Forinstance, under “Astronomy, Physics andFood,” we find an insightful analysis of thechaotic “butterfly effect,” in which the au-thors apologize to the country of France forexcessive rainfall, which they attribute to asingle butterfly living in Lausanne, Switzer-land. Also included are seminal studies of theaerodynamics of potato chips, the effects ofpeanut butter on the rotation of earth [con-clusion: “none”], and the correlation betweentornadoes and the preponderance of trailerhomes in any given region.

Under “Medicine and Biology,” we findthe classic 1995 AIR article investigating thetaxonomy of Barney, which concludes thatthe creature is not, in fact, an actual dinosaur,as well as a paper exploring the medical ef-fects of kissing boo-boos. In “Mathematicsand Models,” one paper estimates the valueof love based on Bob Dylan lyrics, most no-tably 1965’s “(Love-0)/No Limit” from thealbum Subterranean Homesick Blues. Thoseinterested in educational issues can peruse a

thorough investigation of the behavior of deadstudents in a classroom, concluding that whiledead students exhibit exemplary behaviorand perfect attendance, they perform verypoorly on exams.

One of my favorite entries was “CindyCrawford Discovers” (or, “The Face Value ofScience”), in which AIR staff member AliceShirrell Kaswell scans the latest women’sbeauty magazines for emerging scientificbreakthroughs. Her findings includesupermodel/actress Elizabeth Hurley’s forayinto engineering with a skimpy Versace dressheld together by safety pins. Kaswell alsolaments her ignorance of mysterious sub-stances called “volumizers,” and ponders thescientific significance of such pithy statementsas “Women over 30 should avoid dark mas-cara,” and “Night creams are more emollientthan day lotions.”

Also excerpted are the best of Abraham’sirreverent “Nobel Thoughts” column, inwhich Nobel Laureates expound on suchpressing concerns as how to deal with junkmail, the relative merits of beer and potatochips, whether to use a pencil or pen, andhow to distinguish between fatheads andphonies. Harvard’s William Lipscomb, the1976 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry and a de-voted admirer of Sherlock Holmes, respondsto every question with an example of thefictional detective’s famous scientific method,as illustrated in various case histories. Andconsider the classic response of DudleyHerschbach, a co-recipient of the 1986 NobelPrize in Chemistry, when asked to give ad-vice to young people entering the field: “Onething that frightens students is the feelingthat you’ve got to get it right. But sciencelets you get it wrong a lot of the time. Beinga scientist is like being a musician. You doneed some talent, but you have a great ad-vantage over being a musician. You can get99% of the notes wrong, then get one rightand be wildly applauded.”

But perhaps the greatest insight into thescientific mind is offered by Karen Hopkinof National Public Radio, the originator of thehighly popular Studmuffins of Science cal-endar project and an occasional contributorto AIR. What has she learned? “That mostscientists, at heart, believe themselves to bestudmuffins,” she writes. “I had very littletrouble convincing my PhDs to pose. It’s likethey were just sitting in the lab, waiting forthe phone to ring. ‘A pinup calendar? Why,of course. I’ll have my assistant bring mySpeedos at once.’”

—Jennifer OuelletteAssociate Editor, APS News

Celebrating Scientific SillinessThe Best of Annals of Improbable Research. Edited by MarcAbrahams. [W.H. Freeman & Company, 1998.] $14.95.

BOOK REVIEW

in 20th century physics, stating flatly, “It isa ridiculous question. Physics is a unifiedcorpus. You cannot isolate a single aspect.”And asked whether time travel will bepossible in the next millennium, he repliedwith a succinct, “No.”

At a special, invitation-only reception justafter the evening lecture, guests had theopportunity to meet Hawking in person, aswell as sample hors d’oeuvres and minglewith many of the featured lecturers and per-formers associated with the city-wide PhysicsFestival. Many crowded about Hawking’swheelchair, curious to witness the workingsof his computerized speech synthesizer first-hand. [He manipulates a toggle switch withhis left forefinger to select words and phrasesfrom the computer screen displayed in frontof him, which then converts the text intospeech.] Science magician Bob Friedhoffer

Hawking (continued from page 1) demonstrated some basic card tricks, caus-ing one card to “visibly” melt through another,and a card packet to vanish, reappearing inhis mouth. The performance elicited a smileof delight from one of the world’s most fa-mous physicists, along with the comment,“That’s why I’m not an experimental physi-cist. You can never believe the evidence.”

On Friday, Hawking and his entouragetoured the Centers for Disease Control, anational program based in Atlanta of par-ticular interest to him. Hawking’s fatherwas a prominent microbiologist specializ-ing in tropical diseases, who had hopedhis son would follow in his footsteps. Askedby Altanta festival coordinator KarlaJennings whether he’d ever considered acareer other than physics, he quipped, “Iconsidered becoming Prime Minister of En-gland, but now I’m glad that Tony Blairhas the job.”

APS News May 1999

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OPINIONLETTERS

Another Alert Reader Weighs In...This note relates to the Back Page article, “Discovering our Roots: The PhD Lineage

Contest winners.” In that piece the author used the word “geneology” or “geneologist”several times. I would like to point out that “genealogy” is properly spelled with an “a”instead of an “o”, as opposed to most other “—ology” terms. This results from the“genealogy” of the word itself—it comes from a combination of two French terms,genea, meaning descent, plus logos, meaning discourse. [See Webster’s New Colle-giate Dictionary, G & C Merriam Co (1951)]. Note also that my spell checker (WordPerfect4.2) catches the erroneous spelling. How come yours didn’t?Robert A. LevyEl Paso, Texas

Editor’s Note: Is it too early to blame the error on the Y2K bug?

Scientific Travel and Nuclear ProliferationIn a situation where two neighboring countries with nuclear weapons capabilities

maintain a hostile posture, bringing together scientists from the two sides to discuss thesituation and alleviate tensions was, in our opinion, an eminently sane and rationalcourse of action. Therefore, as citizens and scientists belonging to Argentina, Brazil,India, Israel, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the US, we had enthusiastically welcomed theefforts of the American Physical Society to host a round-table discussion at the AtlantaCentennial Meeting to identify the role of physicists to build bridges between nationswhich otherwise may be having conflicting interests on nuclear issues or issues relatedto physics. Some of us had even arranged discussions on the same issues in our institu-tions to take advantage of these visitors. To our disappointment, we subsequentlylearned that the invited speaker from India, Dr. T. Jayaraman, was denied leave toparticipate in the APS discussion by the Director and the authorities of the Institute ofMathematical Sciences, Chennai, where he works as a theoretical physicist.

The reason given by the Institute’s Director for his action was that Dr. Jayaraman’s partici-pation was not in the interests of, “...the Institute and the nation.” Several appeals did notchange the Director’s decision. Subsequently the Director stated that as the Institute is undertravel restrictions by the U.S. government, and the APS has been unable to remove theserestrictions, it would not be appropriate for Jayaraman to participate in the APS panel. On thecontrary, the American Physical Society has succeeded in removing such restrictions in spe-cific cases and has continued to work for the removal of all impediments to the free circulationof scientists through both public appeals and by close interaction with U.S. governmentalagencies.

We feel that the present age compels us to think in global terms and thus the denial ofleave to Dr. Jayaraman to participate in the panel discussion is a violation of his academicfreedom and has done disservice to the cause of promoting international peace. We urge theDirector of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and the Government of India, to desistfrom applying such restrictions in the future.

Physicists have an important role to play as promoters of peace. Preventing open scien-tific exchange injures science as an instrument to advance the international scientific enterprise,to develop comity among scientists, to advance our common culture and to contribute tothe welfare of nations.Luis Masperi, Argentina; Luis Pinguelli Rosa, Brazil; T.R. Govindarajan, India; M.V.Ramana, India; Zia Mian, Pakistan; A.P. Balachandran, India; Jeeva Anandan, US/SriLanka; Saeed Durrani, UK/Pakistan; Avner Cohen, US/Israel; W.K.H. Panofsky, US;M.H. Engineer, India; Pervez Hoodbhoy, Pakistan; Irving Lerch, US

Science and its applications — whichtoday we call technology — has from its

very beginning been an important part ofthe American society. As we approach theclose of the 20th century, it is entirelyappropriate that we celebrate the role of ourparticular sector of this science andtechnology: physics and its applications.

What, then, is physics? The best defini-tion I have encountered is that of my oldfriend, the late Edward Purcell. In 1970 hewrote, “Science is knowing. What man knowsabout inanimate nature is physics — or rather,the most lasting and universal things that heknows make up physics.” We physicists havethe arrogance to believe that the laws wededuce from our measurements here on earthapply throughout the universe, and that whatis true today was true throughout the entirelife of the universe. Our measurements sup-port that arrogance. Purcell goes on to say,“As he gains more knowledge, what wouldhave appeared complicated or capricious canbe seen as essentially simple and in a deepsense, orderly.” Turning to applications, hesaid, “To understand how things work is tosee how, within environmental constraintsand the limitations of wisdom, better to ac-commodate nature to man and man tonature.” Many have noted that the 20th cen-tury of science truly began in 1897 with J.J.Thompson’s discovery of the electron. Thisreflects the enormous impact that our abilityto manipulate the atom and its componentelectrons has had on such diverse areas ofmodern civilization as communications, com-putation, energy, and medicine. In 1905,Albert Einstein published his classic paperson Brownian motion, the photoelectric ef-fect and special relativity, the latter providingus with one of the classic equations of alltime: E=mc2. And in 1911 Ernest Rutherforddiscovered the atomic nucleus. The next twodecades saw the emergence of quantummechanics, culminating in 1932, truly anannus mirablis in the physics of the time,with the discovery of positrons in cosmic rays;experimental confirmation of the relativityof time; the first electrostatic accelerator; andthe first cyclotron.

The 1930s closed with the discovery ofconvincing evidence for nuclear fission, andrecognition of the potential military conse-quences came rapidly, with theestablishment of the Manhattan Project, aswell as MIT’s Radiation Laboratory, devotedto the development of radar. These activi-ties ushered in a total seachange in thescientific and technical communities. Prior toWorld War II, basic research was directed to-ward the understanding of nature, whileinvention and technology were directed to-ward the mastery of nature, and the twoproceeded on rather parallel andnoncommunicating courses. What the war-time projects made very evident was thatbasic understanding could greatly facilitatethe development of technology, and basictechnology could facilitate whole new areasof basic research. The prewar activities thathad frequently been called natural philoso-phy and invention, respectively, wereirretrievably joined, and nowhere more sothan in physics.

This 20th century in physics began witha rush of new insights and, happily, it is end-ing in much the same way. For example,our ability to understand, to probe, and tostructure surfaces has opened up entirelynew areas of catalysis and corrosion resis-tance, and an entirely new understanding ofphenomena such as friction and adhesion.Entire optical benches and chemical labora-tories are now being fabricated on single chips

A Brief Review of Physics in the 20th Centuryby D. Allan Bromley

with nanoscale rotaryand linear motorspowering the neces-sary motions. Thedevelopment ofnew materials hashad a major impacton our ability to de-velop humanprosthetic devices toreplace both bones and soft tissue. Our un-derstanding of chaotic phenomena and theirdependence on nonlinearities and initial con-ditions marks one of the major achievementsof the 20th century in physics.

Elementary particle physics and cosmol-ogy are slowly coming together to addresssome of the most fundamental questions inphysics, because with ever more powerfulaccelerators, it becomes possible to recre-ate, if only for tiny fractions of a second, theconditions that were present within the firstmoments of the existence of our universe.Atomic and nuclear technology has foundwide application in biology and medicine,and the interconnections are growing on al-most a daily basis. In communications, singleoptical fiber bandwidths have been doublingevery nine months and the actual in-the-fieldtelephone company products now lag theresearch frontiers by only four years. Theresulting communication and computationexplosion has truly reduced our planet to aglobal village and changed the entire natureof our society. There are far too many otherexciting developments at the frontiers ofphysics to attempt a complete list here.

With regard to the future, there are tenopen questions in physics that strike me asbeing of particular interest. How does massoriginate? Does nonbaryonic dark matterexist, and if so, in what form? Why are we ina matter universe? What is the ultimate fateof our universe? What is the structure of quan-tum gravity? Are quarks and leptons trulyelementary, or composite? Do the physicalconstants change with time? What are theconsequences of a nonzero neutrino mass?How does one build a quantum computer?And finally, is room temperature supercon-ductivity possible?

Lord Raleigh, then president of the BritishAssociation for the Advancement of Science,was asked 115 years ago to give a review ofphysics in the 19th century as his presiden-tial address. He began by noting that thiswas impossible, and I know only too wellhow he felt. But I would like to quote one ofhis closing comments: “Increasing knowledgebrings with it increasing power, and great asare the triumphs of the present century, wemay well believe that they are but a fore-taste of what discovery and invention haveyet in store for mankind.”

We remain a vital, active and produc-tive science. We physicists are among themost fortunate of humans; we have beenprivileged to engage in that greatest ad-venture of discovery at a time whentechnology has allowed us to push out-ward the frontiers of knowledge atunprecedented rates. And in so doing, wehave also bettered the lives of humanseverywhere. Physics, as the most funda-mental of the sciences, will always remaina vital part of this great adventure.

Former APS President D. Allan Bromleyis Sterling Professor of the Sciences and Deanof Engineering at Yale University and formeradvisor to the Bush Administration. Theabove text was heavily condensed from hisaddress at the opening plenary session; APSCentennial Meeting; Atlanta, Georgia.

T he APS Forum on International Physics (FIP) has issued a resolution objecting to a new “advisory from the U.S. State Department with likely negative effects on the issuance of

visas to scientists from the People’s Republic of China coming to the US as scientific visitorsor students.” According to an urgent communication sent out to FIP members by 1999 FIPChair Joseph L. Birman (City College, City University of New York), the wording of the StateDepartment advisory is vague, applying to, “Applicants who are nationals of the PeoplesRepublic of China and who will be involved in an activity related to materials technology.”Says Birman, “We are concerned that it will be interpreted to encompass many fields inphysics, materials science, chemistry, and related areas.” The “advisory” requires that theapplication must get an additional “advisory opinion” from Washington before being issued,an extra step that could take at least one additional month, or longer.

RESOLUTION

The Forum is deeply concerned by the recent US State Department advisory [refer-ence to Section 221 (g) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act] which restricts visaapplications from The Peoples Republic of China. While we are mindful and supportappropriate security measures in important Laboratories we believe the advisory is ill-placed. The effect of the advisory is to deviate from the principle of The Free Circulationof Scientists to which the United States has committed itself,along with the internationalscientific community. The principle of Free Circulation is also one we have used againstrestrictions imposed by other countries. The Forum is disturbed by the generalization ofthe possible adverse activities of one individual to a larger group, and the singling out ofone group based on nationality. Our National Security depends in no small part on thevitality of the scientific enterprise — and this enterprise is put at risk by the State Depart-ment advisory. Thus, the Forum urges the leadership of the American Physical Society toprotest the State Department Advisory at the highest levels, and to publicly state itsopposition to the advisory. The Forum also urges the American Physical Society to reachout to the entire membership to inform them of the seriousness of this measure.

FIP Resolution Objects to NewState Department Advisory

D. Allan Bromley

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T uxedos and gowns, fine dining anddancing were the order of the day

for those attending the APS Centennial galacelebration, hosted by Atlanta’s FernbankMuseum. While not everyone opted for theformality of black tie fashion, most seemedto relish the opportunity leave their meetingbadges and hefty volumes of abstracts be-hind and don the requisite finery, mixing andmingling with both old and new acquaintan-ces in the distinctly elegant surroundings.

The catered buffet dinner featured threemenus from different geographical regions,while a jazz combo provided accompani-ment in a side room for anyone desiring todance. Guests milling about the upper bal-cony could stay close to the open bar whileviewing a special exhibition by award-win-ning science photographer Felice Frankel[see page 3], constructed around the themeof “Envisioning Physics.” Commissioned bythe APS specifically for the Centennial meet-ing, the exhibit is available for touring atvenues around the country. An online ver-sion can be found at http://web.mit.edu/feliceF/www/aps1.html. Those desiring ad-ditional entertainment had the option ofviewing the popular IMAX film, “CosmicVoyage,” at various screening times. Mean-while, in the auditorium, science magicianBob Friedhoffer delighted audiences withclever asides and magical sleights-of-hand,alternating 20-minute shows with Lynda Wil-liams, “the Physics Chanteuse,” who wowedthem with her cosmic cabaret, featuring suchcrowd-pleasing tunes as “Solid State of Mind”and “Carbon is a Girl’s Best Friend.”

Finally, alert attendees circling the roommight have noticed the appearance of a fewespecially stellar celebrities: Albert Einstein(two versions, in fact, for those who thoughtthey were seeing double), Marie Curie, anda dapper J. Robert Oppenheimer were onhand to greet the guests and pose for pho-tographs, all in the name of celebrating acentury of physics.

Physicists Step Out in Style at Fernbank Gala

The lavish interior of Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum, site of the APS Centennial Gala Celebration.

Above: Blowing giant soap bubbles at theFernbank Museum’s interactive scienceexhibit, open to all those attending the APSgala celebration.

At left: Listening to the tones produced by agiant wind harp at the Fernbank interactiveexhibit.

APS President Elect James Langer soaks up the elegant atmospherewith wife, Lily.

“Albert Einstein” takes a turn with “Marie Curie” during the APS galacelebration at the Fernbank Museum.

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At right: Will the real “Albert Einstein” please stand up? Gala guest gets double the fun with adifferent kind of special relativity.

Below: B.S. Chandrasekhar of CSI, APS Executive Officer Judy Franz, Charles Duke of XeroxR&D Center, and gala organizer Brian Schwartz observe the festivities from a quiet corner.

Above: An Illustrious “Nobel” Trio: Valentine Telegedi, Leon Lederman and APS PresidentJerome Friedman pause in their revels for the camera.

At left: Ken McNaughton, editor of The Industrial Physicist magazine, gets a brush withgreatness as he hobnobs with “Marie Curie” and a dapper “J. Robert Oppenheimer.”

Lynda Williams, a.k.a. “The PhysicsChanteuse,” gave three standing-room-onlyperformances in the Fernbank auditorium.

Above: Science magician Bob Friedhoffer enchants young partygoer with ademonstration of the principles of air pressure.

At right: Isaac Chuang of IBM/Almaden investigates acoustic resonance.

Emory University’s Sid Perkowitz admires thefashionably “retro” bowtie of APS AssociateExecutive Officer (and APS News editor) BarrettRipin, while Marilyn Ripin looks on. Sara Schechner,curator of the Physics Works! and APS Historyexhibits, enjoys conversation at the table.

Newly elected New Jersey CongressmanRush Holt compares notes on “What’s New”in Washington with Robert Park, APSDirector of Public Affairs.

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At left: Science magician Bob Friedhoffer elicits a smile from 1999Lilienfeld Prizewinner Stephen Hawking.

Below: Centennial meeting attendees peruse the APS HistoryExhibit featured in the GWCC lobby.

Sid Perkowitz answers students questions following a Friday publiclecture on the physics of beer.

Noontime passerby takes in Eric Heller’s exhibit on Fractals and Chaos, on display outside the Georgia PacificBuilding auditorium.

Atlanta art students take in the Microscapes exhibit sponsored by Lucent Technology.

Above: Atlanta’sRialto Theatremarqueeannouncing “ThePhysics of StarTrek” public lecture.

At left: “Star Trek”guru LawrenceKrauss explains thefiner points of theEnterprise’s many(as yet uninvented)technologicalmarvels.

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Physics Festival

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At right: Even baseball, the All-American pasttime, has benefited from understandingphysics principles, as deomnstrated by NYU’s Richard Brandt.

Below: AIP Executive Officer Marc Brodsky crouches in the quantum corral, part of thePhysics Works! exhibit at the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC).

At right: Robert Greenlerdemonstrates the geometricstructure of ice crystals responsiblefor “halo effects” at the South Poleduring a lunchtime public lecture.

Brian Holmes employs various brass instruments to demonstrate thebasic physics principles behind them.

Above: Noontime demonstration of air pressure by HamptonUniversity demo team.

At right: “Fractals and Art” lecturer Richard Voss following hispresentation at the Woodruff Arts Center.

Ken Laws and his best ballerina demonstratethe physics of dance.

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INSIDE THE BELTWAYA Washington AnalysisScience educators looking for new

ways to pique their students’interest should be pleased to hearabout SportsFigures, an innovative,award-winning educational televisionseries that employs sports celebrities,irreverent humor, edgy music, excitinglocations, lively hosts, cool graphicsand a fast pace to engage kids and getthem interested in learning. Producedin association with ESPN, the seriespremiered in 1995 as part of theindustry-wide program, Cable in theClassroom. It’s designed to teachyoung people, aged 12 to 16, theprinciples of physics and math usingsports to grab their attention andprovide a practical real-life example.

Each weekly, commercial-free, half-hour show features two segments inwhich a celebrity athlete helps takethe math or physics problem out ofthe classroom and into the field, ex-ploring such questions as why a curveball curves, and why a gymnast spinsfaster in a tuck position. The 1998-1999 season features segments onbaseball, soccer, track, sailing, race cars,scuba diving, basketball, snowboardingand golf.

The recent recipient of a Parent’sChoice Award for educational television,SportsFigures’ only problem seems to bethat no one knows of its existence, nodoubt due to the air time: Monday morn-ings at 5:30 AM on ESPN2. But hopefullythat will soon change. ESPN recently an-nounced that, through sponsorship withInfoseek’s GO Network, it will distributethe series to all 18,000 public and pri-vate U.S. high schools. ESPN alreadyprovides free curriculum guides to ac-company the television episodes,including lesson plans and student activ-ity sheets. Copies are available on theWeb at http://www.ESPN.com.

FUTURE SHOWTIMESEditor’s Note: Episode 1, featur-

ing segments on “Running withMomentum” and “Relaxing with Im-pulse” as illustrated in the NFL, lastaired on April 26, 1999.

Episode 2 — Airs May 3, 1999That Mu You Do. Features

NASCAR superstar Jeff Gordon. Howdoes friction keep a NASCAR car onthe track? Explores what friction is andhow to quantify it.

Bouncing Basketballs. FeaturesWNBA Sacramento Monarchs star

Pamela McGee. Why does a basket-ball bounce? How does a league getall the balls to bounce the same?

Episode 3 — Airs May 10, 1999The Sounds of Summer. Features

New York Yankees All-Star shortstopDerek Jeter. Explores the travel of lightand sound and how a game is broad-cast.

Golf is a Drag. Features PGAgolfer Harrison Frazer. Hooks and slicesplague golfers. The physics of aero-dynamics can help solve the problem.

Episode 4 — Airs May 17, 1999In Golf Gravitas. Features PGA

putter Brad Faxon. Explores how un-derstanding topography can help youmaster your putting.

Tracking Speed. World championand Olympic gold medalist decathleteDan O’Brien sprints through the phys-ics of motion to explore speed versusacceleration.

Episode 5 — Airs May 24, 1999The Trig to Soccer. Olympic team

gold medalist Julie Foudy talks aboutsoccer, life and trigonometry in a prac-tical introduction to tangents.

Sailing Through Bernoulli. Pro-fessional sailboat racer Scott Dicksonand yacht designer Alan Andrews helpexplain the physics of a sailboat interms of the Bernoulli principle andforce vectors.

Episode 6 — Airs May 31, 1999Shooting Stats. Features the NBA’s

second highest scorer, Ruthie Bolton-Holifield of the Sacramento Monarchsand Olympic Dream team, and ex-plores what statistics mean to a player.

Math Under Pressure. RichardMurphy, director of the Jean-MichelCousteau Institute, helps demonstratethe principles of atmospheres and pres-sure along with some algebra.

Episode 7 — Airs June 7, 1999Big Air Rules. Features world-

class brother/sister snowboardersMike and Tina Basich. Explores thephysics of projectile trajectory andparabolas through the jumps ofsnowboarders.

How Sweet It Is. Features At-lanta Braves All-Star Third BasemanChipper Jones. Explores the physicsof standing waves and vibrationalnodes, such as why hitting a ball witha bat sometimes hurts your hands.

ESPN2 Series Investigatesthe Science in Sports

Getting out of Washington is onething; getting away from

Washington, something else. Atlantainjected hospitality into the politicalrhetoric during the APS Centennial, butit couldn’t mask the fault lines entirely.

No surprise there, you say. Put a Demo-crat and a Republican on the same platform,and there’s bound to be some quaking. But,in the case of Atlanta, you’d be wrong.

At the Centennial Symposium, SciencePolicy for the New Millennium, sponsoredby the Forum on Physics and Society, itwasn’t Representatives Vern Ehlers (R-MI)or Rush Holt (D-NJ) who rattled any cages.It was Defense Research and EngineeringDirector Hans Mark, the chief technologyadvisor to the Secretary of Defense.

A former Secretary of the Air Force from1979 to 1981 and later Chancellor of theUniversity of Texas System, Mark holds aPh.D. in physics from the Massachusetts In-stitute of Technology. He is a member ofthe National Academy of Engineering and afellow of the American Physical Society, theAmerican Association for the Advancementof Science and the American Institute of Aero-nautics and Astronautics. He holds fourhonorary degrees and a host of medals forpublic service and scientific achievement. Heis, in short, well credentialed, a person whocommands your attention.

He didn’t disappoint. For openers, hechallenged the very premise of the sympo-sium. Is he right? You be the judge.

When the Berlin Wall came crashing downa decade ago, Beltway science advocatesbegan to search for rationales to replace na-tional defense as the umbrella for Federalinvestments in research. Biology found dis-ease and everyone else found the economy.

Mark, though, says that defense is still the800 pound gorilla, accounting for just over53 percent of Federal R&D outlays in FiscalYear 1999, almost exactly what it was thirtyyears ago. Moreover, he notes, in 1949, out-lays for defense R&D amounted to 0.3percent of the Gross Domestic Product. To-day, it is 0.4 percent. To discern policy, hesays, follow the money trail. It goes to thesame place it did a quarter or a half centuryago.

Perhaps he was too kind to say so, orperhaps he simply had not read Vern Ehlers’sreport, Unlocking Our Future, which the

Cornpone and Southern Comfortby Michael S. Lubell, APS Director of Public Affairs

House of Representatives endorsed last fall.But Mark was making a frontal assault onthat document. Here’s what Ehlers and theHouse Science Committee had said:

“The end of the Cold War had a profoundimpact on the Nation’s research and devel-opment enterprise, and brought with it theend of the second mega-era of science policy.Without the backdrop of the Soviet militarythreat or the race to conquer space, convinc-ing and often-used justifications for federalresearch funding became less compelling.”

It might have been Southern air or just hisnaturally non-confrontational manner, butEhlers opted not to fight. He, Holt or Na-tional Science Foundation Director RitaColwell, the fourth panelist, could havepointed out that today, defense accounts foronly a quarter of Federally funded research— development dominates defense R&D— while in 1949, it accounted for almost allof it. But none of them did. Nor did any ofthem point out that Federal R&D outlays nowaccount for only 0.8 percent of the GrossDomestic Product, compared to 2.2 percentnear the peak of the defense build-up inFiscal Year 1964 and 1.1 percent just a de-cade ago.

Mark also staked out his own patch ofcontroversial territory on missile defense.Responding to a query from the audience,he said, “[There is] no question that wecan build a national missile defense sys-tem designed to protect the continentalUnited States against attack.... By defini-tion, this is feasible, and it can be built.”Right or wrong, you could almost heardropping jaws hit the floor.

Only a few days earlier, Ehlers and Holt,the only two physicists in Congress, hadvoted against the House National MissileDefense bill on the grounds that techno-logical and scientific feasibility of thesystem remains largely unproven. Holthad put it succinctly in the floor debate:“Wishing won’t overrule physics.”

But if Mark, whose assertion representsthe strongest position yet articulated by asenior member of the Clinton Administra-tion, was looking for a fight, Holt and Ehlersrefused to rise to the occasion. Would theyhave, had the Washington media beenprowling around, as they do inside theBeltway? Perhaps it was just Atlanta eti-quette: cornpone and Southern comfort.

zero gravity

The Official 1998 Pigasus AwardsAwarded by the James Randi Educational Foundation

Every April 1st, the James Randi EducationalFoundation (JREF) announces the covetedPigasus awards in four categories, for accom-plishments in the period from January 1 toDecember 31. The awards are announcedvia telepathy, the winners are allowed topredict their winning, and the Flying Pig tro-phies are sent via psychokinesis. “We send;if they don’t receive, that’s probably due totheir lack of ability,” the foundation insists.This year, the foundation awarded the prizesto the following individuals:

Science: Dr. Jacques BenvenisteCategory #1, to the scientist who said or didthe silliest thing related to the supernatural,paranormal or occult, goes to Dr. JacquesBenveniste, for his insistence that the magi-cal qualities of homeopathic medicines can

be transmitted via the Internet in digital form,transferring curative qualities from a bottle ofhomeopathic water located in Paris, France,to a bottle of quite ordinary water located inAlbuquerque, New Mexico. For this amazingdiscovery, Dr. Benveniste also became theonly individual to have received the Ig NobelPrize awarded by the Annals of ImprobableResearch, twice! Surely French pseudosciencecan take pride in this distinction. (The JREFhas offered a one-million-dollar prize to anyhomeopath who can distinguish between ho-meopathic and non-homeopathic water.)

Funding: Mr. Joe FirmageCategory #2, to the funding organization thatsupported the most useless study of a su-pernatural, paranormal or occult, goes to Mr.Joe Firmage, the computer genius who gave

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rgup his $2.1 billion company to pursuehumanity’s potential rendezvous with spacealiens, despite a perceived government con-spiracy to conceal the abundant evidencehe says exists. He points to “retro-research,”which he says explains the existence of thetransistor, which ordinary mortals were un-able to develop without first finding thetechnology on one of those numerouscrashed UFOs. Mr. Firmage has published a600-page manifesto titled, “The Truth,” whichhe describes as a “synthesis of science andfaith.”

Media: Montel WilliamsCategory #3, to the media outlet that reportedas fact the most outrageous supernatural,paranormal or occult claim, the prize goes toTV talk show host, Montel Williams, who hasessentially made one Sylvia Browne into apsychic superstar by featuring her on showafter show doing her second-guessing act totitillate the public. (On a 1989 TV special,Sylvia gave a demonstration of her powers.On this occasion, she was not allowed to con-

tact the potential subjectsin advance, and her perfor-mance was singularlyunimpressive.)

Psychic: James VanPraaghCategory #4, to the “psy-chic” performer who fooled the greatestnumber of people with the least effort, isgiven this year to the very popular best-sell-ing author and psychic performer, James VanPraagh, who is a “cold reader” featured onalmost every major TV program, some ofthem more than once. Though he is a me-diocre performer, he has gained a hugefollowing of bereaved persons who embracehis banal and obvious statements as evidenceof the return of the deceased. In our experi-ence, there are much better performers ofthis art working the circuits today.More information on past and presentPigasus Awards, and the James Randi Edu-cational Foundation in general, can befound online at http://www.randi.org.

APS News May 1999

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Buried among the plethora oftechnical sessions at the APS Centennial

meeting were four unique symposiasponsored by the Society of Physics Students(SPS), intended to showcase undergraduatephysics research. Approximately 30 paperswere presented on such topics as the use ofLEDs to measure Planck’s constant,photoassociative spectroscopy of laser-cooled atoms, northern lights and magneticstorms, monitoring metallic compounds inrocket plumes, stability analysis of coupledchaotic oscillators, and aperture effects inoptical resonators.

According to Bo Hammer, Education Man-ager at the American Institute of Physics (AIP),the idea behind holding undergraduate re-search sessions at the national meetings ofAIP member societies is that these sessionssignificantly add to the professional devel-opment and sophistication of participatingstudents. “The physics curriculum is prettystandard, regardless of where you go toschool,” he says. “The thing that distinguishesmany physics programs is whetherundergrads have the opportunity to do re-search and then participate as physicists indisseminating their results among their peers.”SPS and its cadre of faculty mentors providesstudents with this opportunity in a nationallyorganized way, supplementing the traditionalundergraduate experience. The AIP plans to

leverage the success of the Centennialundergrad symposia into a greater presenceat the meetings of other AIP member societ-ies. A prime example of the positive impactof such experiences can be seen in the strongpresence of undergraduate researchers fromthe physics department at Northwestern StateUniversity (NSU) in Louisiana, headed byProfessor Gary White. His student, KristenRussell, gave one of the more intriguing talksduring Wednesday’s focus session. She pre-sented a mathematical connection betweenFermat’s principle — in which light choosesa path that minimizes the time of travel as itpasses through different substances — andthe often vexing “rental car problems,” inwhich one tries to minimize the cost of fuelin a round trip between cities with varyingfuel prices along the way — all while return-ing with a full tank of gas.

Russell also collaborated with fellow stu-dents Benjamin Williams and Holly Arabieon a new method for producing curved lightpaths in the laboratory using a thermal gradi-ent instead of the usual sugar solution. Thebehavior of light in a mirage was then math-ematically modeled using the differential formof Snell’s law. Sports provided a rich arenafor other NSU undergraduate researchers. SethLeGrand focused on baseball bats and thesignificance of torsional modes in relation tothe “sweet spot” of a bat. He experimen-

SPS Symposia Showcase Undergrad Research

APS Past President Andrew Sessler (University of California, Berkeley)

invoked a glorious past as evidence of ahopeful future in his traditional retiringpresidential address, presented during asession at the APS Centennial that alsohonored the recipients of thirty-one of theprizes and awards given by the Society in1999. [see special honors insert, APS News,March 1999]

Sessler first reviewed a few highlights ofthe last century of physics, beginning withthe discoveries of the electron (1897), radio-activity (1896) and X-rays (1895), movingthrough to the explosion of revolutionarybreakthroughs and technological develop-ments that now form the backbone ofmodern society. He also commented on theways in which the sociology of physics haschanged in the last 100 years. “No longerdoes a single professor, with one student,work in a physics building basement or atticwith antiquated, dusty and inadequate equip-ment,” he said. “Most physicists work in largegroups, with large machines, which requiretravel, with consequent impact upon teach-ing and presence at the home facility.”

In addition, rapid improvements in com-munication and transportation — jet airplanes,FAXes, emails and the like — have helpedglobalize the physics enterprise, making it

Sessler Reviews “Glorious” Past, Sees HopefulFuture in Retiring Presidential Address

much easier to keep current with the workof researchers throughout the world. Fund-ing practices have also changed since thebeginning of the 20th century, when researchwas supported modestly by private founda-tions, universities, industry, and even byphysicists themselves. Today most financialsupport of physics has come from the U.S.government, in recognition of the importanceof physics research to the continued eco-nomic growth and well-being of the country.

And the APS has evolved right along withthese social and institutional changes. In par-ticular, Sessler emphasized the transition froma primarily research-oriented organization toone concerned about broader social concernsand impacts related to the physics enterprise.Sessler cited 1953 as a pivotal year in thechanging nature of the APS. That was theyear when Allen V. Astin, director of the Na-tional Bureau of Standards, was fired over abattery acid that the NBS found to be “worth-less,” prompting the APS Council to integrityof scientists in government service. It wasalso the year that J. Robert Oppenheimerfound himself the subject of a federal inves-tigation on alleged breaches of security, withsubsequent revoking of his security clearance.The incident caused the APS through thenPresident Hans Bethe to protest the unfair-ness of the reprimand, which he believed

Keynote address (continued from page 1)

tally calculated the spring constant for tor-sional modes (i.e., the twisting of a bat alongits axis), and estimated typical baseball colli-sion forces to find the resulting angle oftwisting with respect to torsional modes. Al-though many papers have discussed thebaseball bat problem, says LeGrand, therehas been little or no mention of torsionalmodes and how they might affect the loca-tion of the sweet spot of a baseball bat (seeZero Gravity, page 5, for more on the phys-ics of baseball). Magnus Akerstrom, exploredthe simple harmonic motion of a golf shaft.Watching a golf swing in slow motion, hebecame intrigued by the fact that the golfshaft bends forward at the moment of im-pact when hitting a drive. To explain whythis happens, Akerstrom pictured the golfshaft’s flex as a simple harmonic oscillator,then determined the shaft’s spring constantand used those measurements to calculate afrequency, confirming his findings. His talkemployed these parameters to understandwhy good golfers have this flex of the shaft.

Two papers specifically dealt with edu-cational issues. Charles Miller and CourtneyWillis of the University of Northern Coloradodeveloped applications and activities relatedto Kepler’s three laws of planetary motionsuitable for use in elementary classrooms,helping young students to build a firm con-ceptual understanding of them despite their

limited mathematical background.Other student researchers sought to ad-

dress practical applications. Gregory Kubicekof Creighton University reported on his ef-forts to determine a new standard for theradio-pharmaceutical known asfluorodeoxyglucose (FDG), used as a tracerelement in PET scans. However, some dosecalibrator readings used to measure theamount of radiation being injected into pa-tients are incorrect. “With the growth in thenumber of PET procedures using FDG, it isvital to have accurate information concern-ing the exact amount of radiation used insuch techniques,” said Kubicek of his inter-est in this research. “Creating and correctingstandards for radioactive diagnostics is animportant step in maintaining the efficiency,integrity, and safety within the nuclear medi-cine community.”

was “based on policy disagreement,” in 1954.That was the year when the McCarran Im-migration Act was invoked to deny a visa toPaul Dirac, who had been invited to spent ayear at the Institute of Advanced Study inPrinceton.

According to Sessler, the precedents forsocial awareness and action set during the1950s continued into the turbulent 1960s andbeyond, with the formation of the Forum onPhysics and Society, and of committees de-voted to women and minorities in physics,national science policy, and federal fundingof scientific research. By the 1980s, interna-tional activities also moved to the forefront,with the Society’s highly successful scholarlyexchange program with China, and a pro-gram to aid colleagues in the former SovietUnion in 1992. And in the last decade, grow-ing concern over the careers and professionaldevelopment of physicists, and the relationof the Society to applied physics, resulted inthe establishment of respective committeesand subunits devoted to addressing those is-sues.

Sessler described the APS today as being“in excellent shape; it is far and away thestrongest physical society in the world andone of the strongest professional societies inAmerica.” But he views the Society’s keysource of strength as the excellent officers

and scientific innovation, which is crucialif the country is to remain a global leaderin the next millennium. With this goal inmind, he reported that the DOE is dedi-cated to improving the opportunities ofwell-trained scientists to pursue innova-tive research, to educate the nextgeneration of scientists, and to apply sci-ence in all areas of importance in the U.S.“I don’t know what the next century willbring, but I am doing what I can to ensurethe right conditions that science will con-tinue to flourish in the 21st century.”

Richardson concluded his speech witha dramatic unveiling — complete withdrum rolls — of “A Century of Physics,”a timeline wall chart funded by Lucent

and staff, the many volunteers that keep thevarious units, committees and programs inoperation, and an excellent journal refereesystem to maintain the high quality of pa-pers published in the Physical Review.

In terms of the future, Sessler cited theimpact of electronic publishing, continuedfractionalization of the physics enterprise (andhence within the APS itself), science educa-tion, and public information and outreach asamong the critical issues the APS must facein the coming years. Yet he remains reso-lutely optimistic about the Society’s ability tomeet those challenges. “Because we are ableto stand on the shoulders of giants — namely,the shoulders of all those who preceded usand built the Society into its present state —we are ready to move on to the next 100years,” he concluded. “Our future looks good.I think it will be even more glorious than ourglorious past.”

The full text of Andrew Sessler’s retiringpresidential address is available on the APSWeb site: http://www.aps.org/ under the APSNews button. Dr. Sessler’s APS historical re-marks were based on materials in the exhibitTo Advance and Diffuse the Knowledge ofPhysics—100 Years of the APS (see page 2),and a forth coming brief history of the APSby Harry Lustig.

Technologies as well as the Departmentof Energy, National Science Foundationand United Parcel Service, to mark theAPS Centennial. Excerpted monthly inAPS News for the past year, the chartchronicles the discoveries of physics andtheir impacts on each decade of the 20thcentury. The full-sized panels were dis-played April 14 in the foyer of theRayburn Congressional office building inWashington, DC, and will be distributedfree of charge to 20,000 colleges, uni-versities, high schools, libraries andscience centers throughout the country.

A complementary website has beendeveloped with support from IBM Cor-poration which allows more in depthexploration of the timeline. The websiteaddress is www.timeline.aps.org.

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Happiness is: Students & Free Food Nearlytwo thousand attended an APS sponsoredstudent luncheon Wednesday at the Centennial.

US Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson delivered the keynoteaddress and unveiling the APS timeline wall chart at the APSCentennial meeting.

May 1999 APS News

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AnnouncementsAPS UNDERGRADUATE PHYSICS STUDENT COMPETITION

1999 APKER AWARDSFor Outstanding Undergraduate Student Research in Physics

Endowed by Jean Dickey Apker, in memory of LeRoy Apker

DESCRIPTIONTwo awards are normally made each year: One to a student attending an institutionoffering a Physics Ph.D. and one to a student attending an institution not offeringa Physics Ph.D.• Recipients receive a $5,000 award; finalists receive $1,000. They also receive

an allowance for travel to the Award presentation.• Recipients’ and finalists’ home institutions receive $5,000 and $500, respectively,

to support undergraduate research.• Recipients, finalists and their home physics departments will be presented with

plaques or certificates of achievement. The student’s home institution isprominently featured on all awards and news stories of the competition.

• Each nominee will be granted a free APS Student Membership for one yearupon receipt of their completed application.

QUALIFICATIONS• Students who have been enrolled as undergraduates at colleges and universities

in the United States at least one quarter/semester during the year preceding the15 June 1999 deadline.

• Students who have an excellent academic record and have demonstrated exceptionalpotential for scientific research through an original contribution to physics.

• Only one candidate may be nominated per department.

APPLICATION PROCEDUREThe complete nomination package is due on or before 15 June 1999 and shouldinclude:

1. A letter of nomination from the head of the student’s academic department2. An official copy of the student’s academic transcript3. A description of the original contribution, written by the student such as a

manuscript or reprint of a research publication or senior thesis (unbound)4. A 1000-word summary, written by the student, describing his or her research5. Two letters of recommendation from physicists who know the candidate’s

individual contribution to the work submitted6. The nominee’s address and telephone number during the summer.

FURTHER INFORMATION (See http://www.aps.org/praw/apker/descrip.html)

DEADLINESend name of proposed candidate and supporting information by 15 June 1999 to:

Dr. Barrie Ripin, Administrator, Apker Award Selection CommitteeThe American Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD20740-3844; Telephone: (301) 209-3268, Fax: (301) 209-0865,email: ripin@aps.org

▼

MEETING BRIEFS• The APS New England Section held its annual spring meeting April9-10 at Yale University’s Sloane Physics Laboratory in New Haven, Con-necticut. Friday afternoon’s sessions focused on the history of physics,with talks on Lars Onsager’s tenure at Yale, J.W. Gibbs at the beginningof the 20th century, and the physics of water. The session was fol-lowed by a banquet at the New Haven Lawn Club, featuring a keynoteaddress by Yale’s Bradley Schaefer on superflares on normal, Sun-likestars. On Saturday morning, Gregor Novak of Purdue University dis-cussed how to use the World Wide Web to teach physics, while RobinOllerhead of the University of Guelph gave an update on recent re-sults from the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.

• The APS New York State Section held its annual spring meetingApril 23-24 at Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, New Jersey, orga-nized around the theme of “The Physics of Communication.” Topicsincluded lightwave systems, wireless systems, silicon VLSI and newmaterials, and presentations were given by a wide spectrum of research-ers from industry, university and government laboratories. The Lucent-affiliated speakers addressed such subjects as optical nonlinearities inglasses; fiber grating devices; the physics of microwave materials; neu-ral circuits; the physics of novel materials for communications; MEMs;and ultrasmall transistors.

• The APS Ohio Section held its annual spring meeting April 30-May 1, atKettering University in Flint, Michigan, on the theme of industrial andapplied physics. Speakers at the Friday afternoon and Saturday morn-ing sessions addressed such topics as MEMs; thermoacoustics; opticsfor processes, products and metrology; and materials simulation andthe workplace. Friday evening’s banquet featured a keynote addressby Leonard Brillson of Ohio State University on the changing roles ofresearchers in industry.

Call for Nominations for Y2KAPS Prizes and Awards

Members are invited to nominate candidates to the respective committees chargedwith the privilege of recommending the recipients. A brief description of each prizeand award is given in the March 1999 APS News Honors and Awards insert, availableonline at www.aps.org under the APS News button, along with the addresses of theselection committee chairs to whom nominations should be sent. Please refer to theAPS Membership Directory, pages A21-A40, for complete information regarding rulesand eligibility requirements for individual prizes and awards or visit the Prize and Awardspage on the APS web site at www.aps.org under the Prize and Awards button.

PRIZESPRIZESPRIZESPRIZESPRIZESWILL ALLIS PRIZE FOR THE STUDY OF IONIZED GASES

HANS A. BETHE PRIZEBIOLOGICAL PHYSICS PRIZE

TOM W. BONNER PRIZE IN NUCLEAR PHYSICSOLIVER E. BUCKLEY CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS PRIZE

DAVISSON-GERMER PRIZE IN ATOMIC OR SURFACE PHYSICSDANNIE HEINEMAN PRIZE FOR MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS

HIGH POLYMER PHYSICS PRIZEFRANK ISAKSON PRIZE FOR OPTICAL EFFECTS IN SOLIDS

JULIUS EDGAR LILIENFELD PRIZEJAMES C. MCGRODDY PRIZE FOR NEW MATERIALS

LARS ONSAGER PRIZEGEORGE E. PAKE PRIZE

W.K.H. PANOFSKY PRIZE IN EXPERIMENTAL PARTICLE PHYSICSEARLE K. PLYLER PRIZE FOR MOLECULAR SPECTROSCOPY

I. I. RABI PRIZE IN ATOMIC, MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICSANEESUR RAHMAN PRIZE FOR COMPUTATIONAL PHYSICSJ. J. SAKURAI PRIZE FOR THEORETICAL PARTICLE PHYSICS

ARTHUR L. SCHAWLOW PRIZE IN LASER SCIENCEPRIZE TO A FACULTY MEMBER FOR RESEARCH IN AN UNDERGRADUATE INSTITUTION

ROBERT R. WILSON PRIZE

AWARDSAWARDSAWARDSAWARDSAWARDSLEROY APKER AWARD (15 June 1999 Deadline)

JOSEPH A. BURTON FORUM AWARDMARIA GOEPPERT-MAYER AWARD

JOSEPH F. KEITHLEY AWARD FOR ADVANCES IN MEASUREMENT SCIENCE

MEDALS AND LECTURESHIPSMEDALS AND LECTURESHIPSMEDALS AND LECTURESHIPSMEDALS AND LECTURESHIPSMEDALS AND LECTURESHIPSDAVID ADLER LECTURESHIP AWARD

EDWARD A. BOUCHET AWARDJOHN H. DILLON MEDAL

LEO SZILARD LECTURESHIP AWARD

DISSERDISSERDISSERDISSERDISSERTTTTTAAAAATION ATION ATION ATION ATION AWWWWWARDSARDSARDSARDSARDSOUTSTANDING DOCTORAL THESIS RESEARCH IN BEAM PHYSICS AWARD

NICHOLAS METROPOLIS AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING DOCTORAL THESIS WORK IN COMPUTA-TIONAL PHYSICS

DISSERTATION AWARD IN NUCLEAR PHYSICS

NOMINATION DEADLINE IS JULY 1, 1999,UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED.

The discoveries and inventions of physicists in this century have revolutionizedmodern life. One hundred years ago, scientists questioned the very existence ofatoms and knew almost nothing about the cosmos. Today, physicists can arrangeindividual atoms on a surface and make an image of the result, and have begunto unravel the history of time and the universe.

In this book, Curt Suplee, science writer and editor at The Washington Post,documents one of the most remarkable flowerings of knowledge in human history.The extraordinary illustrations focus mainly on the remarkable images—from theatomic to the cosmic scale, made possible by the instruments of advanced physics.Also included are photographs of experimental equipment—massive particlecolliders are beautiful in their own right—and pioneering inventions.

This stunning volume is sponsored by the APS and the AIP on the occasion ofthe centennial of the American Physical Society. You will want a copy on your owncoffee table and another for your parents and children who have always wonderedwhy you find physics so fascinating. Now they will know!

Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club.225 illustrations, 125 in full color, 224 pages, 9 1/4 x 11”

$49.50 (Can $75.00)

US and Canadianmembers may ordera copy for $29.95plus shipping costs

and applicabletaxes for a limited

time throughwebsite:

www.aps.org/physicsbook.html.

Physics in the 20th CenturyBy Curt Suplee; Edited by Judy R. Franz and John S. Rigden

Time-exposure photograph of a nuclear fusion experiment.

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The Back Page is intended as a forum to foster discussion on topics of interest to the scientific community. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the APS, its elected officers, or staff. APS Newswelcomes and encourages letters and submissions from its members responding to these and other issues. Responses may be sent to: letters@aps.org.

THE BACK PAGEThe Science and Politics of Climateby Freeman J. Dyson

In the nineteen-sixties the fluiddynamicist Syukuro Manabe was

running global climate models onthe supe rcompute r a t theGeophys i ca l F lu id Dynamic sLaboratory in Princeton. Manabebegan very early (before it becamefashionable) to run models of climatewith variable amounts of carbondioxide in the atmosphere. He ranmodels with carbon dioxide at twoand fou r t imes the p re sen tabundance, and saw in the computeroutput the rise in average groundtemperature that is now called GlobalWarming. He told everybody not tobe l i eve the numbers . Bu t thepoliticians in Washington believed.They wanted numbers, he gave themnumbers, so they naturally believedthe numbers.

It was not unreasonable for politi-cians to believe Manabe’s numbers.Politics and science are two very dif-ferent games. In science, you are notsupposed to believe the numbers un-til you have examined the evidencecarefully. If the evidence is dubious,a good scientist will suspend judg-ment. In politics, you are supposedto make decisions. Politicians are ac-customed to making decisions basedon shaky evidence. They have tovote yes or no, and they generallydo not have the luxury of suspend-ing judgment. Manabe’s numberswere clear and simple. They said ifthe carbon dioxide goes up, theplanet will get warmer. So it was rea-sonable for politicians to believethem. Belief for a politician is not thesame thing as belief for a scientist.

Manabe’s numbers were unreliablebecause his computer models didnot really simulate the physical pro-cesses going on in the atmosphere.Over and over again he said that hispurpose when he ran computer mod-els was not to predict climate but tounderstand it. But nobody listened.Everyone thought he was predictingclimate, everyone believed his num-bers.

The biosphere of the earth con-tains four reservoirs of carbon: theatmosphere, the ocean, the vegeta-tion and the soil. All four reservoirsare of comparable size, so that theproblem of climate is inescapablymixed up with the problems of veg-etation and soil. The intertwiningbetween the four reservoirs is sostrong that it makes no sense to con-sider the atmosphere and oceanalone. Computer models of atmo-sphere and ocean, even if they canbe made reliable, give at best a par-tial view of the problem. The largeeffects of vegetation and soil cannotbe computed but must be observedand measured.

The way the problem is custom-arily presented to the public isseriously misleading. The public isled to believe that the carbon diox-ide problem has a single cause anda single consequence. The singlecause is fossil fuel burning, the singleconsequence is global warming. In

reality there are multiple causes andmultiple consequences. The atmo-spheric carbon dioxide that drivesglobal warming is only the tail of thedog. The dog that wags the tail isthe global ecology: forests, farms andswamps, as well as power-stations,factories and automobiles. And theincrease of carbon dioxide in the at-mosphere has other consequencesthat may be at least as important asglobal warming — increasing cropyields and growth of forests, for ex-ample. To handle the problemintelligently, we need to understandall the causes and all the conse-quences.

Several successful, important pro-grams of local observation have beenstarted in recent years. One programis measuring directly the fluxes ofcarbon dioxide moving between theatmosphere and the biosphere. Thisis done by putting instruments ontowers above the local trees or othervegetation. In daytime in the sum-mer, the vegetation is vigorouslyabsorbing carbon dioxide. At night orin winter, the flux is going the otherway, with plants giving off carbondioxide by respiration. The soil alsogives off substantial fluxes of carbondioxide, mostly from respiration ofmicrobes and fungi. The instrumentsdo not distinguish between vegeta-tion and soil. They measure the totalflux leaving or entering the atmo-sphere.

During the last few years, instru-mented sites have been built inmany countries around the world.Within a few years, we will know forsure how much of the carbon re-leased by fossil fuel burning isabsorbed by forests and how muchby the ocean. And the same tech-nique can be used to monitor thecarbon fluxes over agricultural crop-lands, wetlands and grasslands. It willgive us the knowledge required, sothat we can use the tools of land man-agement intelligently to regulate thecarbon in the atmosphere. Whetherwe manage the land wisely or mis-manage it foolishly, we shall at leastknow what good or harm we aredoing to the atmosphere.

The amount of money spent onlocal observations is small, but themoney has been well spent. TheDepartment of Energy is fundinganother successful program calledAtmospheric Radiation Measure-ments (ARM). ARM’s activities aremainly concentrated at a single per-manent site in Oklahoma, wheresystematic observations of radiationfluxes in the atmosphere are madewith instruments on the ground andon a i rp lanes f ly ing a t var iousheights. Measurements are made allthe year round in a var iety ofweather conditions. As a result, wehave a database of radiation fluxes,in a clear sky and in cloud and be-tween clouds.

One of the most important mea-surements is made by two airplanesflying one above the other at differ-

ent heights. Each airplane measuresthe fluxes of radiation coming upfrom below and down from above.The difference measures the localabsorption of radiation by the atmo-sphere. The measured absorption ofsunlight turns out to be substantiallylarger than expected. The expectedabsorption was derived partly fromtheory and partly from space-basedmeasurements. The discrepancy isstill unexplained. If it turns out thatthe anamolous absorption measuredby ARM is real, this will mean thatall the global climate models are us-ing wrong numbers for absorption.

A third highly successful programof local measurements is calledAcoustic Thermometry of Ocean Cli-mate (ATOC). It is the brainchild ofWalter Munk at the Scripps Institu-tion of Oceanography. ATOC useslow-frequency underwater sound tomeasure ocean temperatures. A sig-nal is transmitted from a source ontop of a seamount at a depth of threethousand feet near San Francisco, andreceived at six receivers in deepwater around the north Pacific. Thetimes of arrival of signals at the re-ceivers are accurately measured.Since the speed of propagation de-pends on temperature, averagetemperatures of the water along thepropagation paths can be deduced.

The main obstacle that WalterMunk had to overcome to get theAOTC project started was the oppo-sition of environmental activists. Thisis a long and sad story which I don’thave time to tell. The activists de-c ided tha t Munk was an ev i lcharacter and that his acoustic trans-missions would endanger the whalesin the ocean by interfering with theirsocial communications. They ha-rassed him with lawsuits, delayingthe project for several years. Munktried in vain to convince them thathe also cared about the whales andwas determined not to do them anyunintentional harm. In the end, theproject was allowed to go forwardwith less than half of the small bud-get spent on monitoring the oceanand more than half spent on moni-toring the whales. No evidence wasfound that any whale ever paid anyattention to the transmissions. Butthe activities are continuing theiropposition to the project and its fu-ture is still in doubt.

During the two years that theATOC system has been operating,seasonal variations of temperaturehave been observed, giving impor-tant new information about energytransport in the ocean. If measure-ments are continued for ten yearsand extended to other oceans, itshould be possible to separate asteady increase of temperature dueto global warming from fluctuationsdue to processes like El Niño thatvary from year to year. Since theocean is the major reservoir of heatfor the entire climate system, a mea-surement of ocean temperature isthe most reliable indicator of global

warming. We may hope that the ac-tivists will one day admit that anunderstanding of climate change isas essential to the preservation ofwildlife as it is to the progress of sci-ence.

To summarize what we havelearned, there is good news and badnews. The good news is that we areat last putting serious effort andmoney into local observations. Localobservations are laborious and slow,but they are essential if we are everto have an accurate picture of cli-mate. The bad news is that theclimate models on which so mucheffort is expended are unreliable be-cause they still use fudge-factorsrather than physics to represent im-portant things like evaporation andconvection, clouds and rainfall.

Besides the general prevalence offudge-factors, the latest and biggestclimate models have other defectsthat make them unreliable. With oneexception, they do not predict theexistence of El Niño. Since El Niñois a major feature of the observedclimate, any model that fails to pre-dict it is clearly deficient. The badnews does not mean that climatemodels are worthless. They are, asManabe said thirty years ago, essen-tial tools for understanding climate.They are not yet adequate tools forpredicting climate. If we perseverepatiently with observing the realworld and improving the models, thetime will come when we are ableboth to understand and to predict.Until then, we must continue to warnthe politicians and the public: don’tbelieve the numbers just becausethey come out of a supercomputer.

Freeman J . Dyson, pro fe s soremeritus of physics at the Institutefor Advanced Study in Princeton,New Jersey, is the recipient of the1999 APS Joseph Burton ForumAward, and author of a number ofbooks about science for the generalpublic. His most recent is The Sun,the Genome, and the Internet, whichwill be published this year.

Freeman J. Dyson