8
WWW.APS.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/APSNEWS APS April Meeting Heads to Charm City This year's April Meeting will take place at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland, from April II through 14.The annual meeting isexpected toattract about 1,300attendees and will feature 72 invited sessions, more than 110 contributed ses- sions, three plenary sessions, poster sessions, and a public lecture. The recipients ofAPS prizes andawards willbehonored ataspecial ceremo- nial session on Sunday evening. The meeting will showcase the latest research from the APS Divisions of Particles and Fields, Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics, and Beam Physics, as well as the Topical Group in Gravitation. In addition, the Forums on Educa- tion, Graduate Student Affairs, History of Physics, International Physics, and Physics and Society will be participating, along with tbe Topical Groups on Energy Research and Applications, Few- Body Systems, Hadronic Physics, and Precision Measurements & Fundamental Constants. The meeting will host several renowned plenary speakers weigh- ing in on a variety of important physics topics. Monday's Kavli session will feature Nobel laureate John Mather commemorating the 50th anniversary ofthe discovery of thecosmic microwave background. Clifford Will from the University of Florida will highlight the pre- cision tests that have confirmed general relativity. Stuart Shapiro of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will explore the origins and detection of gravi- tational waves. Speakers from government agencies will open the meeting on Saturday and address the big scien- tificproblems ofthe future.Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz will lead off andJohn Grunsfeld, NASA's associ- MEETING continued on page 4 January 2015' Vol. 24, No.1 Physicist nominated to be Secretary of Defense Page 3 P-4PI13••···.·_····SCH 5-DIGIT78240 CIJulc>.\.uoonso B Arinze 6802 Utsa BlvdApt 2308B San AnIooio, TX 78249-tSSO 1'11 1 1'11 'I' 1I'IIII'h"II' h'll "1'I"IIII'I'lh Iii '111 1 '111,111 Incoming 2015 APS President: Q & Awith Samuel Aronson Samuel H. Aronson, former director of Brookhaven National Laboratory and current director of its RIKEN BNL Research Center, will begin his term as President of APS on Jonuary 1, 2015. In an interview with APS News, he dis- cusses his goals for the coming year. What do you see as the most pressing issues facing the physics community right now? There are a number of issues, one of which is federal research budgets. We're still inachaotic and fractious government funding land- scape, so that remains a big issue. Another is the transition to open access publishing, which affects the Society and other societies, and it will change the way which our members and physicists in general get access to scientific publications. That's something we have to focus on within the Society. Other big issues are ones on which the Society has a public position that affects everybody, come to this country for graduate like climate change. I would men- level education in physics. More tion education, starting with early frequently than in the past, they STEM education and going all the return to pursue scientific careers way up to graduate level scientific at home. Ithink therefore, we need training. Finally, the issue of main- to access the American population -' in all of its diverse dimensions to z ~ findthe best and brightest people to fill the pipeline domestically. What will beyour main focus during your presidential year? What approach will you take towards achieving these goals? There are a number of APS issues. The Society isgoing through a transition in the way it conducts itswork on bebaifofthe members, and also perhaps in its response to externalities, such as open access publishing and open data. APS needs to rethink the way it finances its work on behalf of the members of tbe Society. There are issues internal tothe Society that aregoing to take a lot of attention this year, ARONSON continued on page 6 Samuel H. Aronson taining and building the cohort of physicists pursuing their careers in this country. It wiIIbe a different mixthanithasbeeninthepast,due to our ability to retain people who A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY Top Ten Physics News Stories in 2014 Every year, APS News looks back to see which physics news stories grabbed the attention of the public. This list is not necessarily a compilation of the most impor- tant advances or discoveries of the year, but rathertheonesthatseemed to garner the most beadlines and column-inches. In(roughly) chron- ological order, the top teo physics stories of20I4were: Fusion Milestone Physicists at Lawrence Liver- more National Laboratory announced in February that tbey reached an important milestone: At the National Ignition Facil- ity, 192 simultaneous laser pulses blasted tiny bydrogen pellets, and the resulting fusion reactions emit- ted slightly more energy than was initially absorbed - akey first step ininertialconfinement fusion. How- ever, there is still a long way to go before the machine produces a net gain in energy, since tbe pellets absorbed only a small fraction of the incoming laser energy. Fusion first step BICEP2 In March the scientific team behind the BICEP2 telescope at the Soutb Pole made the sensational announcement that they had seen the first evidence of "B-mode" polarization in the cosmic micro- wave background (CMB) radiation. At the time it was beld up as "the smoking gun" for evidence of I, ..dJ1:~ '. BICEP2 searches for inflation. gravitational waves left over from a period of rapid inflatioo in the early universe. However, soon after the announcement, doubts about the data started to emerge, and it was unclear if the team could definitively rule out the effect of cosmic dust. In the resulting sci- -' .3 entific paper, published in June, -' the team acknowledged tbat dust may have affected tbe observations, but nevertheless they still felt the gravitational wave signal was real. InSeptember anewreport fromthe ESA's Planck satellite reinforced concerns about the initial results, but the two teams are continuing to work togetber to resolve the discrepancies. Also in Decem- ber, independent of the BICEP2 researcb, Planck's team annouoced that they bad finished processing the data from the satellite's four- year run and had created the most detailed map of the CMB. Intergalactic Neutrinos In 2013, the IceCube neu- trino detector at the South Pole observed additional highly ener- 'E getic neutrinos, which provided ~ further evidence of neutrinos from ~ ~ outside our galaxy. A new event E announced in April, dubbed "Big o cr Bird," unseated thereigning champs c: "Bert" and "Ernie." At more than i (i) two petaelectronvolts, it's twice as energetic as the previous record- holders, but because it's not anything likeanorder ofmagnitude greater, investigators think that they might be close to seeing the upper limit of cosmic neutrino energies. IceCube's big find Physics in Movies 2014 was ablockbu ter year for scienee on film andTV.Premiering in Marcb, eil deGmsse Tyson's highly anticipated follow-up toCarl Sagan's TV series Cosmos capti- vated audiences and took them on ajourney into the universe. Also in TOP TEN continued on page 6 Wanted: Input fromPhysicists ontheFuture ofComputing By Michael Lucibella The National Researcb Coun- cil is developing a report for the National Science Foundation on advanced computing, and islooking for input from the physics commu- nity. The report, "Future Directions For NSF Advanced Computing Infrastructure to Support U.S. Science and Engineering in 2017- 2020," will review what the NSF is doing to get scientists access to tbe advanced computing hardware and software they need, and what can be improved. "This is an activity tbat the NSF conducts every five years or so," said Robert Harrison, co- chair of the committee putting the report togetber. "It assists them in creating a roadmap, a set of priorities for the next five years." He likened it to asmaller version of the surveys carried out every teo years by the astrophysics com- munity to plan a decade's worth of scientific projects. To help promote discussion in the scientific community, the com- mittee released an interim version of its report this summer, which outlined the direction the full report will take. "It's really a list of ques- tions on topics we're considering," Harrison said. The NSF supports 16 sites across the country that let research- ers use supercomputing hardware for computation-heavy research. The writers of the report are in part looking to see how beneficial INPUT continued on page 6 -' 3 -' Future of supercomputing: Top computers are funded by the Department of Energy. Should NSF chase the bleeding edge?

APS Newspaper January 2015

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WWW.APS.ORG/PUBLICATIONS/APSNEWS

APS April Meeting Heads to Charm CityThis year's April Meeting will

take place at the Hilton BaltimoreInner Harbor Hotel in Baltimore,Maryland, from April II through14. The annual meeting is expectedto attract about 1,300 attendees andwill feature 72 invited sessions,more than 110 contributed ses-sions, three plenary sessions, postersessions, and a public lecture. Therecipients of APS prizes and awardswill be honored at a special ceremo-nial session on Sunday evening.The meeting will showcase

the latest research from the APSDivisions of Particles and Fields,Astrophysics, Nuclear Physics,and Beam Physics, as well as theTopical Group in Gravitation. Inaddition, the Forums on Educa-tion, Graduate Student Affairs,History of Physics, InternationalPhysics, and Physics and Societywill be participating, along withtbe Topical Groups on EnergyResearch and Applications, Few-

Body Systems, Hadronic Physics,and Precision Measurements &Fundamental Constants.The meeting will host several

renowned plenary speakers weigh-ing in on a variety of importantphysics topics. Monday's Kavlisession will feature Nobel laureateJohn Mather commemorating the50th anniversary of the discovery ofthe cosmic microwave background.Clifford Will from the Universityof Florida will highlight the pre-cision tests that have confirmedgeneral relativity. Stuart Shapiroof the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign will explorethe origins and detection of gravi-tational waves.Speakers from government

agencies will open the meeting onSaturday and address the big scien-tific problems ofthe future. Secretaryof Energy Ernest Moniz will lead offand John Grunsfeld, NASA's associ-MEETING continued on page 4

January 2015' Vol. 24, No.1

Physicist nominated to beSecretary of Defense

Page 3

P-4 PI13 •• ···.·_····SCH 5-DIGIT78240CIJulc>.\.uoonso B Arinze6802Utsa BlvdApt 2308BSan AnIooio, TX 78249-tSSO

1'1111'11'I' 1I'IIII'h"II' h'll "1'I"IIII'I'lh Iii '1111'111,111

Incoming 2015 APS President: Q & A with Samuel AronsonSamuel H. Aronson, former

director of Brookhaven NationalLaboratory and current director ofits RIKEN BNL Research Center,will begin his term as Presidentof APS on Jonuary 1, 2015. In aninterview with APS News, he dis-cusses his goals for the coming year.What do you see as the most

pressing issues facing the physicscommunity right now?There are a number of issues,

one of which is federal researchbudgets. We're still in a chaotic andfractious government funding land-scape, so that remains a big issue.Another is the transition to openaccess publishing, which affectsthe Society and other societies, andit will change the way which ourmembers and physicists in generalget access to scientific publications.That's something we have to focuson within the Society.Other big issues are ones on

which the Society has a public

position that affects everybody, come to this country for graduatelike climate change. I would men- level education in physics. Moretion education, starting with early frequently than in the past, theySTEM education and going all the return to pursue scientific careersway up to graduate level scientific at home. I think therefore, we needtraining. Finally, the issue of main- to access the American population

-' in all of its diverse dimensions toz~ find the best and brightest people tofill the pipeline domestically.What will beyour main focus

during your presidential year?What approach will you taketowards achieving these goals?There are a number of APS

issues. The Society is going througha transition in the way it conductsits work on bebaifofthe members,and also perhaps in its response toexternalities, such as open accesspublishing and open data. APSneeds to rethink the way it financesits work on behalf of the membersof tbe Society. There are issuesinternal to the Society that are goingto take a lot of attention this year,ARONSON continued on page 6

Samuel H.Aronson

taining and building the cohort ofphysicists pursuing their careers inthis country. It wi II be a differentmix than it has been in the past, dueto our ability to retain people who

A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY

Top Ten Physics News Stories in 2014Every year, APS News looks

back to see which physics newsstories grabbed the attention of thepublic. This list is not necessarilya compilation of the most impor-tant advances or discoveries of theyear, but rather the ones that seemedto garner the most beadlines andcolumn-inches. In (roughly) chron-ological order, the top teo physicsstories of 20 I4 were:Fusion MilestonePhysicists at Lawrence Liver-

more National Laboratoryannounced in February that tbeyreached an important milestone:At the National Ignition Facil-ity, 192 simultaneous laser pulsesblasted tiny bydrogen pellets, andthe resulting fusion reactions emit-ted slightly more energy than wasinitially absorbed - a key first stepin inertial confinement fusion. How-ever, there is still a long way to gobefore the machine produces a netgain in energy, since tbe pelletsabsorbed only a small fraction ofthe incoming laser energy.

Fusion first step

BICEP2In March the scientific team

behind the BICEP2 telescope at the

Soutb Pole made the sensationalannouncement that they had seenthe first evidence of "B-mode"polarization in the cosmic micro-wave background (CMB) radiation.At the time it was beld up as "thesmoking gun" for evidence of

I, ..dJ1:~'.BICEP2 searches for inflation.

gravitational waves left over froma period of rapid inflatioo in theearly universe. However, soonafter the announcement, doubtsabout the data started to emerge,and it was unclear if the team coulddefinitively rule out the effect ofcosmic dust. In the resulting sci-

-'.3 entific paper, published in June,-' the team acknowledged tbat dustmay have affected tbe observations,but nevertheless they still felt thegravitational wave signal was real.In September a new report from theESA's Planck satellite reinforcedconcerns about the initial results,but the two teams are continuingto work togetber to resolve thediscrepancies. Also in Decem-ber, independent of the BICEP2researcb, Planck's team annouocedthat they bad finished processing

the data from the satellite's four-year run and had created the mostdetailed map of the CMB.Intergalactic NeutrinosIn 2013, the IceCube neu-

trino detector at the South Poleobserved additional highly ener-

'E getic neutrinos, which provided~ further evidence of neutrinos from~~ outside our galaxy. A new eventE announced in April, dubbed "Bigocr Bird," unseated the reigning champsc: "Bert" and "Ernie." At more thani(i) two petaelectronvolts, it's twice asenergetic as the previous record-holders, but because it's notanything like an order of magnitudegreater, investigators think that theymight be close to seeing the upperlimit of cosmic neutrino energies.

IceCube's big find

Physics in Movies2014 was a blockbu ter year for

scienee on film and TV. Premieringin Marcb, eil deGmsse Tyson'shighly anticipated follow-up to CarlSagan's TV series Cosmos capti-vated audiences and took them ona journey into the universe. Also in

TOP TEN continued on page 6

Wanted: Input from Physicistson the Future of ComputingBy Michael LucibellaThe National Researcb Coun-

cil is developing a report for theNational Science Foundation onadvanced computing, and is lookingfor input from the physics commu-nity. The report, "Future DirectionsFor NSF Advanced ComputingInfrastructure to Support U.S.Science and Engineering in 2017-2020," will review what the NSFis doing to get scientists access totbe advanced computing hardwareand software they need, and whatcan be improved."This is an activity tbat the

NSF conducts every five yearsor so," said Robert Harrison, co-chair of the committee putting thereport togetber. "It assists themin creating a roadmap, a set of

priorities for the next five years."He likened it to a smaller versionof the surveys carried out everyteo years by the astrophysics com-munity to plan a decade's worthof scientific projects.To help promote discussion in

the scientific community, the com-mittee released an interim versionof its report this summer, whichoutlined the direction the full reportwill take. "It's really a list of ques-tions on topics we're considering,"Harrison said.The NSF supports 16 sites

across the country that let research-ers use supercomputing hardwarefor computation-heavy research.The writers of the report are inpart looking to see how beneficial

INPUT continued on page 6

-'3-'

Future of supercomputing: Top computers are funded by theDepartment of Energy. Should NSF chase the bleeding edge?

2 • January 20 15

MembetrhsIn t e

l Media"It's an ordeal for anyone who's

gone through it .... At the end ofthe day, I was exhausted. I got myfirst batch of candidates and I said,'Wow, for this I paid $85?'"Neer Asherie, Yeshiva Univer-

sity, on online dating, The NewYork Times, December 17,2014.

"Everybody including us wouldbe shocked if we were actually todiscover any significant differences.... It would really revolutionize ourthinking about how the universebehaves."Joel Fajans, University of

California at Berkeley, on whetherantimatter would fall up or down.PBS.org, November 19, 2014.

"I saw the title [and] I thought,'Oh, I predicted those-I wonderhow it turned out? ... I looked uptheir numbers and I said, 'Yeah,that looks a lot like what I predicted- great!"Randy Lewis, York University,

on predicting in 2009 the charac-teristics a/two baryons discoveredat CERN, CBC News.ca, November19,2014.

"I think that entering the fieldof science is really almost the bestcareer [women] can have. Andwhat's the reason for it? There aretwo reasons.One, the work.is veryinteresting and secondly, you'rejudged by what you do and not whatyou look like, and I think that is avery important thing for womenin science. The sad thing is thatso few women choose it becausethere aren't so many of us and theydon't like to be outnumbered bythe men."Mildred Dresselhaus, MIT, after

being named as a Medal of Free-dom recipient, NPR, November 24,2014.

"I did beat Watson, but it was nottelevised. It was something IBMset up. It was an actual Jeopardy!match so it was very life-like, butit was a demonstration that IBM setup a couple of years ago."Rush Holt, u.s. House of Rep-

resentatives, on his trivia match

with the IBM computer Watson,USA Today, November 25,2014.

"In the old days, all of theknowledge was in a cathedral. ...Now it's here at CERN."Steve Goldfarb, CERN, The

Wall Street Journal, December 3,2014.

"This team has shown how topassively cool structures by simplyradiating heat into the cold darknessof space."Burton Richter, Stanford, on

another team s research into mate-rials to passively cool buildings,CNN.com, December 4, 2014.

"Since the dawn of the 20thcentury, when scientists beganexploring the inside of the atom,it has become increasingly clearthat the brain is simply not designedto be comfortable with what goeson at that level."James Trefil, George Mason

University, The Washington Post,December 5, 2014.

"Hopefully, the end will seem alot less wacko when you read in mybook the chapters 'Tesseract' and'Messaging the Past,' and the tech-nical notes on those chapters. Thechapters 'Singularities' and 'IntoGargantua' may also be helpful."Kip Thorne, Caltech, on the

ending of his movie Interstellar;NPR.org, December 17, 2014.

"You go into science becauseyou want to make a discovery, youwant to advance our understandingof the universe .... Not everyonegets to accomplish that. StephenHawking has."Neil deGrasse Tyson, American

Museum of Natural History, Slate,December 17, 2014.

"It's extremely quiet out there .... The magnetic fields are constant,the flux of cosmic rays is constant."Donald Gurnett, The University

of Iowa, on the readings from theVoyager I spacecraft, indicatingit s out of the solar system, TimeMagazine, December 17, 2014.

APSNEWS

This Month in Physics HistoryJanuary 1, 1925: Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and the Day the Universe Changed

By Richard Williams

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin at Harvard

Cecilia Payne made a long and lonely journeyfrom her childhood in England to prominence

in a scientific community that begrudged a placeto women. She began her scientific career with ascholarship to Cambridge University, where she tookthe course in physics. After meeting Harlow Shapleyfrom Harvard, she moved to Massachusetts andpursued a doctoral degree in astronomy. Her 1925thesis, entitled Stellar Atmospheres, was famouslydescribed by astronomer Otto Struve as "the mostbrilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy." Bycalculating the abundance of chemical elementsfrom stellar spectra, her work began a revolutionin astrophysics.

Harlow Shapley liked tosay that no one could earn aPhD unless he had suffered inthe process. As she neared theend of her doctoral project onstellar spectra, Cecilia Paynewrote, "There followed months,almost a year as I remember,of utter bewilderment, OftenI was in a state of exhaustionand despair, working all dayand late into the night" [I]. Theplight of suffering graduate stu-dents is perhaps best expressedby a line from poet Percy Bys-she Shelley, in 1819: "Like thepoets, they learn through theirsuffering what they teach intheir songs."

When Cecilia Payne began her study of stellarspectra, scientists believed that the relative abun-dance of elements in the atmospheres of the Sunand the stars was similar to that in Earth's crust. In1889, geochemist Frank Wigglesworth Clarke's TheRelative A bundance of the Chemical Elements wasthe result of his comprehensive sampling of miner-als from many parts of Earth's crust. Many of thestrong lines of the solar spectrum came from theelements most abundant on Earth. The pre-eminentAmerican physicists at the time, Henry Norris Rus-sell and Henry Rowland, believed that the elementalabundances on Earth and the Sun were substantiallyidentical. Russell wrote [2] "The agreement ofthesolar and terrestrial lists is such as to confirm verystrongly Rowland's opinion that, ifthe Earth's crustshould be raised to the temperature of the Sun'satmosphere, it would give a very similar absorp-tion spectrum." The spectra of the Sun and otherstars were similar, so it appeared that the relativeabundance of elements in the universe was like thatin Earth's crust.

Payne had a better knowledge of atomic spectrathan most astronomers at the time. She also knewthe 1920 work of physicist Meghnad Saha on thethermal ionization of atoms. He showed how to usean equilibrium equation from physical chemistry torelate the ratio of excited states to ground states,and the fraction of ionized states to the temperature,

electron concentration, ionization potential, andother properties of the stellar atmosphere. Paynemet Saha when he visited Harvard,just as his workwas becoming known to astronomers.

Payne's thesis [3], finished on January I, 1925,confirmed the view of Russell and Rowland onthe abundance of the heavier elements in stellaratmospheres. She then applied Saha's equations tothe Balmer series absorption in hydrogen, whichoriginates from atoms in the first excited state. Shewas the first to appreciate that, in the atmosphere ofthe Sun at 5700 K, only abont one in 200 millionof the hydrogen atoms is in this excited state, so

that the total quantity of hydrogen.2 is grossly underrepresented~ by the Balmer absorption. A~ similar argument holds for.ffi helium. She found similarc5l results for other stars. Paynes:ii concluded that, unlike on'" Earth, hydrogen and helium

are the dominant elements oftbe Sun and stars. Henry Nor-ris Russell strongly opposedthis conclusion and convincedher to omit it from her thesis.However, currently acceptedvalues for the mass fractionof elements in the Milky WayGalaxy are: -74% hydrogen,24% helium; all the remain-

ing elements. 2%, confirmingPayne's result. Her discovery of the true cosmicabundance of the elements profoundly changedwhat we know about the universe. The giants -Copernicus. Newton, and Einstein - each in histum, brought a new view of the universe. Payne'sdiscovery ofthe cosmic abundance of the elementsdid no less.

In 1934 Payne visited the observatory in Len-ingrad, at a time of great Soviet-German tension,hard living conditions, and suspicion of foreigners.She continued on to visit Germany, where condi-tions were equally tense, and met a young Russianastronomer, Sergei Gaposchkin. Despite hardshipsand persecution in the Soviet Union because ofhis political views, he had achieved success as anastronomer. Now he faced persecution becausehe was Russian. He asked her to help him get toAmerica. She was moved by his story, and, afterreturning home, she worked hard to get him a visa asa stateless person. He came and, later in 1934, theymarried and she became Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.

On completing her doctorate, after consideringother opportunities, she decided to stay on at Har-vard. At the time, advancement to professor wasdenied to women at Harvard, so she spent yearsin lesser, low-paid duties. She published severalbooks, including The Stars of High Luminosity,1930; Variable Stars, 1938; and Variable Stars andGalactic Structure, 1954.

PAYNE continued on page 4

AP EWS Series II,Vol. 24, No.1January 2015

© 2015 The American Physical Society

Editor ....

Staff Science Writer .....

Art Dircctor and Special Publication5 Mllnager ..

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. Michael Ludbella

De!iign and Production ..•...•........................•...•...•... _ ...•.. Nancy Bennett-Karasik

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Proerreader ..APS News (ISSN: 1058-8132) is published 11X yearly,monthly, except the August/September issue, by theAmerican Physical Society, One Physics Ellipse, Col-lege Park. MD 20740-3844. (301) 209-3200. It containsnews of the Society and of its Divisions, Topical Groups,Sections. and Forums; advance information on meeting5of the Society; and reports to the Society by its commit-tees and task forces. as well as opinions.

Letters to the editor are welwrned from the member-ship. Letters must be signed and should include an ad-dress and daytime telephone number. The AP'S reservesthe right to select and to edit for length or clarity. All wr-respondence regarding APS New.~ should be directed to:Edilor, APS News, One Physics Ellipse, College Pm,MD 20740-3844, Email: [email protected].

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APSCOUNCIL 2015

* Members of the APS Board of Directors

PresjdentSamuel H, Aronson», Brookhaven National Laooratory(Retired)

International CouncilorsMarcia Barbosa, Eliezer Rabinovici. Annick Suzor-Weiner", Kiyoshi Veda

Chair, Nominating CommitteePatricia McBride

Division, Forum and Section CouncilorsMiriam Forman (Astrophysics). Timothy Gay(Atomic, Molecular &. Optical Physics), Jose Onuchic(Bio{ogical).Amy Mullin" (Chemical), FrancesHellman" (Conden.'ed Malter Physics), StevenGottlieb (Compulafiorral), Ann Karagozian (FluidDJ:namics), Gay Stewart· (Farom 0" Education),Enc Sarte, (Forum 0" Graduale Studem Affairs). DanKleppner· (Forum 0" History oj Physics), GregoryMeisner· (For:um on industrial and Applied Physics).Young-Kee Kim· (Forum On International Physics),Lowell Brown (Forum on Physics and Society), TBD(loser Science), James Chelikowsky (Materials), WickHaxton' (Nuclear), Philip Michael TUls (Particles &Fields), John Galayda (Physics of Beams), Cary Forest(Plasma), Mark Ediger (Polymer Physics), Nan Phinney(California Section), TBD (Prairie &etion)

President-ElectHomer A. Neal", University oj Michigan Chair, Panel on Public Affairs

William BarlettaVice PresidentLaura H. Greene·, University of Illinois. Champagnc-Urbana

Editor io ChiefGene Sprouse·

Past-PresidentMalcolm R. Beaslcy". Stanford University

gxeeurtve OfficerKate P. Kirby". Harvard Smithsonian (retired)

Speaker ofthe CoundlNan Phinney", Stanford Univer"$ify

TreasurerMalcolm R. Beasley"

Corporate SecretaryKen Cole

General CouncilorsMarcelo Gleiser, Nadya Mason, Gail McGlaughlin.Keivan G. Stassun"

Advisors from ether Societies (oon-voting)Fred Dyl1a, AlP; Mary Elizabeth Mogge, AAPT

International Advisor (non-voting)Adam J. Sarty, Canadian Association of Physicists

Staff Representatin'!!Tracy Alinger, Director. In/ormation Services (CollegePart); Mark Doyle, Director, Journal InformationSystems (Ridge); Amy Flatten, Director of IntemouonalAffairs; Terri Gaier, Director of Meetings; ChristineG~accone. Director; Journal Operations; BarbaraHICks, Associate Publisher; Ted Hodapp, Director ofEducation and Diversity; Dan Kulp, &litoriaf Director;Trish Lenieri, Director of Membership; Darlene Logan,Oireaor of Development; Michael Lubell; Director.Public Affair!; Michael Stephens, Controller andAssistant Treasurer; James W. Taylor. Deputy ExecutiveOfficer; William Reinhardt, Honors Program

AP EWS

Physicist Nominated to Lead PentagonBy Michael Lucibella

Physicist and former defensedepartment official Ashton Carteris President Obama's pick to be thenext secretary of defense, the WhiteHouse announced in early Decem-ber.lfconfirmed, Carter will succeedformer Nebraska Senator ChuckHagel as the head oftbe department.

Carter had been a long-time fac-ulty member at Harvard Universityspecializing in technology and secu-rity policy and previously served asthe deputy secretary of defense fromOctober 20 II through December2013. He had recently started lec-turing at Stanford in October of thisyear as a visiting scholar.

Prior to serving as deputy defensesecretary he was the chiefweaponsbuyer at the Pentagon and served asassistant secretary of defense forinternational security policy dur-ing Bill Clinton's first term. He'sknown for being a technocrat andhas served on advisory panels andpublished numerous books and arti-cles on the intersection of science,technology and defense.

"In one way or another, Ashhas served under] 1 Secretaries ofDefense," President Obama said atthe press conference announcinghis nomination. "He's an innova-

tor who helped create the programthat has dismantled weapons ofmass destruction around the worldand reduced the threat of nuclearterrorism. He's a reformer who'snever been afraid to cancel old orinefficient weapons programs. Heknows the Department of Defenseinside andout ~ all of which meansthat on day one, he's going to hit tbeground running."

Carter first made his name inthe early 1980s at the KennedySchool of Government at Harvard,assessing the technological feasi-bility of lasers and particle beamsfor President Reagan's proposedStrategic Defense Initiative mis-sile shield. After the breakup ofthe Soviet Union, he helped draftthe Nunn-Lugar amendment thatprovided U.S. funds to secure loosenuclear weapons.

While an undergraduate at Yale,Carter majored in both physics andmedieval history and worked fora time at Fermilab in the searchfor the charm quark at the Teva-tron. After graduating, he receiveda Rhodes scholarship to pursue adoctoral degree in theoretical pbys-ics at Oxford University.

After returning to the UnitedStates, he spent a year away from

Ashton Carter

theoretical physics in 1979, when heworked with the Office ofTecbnol-ogy Assessment on an assessmentof the MX mobile missile project,including a proposal to mountICBMs on blimps. After his workthere, he refocused his career fromtheoretical physics towards publicpolicy and international security.

"I accepted the President's offerto be nominated for Secretary ofDefense because of my regardfor his leadership," Carter said. "Iaccepted it because of the serious-ness of the strategic challenges weface, but also the bright opportuni-ties that exist for America if we cancome together to grab hold ofthem."

Digital Archives Grow in Size and UsefulnessBy Michael Lucibella

Historians, scientists, and thepublic now bave more access todigitized raw materials than everbefore. In the last few months, twolarge libraries of historical sciencedocuments were posted online,freely accessible to the public.Though online archives like theseare becoming more common, thechallenge of digitizing tens or hun-dreds of thousands of documentshas kept the pace of uploads rela-tively slow.

In September, CERN beganposting its massive photo archive(cds.cern.chlcollectionlPhotos) tothe lab's online documents server.Already the group has postednearly 40,000 of its more than120,000 black and white photonegatives from the 1950s througbtbe early 1980s.

Then in December, the EinsteinPapers Project, located at Ca\tech,started publishing digitized versionsof Albert Einstein's correspondenceup through 1927. "What we putonline are the existing scholarlyannotated papers that have beencollected," said Diana KormosBucbwald, a Caltech historianand director of the Einstein PapersProject. "We are not just puttingup copies or facsimiles of knowndocuments written by Einstein."

The Einstein collection in par-ticular required a lot of additionalscholarship prior to its release,including transcription and trans-latioo of the original documents."Throwing up scans or copies ofmanuscripts is not sufficient in thisday and age. You want to explainwhen they were written, why theywere written,and towhom they werewritten," Buchwald said. And thereis so much scholarship and docu-mentation surrounding the life ofAlbert Einstein that sifting through

Einstein Online: The Einstein Papers Project has posted scans, transcrip-tions, and translations of its collection.

and picking the relevant documentsto upload and providing context foreach is a major undertaking.

In a way, CERN's photo archiveposes the opposite challenge forthe library team. Many of thephotographs have little or no docu-mentation, leaving the team in thedarkabout the events or the namesof people and equipment depictedin many of their photos. "The olddatabase that we have isn't as goodas it could be," said Alex Brown,the assistant multimedia librarianat CERN who's helping digitizethe photos.

To fill in some of the blank spotsin the record, the team has beenreaching out for help in identifyingpeople and items in the pboto-graphs. Any member of the publicor scientific community who recog-nizes someone or something in thephotographs can post a comment tothe document server.The team wanted to concen-

trate on the older trove of blackand white photos first because ofconcern for the longevity of boththe negatives and the individualswbo could help identify the peopleand items in them.

For historical researchers, thesekinds of big online repositories havebeen a major boon. Digital tools liketext search are letting researchersscan through collections of docu-ments more efficiently than everbefore, while the Internet brings tbearchives to people aroundthe world.

"It allows me to do a lot ofresearch that I otherwise wouldn'tbe doing because I don't have thetime or the money," said AlexWellerstein, a historian at the Ste-vens Institute of Technology. Hisown research is focused primarilyon the history of American nuclearweapons and technology. He saidalso that traveling and staying indifferent cities to access physi-cal archives is one of the biggestexpenses in historical research.

Faster computers and ever-cheaper hard drive space haveallowed more archives to put largeportions of their collections onlinefor public access. Archives haveembraced these onJine repositoriesbecause it results in less wear andtear on the documents themselvesas fewer people handle them. Theirpreservation was what in 20 IIARCHIVES continued on page 7

January 2015.3

Directing Traffic

zahra Fakhraai of the University of Pennsylvania (far left) sorts MarchMeeting abstracts with Rob Riggleman, also from the University ofPennsylvania (far right) and Debra Audus of NIST, along with othervol unteers.

INSIDE THE BeltwavWill Obama Opt for Triangulation?

by Michael S. Lubell, APS Director oj Public Affairs

December was a particularly repeatedly during the last fewgood month for Wall Street. And years, managed to insert languagebanking interests owe President that would gut key provisions ofObama big time for his part in their the 20 I0 Dodd-Frank Wall Streetlargess. Reform and Consumer Protection

What he did was clear. Why he Act. The stealthy sentences woulddid it remains a matter of specula- allow big banks to engage againtion. But he might just be preparing in risky practices - trading credit

g to take a page from Bill Clinton's default swaps, buying and selling'2 playbook and spend his next two opaque derivatives, and issuing col-o.l!! years as "triangulatorv-in-chief. lateralized-deb bligations - all•g. Science, take note! guaranteed by taxpayer money. Ifo.c Here's what played out in the their bets come home, Wall Street~ waning days of the 113th Congress: firms could rake in hundreds ofbil-ciii With just hours left on the budget lions of dollars, and ifthey blow up

clock, Capitol Hill was mired in completely, taxpayers once moreanother legislative morass of its would be on the hook for a trillion-own making. Having put the gov- dollar tab.emment on autopilot before the Led by Citibank and J.P. MorganNovember election, lawmakers Chase ~ Chase's CEO, Jamie Dia-returned to a lame-duck session mond, reportedly made many of thefacing a December II midnight calls to key legislators himself -spending deadline. That's when the Wall Street left its indelible imprintstopgap continuing resolution was on the Cromnibus.scheduled to run out. And if they For Democrats, who had nearlydidn't take any action, the govem- gagged on the DHS deal, the Dodd-ment would shut down. Frank gutting was too much to

House and Senate appropriators stomach. And as the House preparedand their staff had spent much of to vote on the bill's rule -the firstthe previous month hammering out step in the chamber's legislativebudget compromises well into the process - Democrats signaled theywee hours. And their efforts paid off, would not provide a single vote ingenerating more than 1,500 pages favor. Under pressure from Houseof directives in an omnibus bill that Speaker, John Boehner (R-Ohio),covered the fiscal year 20 15 spend- some Tea Party Republicans agreeding plans laid out by II of the 12 to support the bill's rule, but manyappropriations subcommittees. The said they would oppose its final12th one, which would have funded passage. Unless Democrats brokethe Department of Homeland Secu- ranks, the Cromnibus would die,rity (DHS), was puton a short-term and the government once againcontinuing resolution as a conces- would face an imminent shutdown.sion to far-right Republicans who The rule passed, but only by thewere seeking retribution for Presi- razor-thin margin of 214 to 212.dent Obama's executive action on The bill, itself, was facing certainimmigration - which they assert is defeat. So Speaker Boehner usedillegal and unconstitutional. the only tool he had immediatelyThe bargain, a "Crornnibus" in avaiJable. He declared a recess.

Beltway-speak, received a reluctant Enter Barack Obama. Buckingblessing from congressional leaders his own party, he lobbied Houseof both parties, as well as the White Democrats hard, arguing that prag-House. In an unusual display of matism should be the new politicalbipartisanship, lawmakers were on maxim. In the end, he managed totbe verge of doing the unthinkable: cajole 57 of them into heeding histaking sensible action lbat would plea. And at the 11th hour lbe billkeep Washington functioning. passed, 219 to 206, with 67 Repub-

Then, with few eyes focused licans joining 139 Democrats inon their machinations, Wall Street opposition and 162 of them stickinglobbyists, who had beeo thwarted TRlANGULAroN continued on page 7

4· January 2015

LettersMembers may submit letters to [email protected]. APS reserves theright to select letters and edit for length and clarity.

UseJudgment Instead of Impact FactorsThe Back Page essay by Carlton

Caves, "High-impact-factor syn-drome," (APS News. November2014) is a much-needed clarioncall for more thoughtful evalua-tion of researchers and researchinstitutions. The wisdom andtruth of Caves' analysis shouldbe self-evident, but is sadly andwidely ignored. His proposed testof one's possible affliction withHTFS - asking if the same publi-cation/citation record looks more

impressive if the papers appearedin Nature and Nature Physics thanif they appeared in PRL and PRA- is compelling and sobering. Wewould all be well advised to treatimportant decisions like hiring andpromotion with laborious (but sub-stantive) judgment rather than lazy(and near-empty) "objectivity."

William D. PhillipsGaithersburg, Maryland

HIFS and Related DiseasesI enjoyed Carlton Caves' recent

Back Page article on HIFS: highimpact factor syndrome (APS News,November 20 14). Having excellentscientists comment on issues likethis can only improve our discipline.Like many of my colleagues, I

also find it annoying when someonetalks of publication in high-impactjournals as defining greatness. Thereare excellent papers published else-where as welLOften some other proxy mea-

Voting is FundamentalIn APS News (November 2014)

several distinguished physiciststook exception to the new Con-stitution & Bylaws because theyfelt their voting rights would bedenied. In response, 2014 APSPresident Beasley explained thatthe APS Council deliberated thisissue but in the end chose the Coun-cil to approve amendments, partlybecause APS voting participationwas low, 15 percent or less.Beasley and the Council may

be correct, but more importantlywe need to rectify our abominable

MEETING continued frnm page 1

ate administrator for science, willspeak about the roles scientists canplay in shaping the future.Tuesday's plenary session will

feature James Hartle of the Univer-sity of California, Santa Barbara,speaking about quantum gravityand cosmology. Haiyan Gao ofDuke will bring attendees up todate on the persistent mysteries ofthe proton.Just before the April Meeting

opens, APS wi II host a number ofworkshops. The Topical Group onHadronic Physics is hosting itsworkshop on nuclear physics fromApril 8 to April 10. The TopicalGroup on Precision Measurementsand Fundamental Constants inconjunction with the Group on Few-body Systems are putting togethera one-day workshop on Friday on"Tests offundamental symmetries"to bring participants up to date onefforts to search for time-reversaland parity violation. Also on Fridayis a professional skills developmentworkshop for women postdocs.MIT physicist and science his-

torian David Kaiser will deliverSaturday evening's public lecture.His historical investigations havefocused on how physics researchdeveloped in the United Statesduring the Cold War. His mostrecent book, How the HippiesSaved Physics, was named Phys-ics World's 2012 Book of the Year.The Forum on Outreach and Engag-ing the Public is planning to host aspecial workshop on Saturday withthe National Science Foundation toshare ways to better communicatewith the public. The plan for the

half-day session is to mix both pre-sentations and hands-on activities tobetter train scientists to share theirscience with the broader community.The meeting will host a num-

ber of events aimed especially atstudents. As part of the "Futureof Physics days" events, a panelof graduate students will answerundergraduates' questions aboutcontinuing their education. Under-graduate students will present theirresearch at one of the undergradu-ate oral sessions or the afternoon'sposter session, and there will be aspecial award brunch on Sundayfor the top undergraduate present-ers. Undergraduates are invitedto apply for travel grants of upto $1000 to attend the meeting.The Forum on Graduate StudentAffairs will sponsor a career ses-sion aimed at graduate students whoare thinking about opportunities inphysics, featuring experts from boththe business world and academiawith a particular focus on inter-national opportunities. Speakersinclude Giorgio Paolucci, sciencedirector of the SESAME synchro-tron in Jordan, entrepreneur FrankLevinson, and Megan Friend, anassistant professor in Japan.Exhibitors, including publishers

and other vendors, will have boothsset up around the hotel to displaytheir products.Meeting attendees will be able to

stop by the APS Contact Congressbooth to send letters to their electedofficials about the importance ofcontinued Congressional supportfor scientific research.

PAYNE continued from page 2

Finally, in 1956, Payne-Gaposchkin achieved two Harvardfirsts: she became the first femaleprofessor, and the first woman tobecome department chair.Her obituary read, in part,

"Cecilia Helena Payne-Gaposch-kin, a pioneering astrophysicistand probably the most eminentwoman astronomer of all time, diedin Cambridge, Massachusetts, onDecember 7, 1979. In the 1920sshe derived the cosmic abundance

of the elements from stellar spectraand demonstrated for the first timethe chemical homogeneity of theuniverse" [4].1. C. Payne-Gaposchkin, An Auto-

biography and Other Reflections,Katherine Haramundanis, ed.(Cambridge University Press,1996).

2. Science 39,791(1914).3. C.H.Payne, Stellar Atmospheres

(Harvard University Press, Cam-bridge, MA,1925)

4. Quarterly Journal of the RoyalAstronomical Society, 23, 450(1982).

sures like bibliometrics are usefulfor objective reviewing. Yet I findin my reviewing duties two morefactors relating to citations that arejust as troublesome as HIFS.The second issue is the CCS:

citation club syndrome. This is theexpanding average author numberin every paper, driven by ThomsonReuters and Google crediting everyauthor for their co-authors' work.The third issue is the FJS: fake

journal syndrome. This is the pleth-

voting record. We cannot maintaina healthy APS if most of us shirkour voting responsibilities.The world faces challenges, most

of which will require skills andexpertise found in APS. We can beof little service if our Society is indisarray because we refuse to partici-pate in its proper functioning. Votingis crucial to our health, whether enmasse like the recent Constitution &Bylaws vote or in APS units.No excuse is valid. "I don't have

time; I'm too busy with researchand teaching; my vote won't mat-

APSNEWS

ora of fake online journals, whichonly want to collect publicationfees. They cite each other, so cita-tion counting won't cure this.Just how one should proceed

with evaluations in science is noteasy. Solving these other two prob-lems might help to solve the HIFSproblem, by making bibliometricsmore reliable.

Peter D. DrummondHawthorn, Victoria, Australia

ter anyway." I recently spent a halfhour reviewing Forum on Educationcandidates. As a former teacher, Iwanted to understand what chal-lenges they face and how theyrespond. Ivoted and benefited fromthe experience.We are an important micro-

cosm of Our country. To maintainOur effectiveness, we must all par-ticipate. At its most elemental andunifying level, this means VOTE.

Michael BozoianLynchburg, Virginia

Nature Publishing Group Starts "Free to Read" Link SharingBy Tamela Maciel

Nature and 48 other academicjournals in the Nature PublishingGroup (NPG) have made all of theirarticles past and present "free toread" online, provided a subscriberor approved media outlet shares alink. But some open access advo-cates wish NPG had done more.As of December 2014, anyone

with a subscription to Nature orother NPG journals can, with theclick of a button, send friends orcolleagues an email with a link tothe online article. Propriety softwarecalled ReadCube displays the articlein a web browser for reading, butblocks saving or printing. NPG'spublisher, Macmillan Science andEducation, has a majority stake inReadCube through its technologydivision, Digital Science."We know researchers are

already sharing content, often inhidden corners of the Internet orusing clumsy, time-consuming prac-tices," said Timo Hannay, managingdirector of Digital Science, in apress release. "At Digital Sciencewe have the technology to providea convenient, legitimate alterna-tive that encourages researchers toaccess the information they needand the wider, interested publicaccess to scientific knowledge, fromthe definitive, original source."Hannay is referting to the com-

mon practice among researchers ofsharing their papers online, eitherhy emailing PDFs ahead of pub-lishing embargos or resorting tosocial media outlets like Twitterto crowdsource free copies. Sincethis "dark sharing," as NPG callsit, already occurs, their new read-only buttnn is unlikely to changethe amount of PDF sharing among

We Want YourNominations for

scientists, according to a recent blogpost by Michael Eisen, Universityof California, Berkeley biologistand open access proponent.A larger effect might come from

the 100 media outlets and blogs thatcan also provide "free to read" links.If the links prove popular, the publicwill have increased access to NPGresearch and, as Eisen pointed out,NPG will be able to track what isbeing shared and better quantify theimpact on social networks.This comes at a time when

governments and funding agen-cies such as the National Institutesof Health and the Bill & MelindaGates Foundation are calling forincreased open access to researchresults. Many advocates wantfull open access - free access toresearch immediately upon publi-cation - but faced with the need.to cover publication costs, manypublishers, including APS, imple-ment a hybrid open access policy.Some open access advocates are

unconvinced that NPG's "free toread" initiative is the right move."More access is always prefer-able to less access. But Nature sconvoluted, read-only access isinsufficient ... because it addsarbitrary handicaps," said StevanHamad, a cognitive scientist at theUniversity of Quebec at Montreal.Instead Harnad said the right stepwould be to drop the six-monthembargo policy that NPG main-tains before a paper can be sharedonl ine, as APS has already done.Other puhl ishers, including

APS, allow authors to immedi-ately self-archive their work. "TheAPS has long encouraged authorsto share copies of the APS 'Ver-sion of Record' with colleagues,

and APS allows authors to postcopies of their articles on theauthor's website or the author'sinstitution's website. This goesmuch further than what the NPGhas now announced," said GeneSprouse, the APS Editor in Chief.But Sprouse also said that jour-

nal publishers must recover theircosts, which include "hiring edi-tors that manage the peer reviewprocess, bui lding and maintainingthe computer systems that preserveand serve the articles, as well aspaying for copy editing and com-posing the articles." At the momentthose cnsts are chiefly met throughlibrary subscriptions, sponsors, oroptional publication fees, should theauthor wish to be published underfull open access.In response to open access

demands, many institutions arecurrently paying for access in twoways: a publication fee to makeoutgoing research open access anda subscription fee for incomingarticles that are not open access.Many researchers, institutions,

and publishers favor the fundamen-tal principles of open access, butit is the details of how to transi-tion to this access standard withoutcrippling publishers or researchinstitutions along the way thatcauses tension.In the future, Hamad hopes to

see more publishers adopt a stancesimilar to that of APS, so thatresearch institutions become themain repositories for publicly acces-sible research. In this way, he thinkspublishing fees can be scaled backto a fraction of what they currentlyare and institutions will be able toafford to pay publication costs fromwhat they save in subscription fees.

Each year APS recognizes a small number of historic physics sites in the US(and occasionally abroad). Nominations received before January 15, 2015will be eligible for consideration in 2015.

www.aps.org/programs/outreach/history/historicsites/

AP EWS

lDiversitv CornerPre-Meeting Professional Skills Development Workshopfor Women PhysicistsAPS, with support from the National Science Foundation, will hosttwo Professional Skills Development Workshops in 2015 for femalephysicists just before the March and April meetings. Postdoctoralassociates and early to mid-career faculty and scientists are invitedto apply for the March 1 workshop, and postdoctoral associates areinvited to apply for the April 10 workshop.

New Brookhaven Light Source Debuts in 2015By Michael Lucibella

Brookhaven National Labora-tory's new National SynchrotronLight Source-ll (NSLS-II) isnearing completion, and the labwi II put out a call for experimentproposals in October. The new,third-generation light source passedits accelerator readiness reviewon September 22, 2014 and is onschedule to start its first "early sci-ence" programs in winter.The NSLS-Il will succeed

Brookhaven's current NationalSyncbrotron Light Source, wbichhas been operating since 1984.Once completed, the new facilitywill be the brightest x-ray lightsource in the world, ranking it asthe nation's premier synchrotronuser facility.

"I look forward to tbe excitingscience and benefits that NSLS-Ilwill deliver to the U.S. Departmentof Energy and the nation," SteveDierker, Brookhaven's associatelab director for photon sciences,said in a statement.The accelerator readiness

review approved the synchrotron'srequest to start routine opera-

tions. It covers the lab's safety,environmental, management, doc-umentation and personnel policies.The first tests to characterize thex-ray beams will start running thiswinter, while experiments selectedfrom October's call will likely startin early 2015.

"Synchrotron light sourcesserve a very diverse user commu-nity -condensed matter physics,material science, chemistry, nano-technology, structural biology,"said Sam Aronson, the 2015 APSPresident and former directorof Brookhaven Lab. "The newcapabilities will provide accessto experiments which are currentlyimpractical or even impossiblewith current light sources."

Overall construction of themachine is about 98 percent com-pleted. There are thirty initialbeamlines in various stages ofdevelopment that will come onlinebetween now and 20 I 7. Ultimatelythe synchrotron will be home tomore than 60 beamlines as more aredesigned and installed over the lifeof the facility. Construction beganon the NSLS-I1 in 2009.

NSLS-II will be a state-of-the-art, medium-energy (3-billion-electron~volt,or GeV) electron storage ring that produces x-rays up to 10,000 timesbrighter than the previous machine, NSLS.

January 2015 • 5

roliles InVersatilitvIndiana Jones with a Physics Degree

As an undergraduate, I pursueda double degree in mathematicsand anthropology. Both subjectsenthralled me - I loved the ele-gance and logic of math as wellas the mystery and adventure ofanthropology, especially archae-ology. I saw links between thetwo seemingly disparate subjects,whereas my advisors and almostanyone else with whom I sharedone or the other of my twin lovesreacted much differently. Mostraised an eyebrow, and I was metwith puzzled faces. They grievedfor my choice, and declared withsadness, "That's an interest-ing combination." But 1 wasn'tdeterred, and in fact I thrivedwhile studying abroad in Cairo,as I pursued grant-funded researchin Ancient Egyptian number theory,cryptography, and religion.

There are physicists who workon archaeological and other anthro-pological problems, physicistswho have made career transitionsinto archaeology, and archaeolo-gists who leverage tbeir physicsbackground to solve archaeologi-cal problems. Furthermore, somephysicist/archaeologists conductresearch in archeoastronomy andstudy how societies incorporate sci-entific knowledge into their culture.

Duane Hamacher is an exampleof the latter. An academic in theNura Gili Indigenous ProgramsUnit of The University of NewSouth Wales (UNSW) in Sydney,Australia, he has a bachelor's anda master's degree in astrophysicsand a PhD in Indigenous Studies(with a focus on cultural astron-omy) from Macquarie Universityin Sydney. "I moved to Australiato do astrophysics, but was pulledover to the dark side," he jokes. "Iliked astronomy but also liked cul-tural studies. I wanted ajob whereI wouldn't have to be stuck codingall the time, wbere I could go outand explore." While completinghis dissertation, Hamacher realizedthat he could carve his own nichecombining astronomy and anthro-pology, which he envisioned wouldgive him a competitive advantagein the academic job market.His gamble paid off, in what is

probably the most unusual exam-ple of networking and six degreesof separation I've come across.According to Hamacher, the headof the UNSW's Indigenous Studiesprogram was riding a camel acrossthe Gobi desert with the directorof Microsoft Research. As theychatted, they discussed how thecompany was interested in enhanc-ing its WorldWide Telescopeproject with indigenous aspectsof astronomy. Did tbe professorknow anyone with expertise in bothastronomy and anthropology? Whyyes, he did - a simple literaturesearch turned up Hamacher, andsoon tbe bead ofthe program calledhim with a job offer.

Today, as anAustralian ResearchCouncil Fellow, .liamacher stud-

Applicants affiliated with a U.S. institution or facility are eligible fortravel and lodging funding assistance. Those needing funding assis-tance are encouraged to apply early. The deadlines for the workshopsand a link to the online application can be found here: www.aps.org/programs/womenlworkshops/skillsl

Childcare Grants Available for APS March and April Meet-ing AttendeesSmall grants of up to $400 are available to assist meeting attendeeswho are bringing small children or who incur extra expenses in leav-ing them at home (i.e., extra daycare or babysitting services). Moreinformation and the online application can be found here: www.aps.org/programslwomen/workshops/childcare.cfm

APS Speakers Lists Feature Women and MinoritiesPlanning a colloquium series and want to include a female or minor-ity speaker? The APS Women Speakers List and MinoritiesSpeakers List contain names, contact information, and talk titles ofphysicists who are willing to give. talks on a variety of subjects. Thelists can be found here: www.aps.org/programs/women/speakers/and www.aps.org/programs/minorities/speakers/

By Alaina G. Levine

ies the astronomical knowledge ofTorres Strait Islanders, one of theindigenous peoples of Australasia,whose culture is largely based ontheir practical knowledge ofthe cos-mos. "I am interested in scientificinformation encoded in oral tradi-tions," be explains. "Indigenousknowledge has a scientific compo-nent developed by people who haveused it for practical purposes for tensof thousands ofyears.lt's structuredknowledge about the natural world."Using ethnographic, historical, andarchaeological methods to analyzeindigenous cultures, he has been

Sandy Rogers surveying in the Pana-mint Mountains of the Mojave Desert.

Astrophysicist-turned-anthropolo-gist Duane Hamacher visiting Stone-henge

"blown away" by the Islanders, who,he says, "use astronomy for every-thing." They link the movement ofthe constellations to animal behavior.(For example, they know that whenthe big dipper touches the horizonat sunset, it is shark breeding seasonand time to stay out of the water.)They also use this knowledge to buildtimetables indicating when to huntturtles and plant crops for food. Headds that the Islanders are also uniquefor using the scintillation of the starsto measure the degree of moisture inthe atmosphere to predict weather.

Hamacber explains that althoughhe doesn't conduct physics research,"My background is very use-ful. It provides a rigorous set ofeyes for solving problems in a sys-tematic fashion." Kate Craig, aUCLA doctoral student in historywith an undergraduate degree inapplied physics and history, agrees.Sbe notes that for her work in inves-tigating relics and their movementacross societies, "Physics has givenme the view from the mountain," andthis 360 degree, holistic perspectivehas aided her in making her work"accessible and relevant to peoplein other fields."Alexander "Sandy" Rogers has

also found great value in study-ing physics as he transitioned into

anthropology. He built a secondcareer later in life after 40 yearsworking as a physicist and anengineer at the Naval Air Weap-ons Station China Lake andThe Johns Hopkins UniversityApplied Physics Laboratory. Hespent much of his time conduct-ing experiments with infraredmolecular spectroscopy, lasersand radar, but when he retired in2002, he didn't spend his timeplaying golf. Instead he went backto school to investigate his otherfield of interest - archaeology.

Rogers immediately realizedthat his physics experience wasa great asset in the field, espe-cially as he began looking intoobsidian hydration dating, anarchaeological dating techniquethat was already in use but hadnot been analyzed in much detail.The method, which uses the watercontent in obsidian artifacts toidentify how old they are, isextremely useful in determiningthe age of objects. It is cheaperand faster than carbon dating, heexplains, and although it is lessaccurate, with obsidian dating,"You know you're dating theartifact [itself] and not ... [its]material." Rogers has spent thelast decade perfecting the tech-nique, and says he "works on themath to compensate for changes intemperatures going back 12,000years .... Most people who haveworked on this method don't havea background in mathematics orchemistry. I am trying to give itsolid footing in the communitywith scientific rigor." He has writ-ten numerous papers on obsidiandating and currently serves as anarchaeological consultant and thearchaeology curator for the Mat-urango Museum in Ridgecrest,CA, a resource for the cultural his-tory ofthe Upper Mojave Desert.

Like Sandy Rogers, Michael"Bodhi" Rogers (unrelated) useshis physics expertise to solvearchaeological problems. Hestarted his career by pursuing abachelor's degree in physics, butin graduate scbool did a doublemaster's in physics and archaeol-ogy. His doctorate was in physics.Now he is in a unique position:He is an associate professor ofphysics and astronomy at IthacaCollege, where he coordinatesphysics teacher education andconducts research related toimproving physics education. Butthe majority of his time is spentas an archaeogeophysicist, and inthat capacity he uses numeroustechniques from physics researchto aid archaeologists and otheranthropologists in their projects.His toolbox includes above- andbelow-ground instrumentation,such as ground-penetrating radar,cesium magnetornetry, ftuxgategradiornetry, resistivity, conduc-tivity, 3D laser scanning, and 3Dprinting. "I've worked at many

JONES continued on page 7

6. January 2015

TOP TEN continued from page 1

March, the documentary ParticleFever was released across the coun-try, offering an intimate look at thelives of CERN's researchers huntingfor the Higgs Boson. The life of Ste-phen Hawking got the Hollywoodtreatment in the critically acclaimedfilm The Theory of Everything, asdid mathematician Alan Turning inThe Imitation Game. After yearsof development, the film Interstel-lar hit the big screen. Inspired byphysicist Kip Thome's theories ofgravitation and relativity, it wowedaudiences with its impressive visu-als of black holes and time dilation.

Element 117Ununseptium, the placeholder

name for element 117, was spottedfor an instant in Germany in May.At the GSI Helmholtz Centre forHeavy Ion Research in Darmstadt,scientists bombarded a berkeliumtarget with accelerated calciumatoms to create the short-lived artifi-cial element. This follows up on anexperiment in Russia in 20]0 thatfirst created the element, confirm-ing its existence and likely pavingthe way for its official inclusion onthe periodic> table of the elements.In addition, one of the isotopes oflawrencium discovered in the pro-cess had a half-life of nearly elevenhours, giving physicists hope thatexperiments might be bringing themclose to the hypothesized shores ofthe "Island of Stability" for super-heavy elements.

Calactic Black HoleIn 20 12, astronomers discovered

a mysterious massive object fallingtowards the giant black hole at thecenter of the Milky Way galaxy.They predicted that its observedelliptical orbit would bring it closestto the black hole around mid-sum-mer and were primed to watch thepredicted fireworks of the objectbeing ripped apart. Instead, it wasmore of a fizzle. Originally thoughtto be a giant gas cloud, the objectmight actually harbor a large star inits center, which would have heldthe cloud together in the face of theenormous gravitational tidal forces.Based on its trajectory, there's achance that in a few decades thehypothetical star will pass throughthe dust and gas surrounding theblack hole, and maybe then scien-tists wi IIwitness the sbow they hadhoped for.

Ehola's Potential SpreadAs the Ebola virus ravaged West

Africa, researchers worried about itspotential spread started mapping itstransmission. Physicist Alessandro

oco

Ebola virus

Vespignani of Northeastern Uni-versity used computer models tosimulate the movement of peoplethroughout the world and the waysthe disease might spread. His direconclusion in August was that ifnothing was done, tens of thousandsof people could be infected within

~JlNEWS!online:

months. Fortunately, a lot is beingdone to combat the outbreak, whichaccording to the Centers for DiseaseControl so far has resulted in justover 6000 deaths.

Nobel PrizesWithout winning the Nobel

prize in their own field, physicistsdid well in October anyway. Thephysics prize went to two engineersand a materials scientist, one fromthe United States and two fromJapan, for their work develop-ing the blue light emitting diode.After the quick invention of the redand green LED, an efficient bluedevice took nearly twenty yearsto produce. The following day,physicists from the United Statesand Germany won the chemistryprize for tbe development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy,which pushed the limits of opticalmicroscopy down to the nanoscale.

Nobel prizes for blue LEOs

Space ExplorationThis fall, interplanetary explo-

ration was a central focus of theworld's space agencies. In October,India made headlines by success-fully placing a small satellite intoMartian orbit, only the fourth spaceagency to do so and more cheaplythan any other Mars mission to date.On November 12, the EuropeanSpace Agency's Rosetta space probedropped the its tiny Philae landeronto the surface of the comet 67PIChuryumov-Gerasimenko, but itsoperational life was cut short afterthe lander bounced off its plannedlanding zone into a shady crater.Without functioning solar panels,the reserve battery discharged, butnot before the lander carried out80 to 90 percent of its scientificmission. This included a startlingdiscovery announced in Decemberthat the isotopic content of the com-et's water molecules didn't matchthat on Earth, rekindling questionsabout where our planet's water orig-inated. Also in December, NASAsuccessfully launched a prototype ofOrion, its new spacecraft designedto take astronauts into Earth orbitand beyond.

Tabletop AcceleratorIn December, scientists at

Lawrence Berkeley National Labannounced a new world record fora compact particle accelerator. Theteam used a tabletop-sized laser-plasma accelerator to energizeelectrons up to 4.25 GeY. Thoughnot nearly as powerful as the massiveLHC, the tiny BELLA acceleratorcan do in about one meter whatwould take CERN] ,000 meters.Pbysicists hope tbat this emergingcompact accelerator technology willpave the way to new generations ofparticle colliders.

http://www.aps.org/pubfications/apsnews

ARONSON continued from page 1

in particular the implementation ofthe recently approved governancechanges. Internal operations andrelations between the membershipofthe Society and the leadership ofthe Society will be a big focus. Thenthere will be efforts to represent theSociety's interests and concerns tothe public, to the funding agencies,and to our international partners,so there will be a fair amount ofoutreach that will require attention.

How well do you think theSociety is serving its members?Are there any areas where youthink APS programs could heenhanced?

I think in general the Societyis serving its members very well.The membership wants accessto scientific publications in highquality journals, which the Soci-ety provides. Our journals are thebenchmark journals of physics inthe world. The membership wants

u,~ to ensure that the Society continues

to provide active and attention-worthy meetings and conferences,which we also do. Those I think arethe main services that the member-ship expects. I have some concernsthat as a Society our communica-tions with our members, providingthem with information more spe-cific to the American PbysicalSociety, could be improved andwe're doing some work to lookat whether that's so or not. Thatwork will continue to improve ourcommunications internally.

Something maybe not so visibleto our members, but still impor-tant, is the strategic budgeting oftheSociety's operations. This ensureswe're good stewards of the Soci-ety's assets and efficient providersofthe services they expect with thefunds available. The Society's staffand its governance bodies - theBoard of Directors and the Councilof Representatives - are respon-sible for the execution and tbeoversight of such functions. I thinkthat's a little bit off the radar screenof the typical members in terms ofthe services that we provide.

What do you see as the Soci-ety's role in pu blic policy?

I think we have an importantvoice in scientific matters and weneed to continue to exercise it inour public statements and in ouroutreach efforts. Concerns andopportunities wbere this Societyand the physics community canprovide benefit to society overall

comes in many forms; the research,education, and physics careers weadvocate for or the impact of poli-cies that we talk about in our publicstatements. There are a number ofways in which we can influence thepublic's opinion of the work of thephysics community and its valueto the larger society. I think thoseare the main things that we needto accomplish with our outreach.

What do you see as the Soci-ety's role on international issues?

Science is so international nowthat the Society has put effort intocoordinating on some issues withother physics societies and scientificsocieties around the world. Many,probably the majority, ofthe scien-tific publications in our journals donot originate in the United States;they originate all around the worldwith big components in Europe andAsia. APS is in fact an internationalsociety and its publications areinternational physics publications.We have a role and responsibilityon the international scene just inthe course of doing our normalbusiness. We serve a much big-ger base than the American physicscommunity.

In recent years, APS has beenincreasing its focus on educationand outreach. What do you thinkof these efforts and how will youguide them?

I think they're very importantfor the reasons Imentioned earlierregarding the pipeline of physiciststhat is generated in this countryand elsewhere, and that does theresearch in which the U.S. wouldlike to maintain leadership. Educa-tion has two features. One is justraising the awareness and generalliteracy of the population at largeon scientific matters. The other ishelping to build the most robust andmost diverse pipeline of people whowant to work in STEM fields orfields where a physics degree turnsout to be an important asset, andthat can be in a very large variety offields that are not scientific per se.

How will you guide APSthrough the current period ofcorporate reform transition?

We're well set up to implementthe reforms that we've worked onover the past couple of years andwhich were supported by a verylarge majority of the voting mem-bers in the recent vote on the newConstitution and Bylaws. This willinvolve organizing the operations

APSNEWS

under a chief executive officerand giving new roles to the formerExecutive Board, now the Board ofDirectors and to the Council of Rep-resentatives. That work has alreadystarted. There is new leadership forthe council and there are new meet-ings already going on to plan formore effective council meetings andmore strategic board meetings. I'mvery confident that with the work ofthe board and the council togetherwitb the CEO, we're heading inthe right direction in implement-ing the changes we want to make.And I believe those are going tomake us more into a modern andnimble society in terms of carryingout our work.

How did yon become inter-ested in physics?

That goes back to high schoolI guess. I was raised and in highscbool during the Sputnik era. Ifelt the tug of tbat kind of workas a result of being exposed to theadvances in space science and find-ing that I had a facility for math andfor pbysics starting in higb scbooland certainly in college. I justnever considered doing anythingelse other than physics as far backas Iwas making decisions or evenhaving thoughts on those subjects.

Why did you choose to run forthe APS presidential line?

I had been an APS member sinceI was in graduate school and feltthat it was the right thing to do; topay back in a way or give somethingback to the Society for its supportover the years. I think the only thingI actually did as a member of theSociety other than attend meetingswas to review papers for PhysicalReview, and I felt there was moreI should and could do more at thisstage in my career.

Any other thoughts?One thing I think I didn't touch

on but maybe should have empha-sized more is the importance ofdiversity in the physics community.I think we are missing the bene-fits of the participation of a lot ofsmart people, just because physicsas a field is still not as diverse as itshould be. In other words, it doesn'tdraw from the maximum pool ofpotentia] physicists. I'm very sup-portive of, and interested in, theSociety continuing to develop amore diverse membership and pro-grams aimed at attracting a morediverse future physics community.

INPUT continued from page 1these centers are, and what can beimproved with the resources avail-able. "We look at the frontier ofcomputing and the science that canbe done on tbe biggest computers.

"Unfortunately the NSF is along way from this frontier rightnow," Harrison said, adding thatother agencies like the Departmentof Energy have the top-of-the-linecomputers. "Does it make sensefor the NSF to chase the bleedingedge of supercomputing, or doesit make more sense to partner withother federal agencies?"

The final report with concrete

recommendations will be submit-ted to the NSF sometime in July20 I 5, and the committee puttingit together hopes to bear fromresearchers by the end of January.

"What we would really valuefrom APS News readers is that senseof what are the big science opportu-nities ... that need advanced cyberinfrastructure in any form," Har-rison said. He added tbat it wasn'tjust hardware requirements theywere looking for input on, but alsosoftware and access needs.

More broadly, the committee islooking for a picture of what sci-

entists can do with more access tosupercomputing centers over thenext few years. Harrison said hehoped to be able to draw on whitepapers and other comments submit-ted through the website. "What arethe big science drivers, what arethe scientific frontiers in order forthe NSF to maintain itself at thosefrontiers of science?" Harrison said."What really needs this stuff andwhat happens if the NSF doesn'tdo something?"

Scientists can read the fullinterim report and submit commentsnas.edu/sciencecomputing

APSNEWS

JONES continued from page 5

sites and time periods. includingthe Revolutionary War era sites ofOld Fort Johnson and Fort Klock inNew York, Contact-period NativeAmerican sites in New York. an8th-to-12th-century Irish monasticsite, the Klondike Gold Rush cityof Dyea, as well as several sites tolocate unmarked burials," he says,just to name a few. He has also con-ducted archaeological excavations.

For a project in Cyprus, BodhiRogers and his team surveyed a25-acre area dating to the lateBronze Age (approximately 3,000years old). He explains, "The goalwas to map the remaining city wallsto understand the layout of the cityand see how people express powerthrough urban design .... We stillhave to excavate, because archaeo-

geophysics doesn't tell us bow oldthings are or what the function ofthe buildings was." But his efforts"make the archaeological exca-vation much more efficient andfocused, since we already knowwhere to dig and what questionsto ask," Using ground-penetratingradar and magnetometry, he wasable to reveal the pattern of the city.Ever the physicist, Bodhi has alsoexamined how to improve ground-penetrating radar, especially underwet conditions, and has publishedstudies on this topic.

The appeal of a dual career thatunites these fields is clear. For BodhiRogers, the range and abundanceof intellectual challenges neverceases, especially since, given hisknowledge, he can easily navigate

a diversity of archaeological sitesand time periods. "I get to travelthe world and visit cultures mostpeople don't get to experience,"adds Hamacher. "It's a phenomenaljob tbat is incredibly interdisciplin-ary and extremely rewarding." It'samazing what can happen when oneexplores an "interesting combina-tion" of subjects."Alaina G. Levine is a science

writer and President of QuantumSuccess Solutions, a science careerand professional development con-sulting enterprise. Her new book,Networking for Nerds, on net-working strategies for scientistsand engineers, will be publishedby Wiley in 2015. She can be con-tacted through her website or viatwitter@AlainaGLevine.

ARCHIVES continued from page 3

prompted the archivists at theNiels Bohr Library & Arcbives atthe American lnstitute of Physics todigitize its most popular collection,tbe Samuel A. Goudsmit Papers.

"One of the interesting thingsis that archives have moved veryquickly in a very short period oftime towards online archives anddigitization," said Joe Anderson,director of the Bohr Library.

However, the process of scan-ning potentially millions of pages ofdocuments is time-consuming andlabor intensive. In 20 I2, comedianSeth McFarlane made a dorration

~ that enabled the Library of Con-gress to acquire the collected papersof Carl Sagan. The library posted onits website about 110 selected itemsfrom the more than 1,700 documentboxes, but has no plan to digitizethe whole collection.

"It's basically an online exhibitthat was created to commemoratethe acquisition of the papers," saidTrevor Owens, a digital archivistat the Library of Congress. "Theidea of that project is to situate CarlSagan's papers witbin the broadercollection of the L.O.c."

The library is home to enonnoustroves of books and documentsextending over hundreds of years,and the archivists have to conservetheir digitization resources. Othercollections like presidential or con-gressional records take precedence,largely because a collection like

Sagan's poses more challenges thanolder ones.

"The biggest challenge in doingmodem collections like the Saganpapers ... [is that] there's a lot ofrights issues to consider," Owenssaid. He added that this becomesespecially difficult as the collec-tions grow in size.

However, one problem research-ers have run into is that onlinearchives are not inherently perma-nent fixtures. In late 2013, two bigonline archives maintained by theDepartment of Energy (DOE) wentdark. A collection of documentsand photographs about tbe agency'sHanford Site was turned off aroundNovember, as was its MarshallIsland document collection. TheHanford archive was likely takendown because of the outdatedinfrastructure it used. A numberof the photographs once availablethrough the site have migrated ontothe DOE's Flickr account.

The Marshall Island arcbiveshosted about 14,000 individual doc-uments, largely related to nucleartesting in the Pacific and the healtheffects on the Marsball Islanders.When Wellerstein inquired aboutthe status ofthe archive, the depart-ment informed him that it wouldbe a temporary outage, but morethan a year later the archive stillhas not returned

"The problem with the govern-ment hosting these archives ... [is]

the government may have a mil-lion reasons to take them down.There's no mandate for keepingthem online," Wellerstein said."The real scary thing about digitalis tbat [while] it's easy to put thingsout there, it's really easy to tum itoff again."

However, disappearing archivesare the exception rather than therule, and interest from the publichas belped encourage these kinds ofprojects. The CERN photo projectwas made possible by a fund person-ally authorized by the lab's directorgeneral. "We were really impressedby the interest it generated," saidJens Vigen, the head librarian atCERN. "Across European media,it has been all over the place."

Part of the reason for thearchive's popularity is that the pub-lic has not only been encouraged tobelp identify the photos, but alsoto use them as well. CERN allowsanyone to reuse their photos as longas they credit the lab.

Brown said also that the artisticquality ofa lot of the photographscaught the public's eye. "You hadto make sure you were going toget a good shot and that you weretaking pictures that were goingto be enduring. Tbe artistic valueof some of these pictures is quitehigh," Brown said. "This kind ofold-school cool is a bit of a trendat the moment"

TRIANGULATION continued from page 3

with the GOP leadership.During a press briefing afterward,

the president openly acknowledgedthat he was staking out new strate-gic ground in advance of the I I4thCongress, which Republicans willfully control.

Obama's actions, which splitthe Democrats, galled many ofthem, including the party's HouseLeader, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif). Hisapproach was all too reminiscentof Bill Clinton's rapid pivot to thecenter following the 1994 midtermelection that gave Republicans con-trol of the House for the first time

in 40 years.During Clinton's final six years

in office, Washington came to recog-nize there were three separate powercenters to be conjured with: congres-sional Republicans, congressionalDemocrats and the White House.Dick Morris, a political consultant,who has been famous for work-ing both sides of the aisle and hadadvised Clinton to adopt the newthird-way strategy, called it "trian-gulation." And the name stuck. Sodid the presidential strategy, whichmany political analysts credit forthe success and public popularity

Clinton enjoyed until be left officein 200!.It is possible President Obama

had other motivations when he threwsome of his party's leaders under theCromnibus, but I doubt it. Legacybas to be on his mind, and the legendof Bill Clinton might be shaping upas his guide star. If Obama adoptsa triangulation posture, the sciencecommunity, which has long empha-sized the need for support acrossparty lines on Capitol Hill, will haveto acknowledge the importance ofthe White House as a separate actorin tbe final years of porus 44.

January 20 15 • 7

ANNOUNCEMENTS<.

Reviews of Modern Physics~

COlloquium: Fractional calculus view of complexity:A tutorial

Bruce J. West

Fractional calculus used to belong to pure mathematics, butnot any longer. With the increasing complexity found in systemswith a large number of degrees of freedom, fractional calculusfound ils way inlo physical phenomena. This Colloquium reviewsfractional calculus and its applications to fascinating problemsin statistical physics, networks, and dissipative systems amongothers.

~ dx.doLorgI10,1103/RevModPhys.86.1169

journals.aps.org/rmp .

PhysicsTeacherEducation

Building a ThrivingUndergraduatePhysics Program

Workshop

Feb 6-8. 2015February 5-7,2015

www.phllstec.ol.ll/conlerences12015

8· January 2015

Starting a business occupies your mind 24/7,but a faculty position is very much a full-time

job, too. Nonetheless, there is a path to gettingthe satisfaction of doing both. It requires a teameffort but maintains individual pride. As a CaseWestern Reserve University professor spearhead-ing both an entrepreneurial master's programand an applied physics PhD program, I havementored four-dozen master's, doctoral, and postdoctoralstudents in industrial work, been closely involved with anumber of successful start-up manufacturing companies, andspent three decades collaborating with industry. Based on thisexperience, I believe faculty can have viable entrepreneurialcareers without leaving the university and without an initialinvention. The path is facilitated by our teaching, and the twomost important words are "former students."The entrepreneurship pathway follows a tenure track. The

professor begins her career in some specialty - it doesn'tmatter which - and establishes credentials. She builds anetwork of former students, particularly in the businessworld, enhanced by media. This network offers opportuni-ties pertaining to underserved markets, innovations, andcompanies' outsourcing needs. Importantly, business partnersare identified. Today's university, increasingly encouragingentrepreneurship, is a source of advice for business andtechnology, as well as programs to teach creativity and, whatis often distinguished from it, innovation.Whatever Your BackgroundWe tell students they can have successful careers - if

they follow their passion and work hard. This advice canhelp us to be entrepreneurs, and not only in science, tech-nology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) but in art, too.(Full STEAM ahead!) Author Malcolm Gladwell says thatmastery of a skill requires 10,000 hours of practice. We canput that time into disciplines that include social sciences andhumanities. My background began with a "big bang," wherea particle physics PhD enabled me to understand Sheldon'swhiteboard formulas and build computational muscles. Anetwork of students and collaborators included researchersat Fermilab and CERN carrying out experiments connectedto our work. Such basic research seemed impractical, butended up connecting well with industry.

Particle physics a la "The Big Bang Theory"

An early connection came from former students employedin industry who recruited me for product modeling. Newstudents were trained as the modeling opportunities grew,and we created an imaging course and an industrial PhDtrack. With a healthy thirty-year run serving engineering andscience departments as well as industry, two-dozen industrialphysics PhD's have graduated, many with entrepreneurialbents. Together with burgeoning business collaborations,groundwork was laid for our start-ups.

In support of collaborations, we pioneered an award-winning professional master's Science and TechnologyEntrepreneurship Program (STEP) serving physics, math-ematics, biology, and chemistry departments, and now inits fifteenth year with dozens of alumni. (Think of an MBAon high-tech steroids.) Program students have capstonesinvolving a start-up company or an internship in industry.How We Define Stay-Put EntrepreneurshipWhile dictionary definitions refer to starting a business at

some risk, a Harvard quotation [I] called "the best answerever," says "Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunitybeyond resources controlled." Frankly, you can finance your-self and remain entrepreneurial, but outside help is usuallyneeded. Tethered to the university, our partnered definitionrequires the small but critical change: A full-lime-facultyentrepreneur is one who collaboratively pursues opportu-nity beyond the resources controlled. We need a full-timebusiness partner.ESTEAM: Creativity and InnovationAre entrepreneurs made, not born? In the proposal [2]

that incorporates entrepreneurship in an "ESTEAM" K-I6

The Back Page

Starting Up But Staying PutBy Robert Brown

education (or K-18 with a STEP step), we suggest includ-ing professors as students. As noted, universities comprisementors, advisors, partners, funding sources, and accountinghelp; programs like STEP study the "valley of death" (runningout of money between incubation and commercialization),valuation (product/service pricing), marketing, salesmanship,and the creativity behind the inventions.

Creativity has been defined as "inside the box" in anapproach [3] called "Systematic Inventive Thinking" (SIT).Consider system components, Iike in a computer. To improveit, the SfT rule is to avoid considering any outside, uncon-~.==4I===-i==;]~nected components; it is not

~ creative to go "outside the box,"g which is to combine unrelatedoltI systems.~E Consider a square of nine dots~ and the familiar puzzle of con-necting all dots with only fourstraight lines along one path.Needing external intersections

Thinking outside the box? is usually regarded as a metaphorfor thinking outside the box. Vet when students are told toconsider outside intersections, most still fail to solve it. SITsuggests it is not thinking outside the box but rather theoriginal straight-line components applied in a novel way. Thefamous outside-the-box example is actually an inside job.

To use SIT, make a list of the system parts and performone or more of the following operations: SUBTRACT oneof the parts, REARRANGE them, COpy one but with anew role for it, make a NEW TASK for one, and/or findNEW RELATIONSHIPS among them. Afterwards, assess thebenefits of the new system, and ask, "Is it possible?" Manyexamples of all five techniques can be found. Although wehave not been conscious of SIT, we can find connections to

u OUf work, and, besides, "staying inside the box" resonates.5 as a metaphor for an entrepreneur staying at the university.CQ) STEP focuses on "innovation," which includes inventive-E~ ness and commercialization. It emphasizes combining the.!! acronym [4] NABC - the Needs (the problems), Approach,jj (to show feasibility), Benefits per costs, Competition - with~ the "Champion," an outsider who benefits from or rhapsodizes~ over your endeavor. As satisfied customers, OEMs (OriginalE Equipment Manufacturers) have been champions for us. With~ this background, we tum next to the results.en~ The Rest of the Story: Six Key Points

J. Ideasfor business? Many ideas come from a collabora-tion on a new product or a problem with a present product.Industry's need to out-source work provides opportunitiesfor start-ups.2. Multiple start-ups. A fanner student came back to co-start anaward-winning radiofrequency-coil manufacturing businessnine years ago, growing it to 120 employees. Another menteewas likewise the brains and brawn behind a company to makethe whole MRI system, now with over 100 employees and$IOOM in investment; a different former student was the keytechnologist in a new image-guided radiotherapy company.We have fanned a partnership with one more new companymaking high-temperature superconducting MRI systems. Myroles have been co-founder, recruiter, the aforementioned"Champion" in attracting investors, grant writer, and doingthe myriad tasks sprinkled all over this essay. Dozens offormer students are employees ofthese start-ups.3. Patenting, Publishing, and Proposals. Start-ups needintellectual property (lP) to protect products and buttresstheir valuation. Co-sharing IP depends on whose facilitiesand funding have been utilized, but schools are looking atthis touchy issue more broadly now, recognizing the value innurturing businesses. Interestingly, patenting may be delayedto avoid divulging trade secret details. (However, U.S. patentoffices are now looking for more general "blue-sky" submis-sions.) To deal with patent infringement, an entrepreneurmay undergo a legal deposition (i.e., merciless grilling byaggressive lawyers). It is really painful, but if you preparefor it like a final exam you can win that battle.

Publications are good for business. For example, radiolo-gists influence their hospitals' purchasing; they read clinicalstudies injoumals highlighting new hardware. Publicationsare also critical for successful grant writing and funding pro-posals. Funding agencies with a forest of acronyms (SBIRI

APSNEWS

STTRlNIHINSF/DOE etc.) nowadays supportnew business ventures. In this regard, publica-tion of a 900-page textbook has had significantimpact on reputation-building among investorsand grant submissions. (My co-authors? Whoelse but fanner studentsl)4. What about the Administration? A conflict-of-interest management plan is needed to declare

any outside compensation, for recusal from university con-nections to your company, to acknow ledge personal stakes inpublications pertaining to its products, and so forth. Even ifa professor forsakes salary, any ownership has to be declaredas a conflict of interest.The frequent faculty complaint of inadequate help in writing

grants, let alone starting a company, is well-known. Universi-ties are increasing efforts to address these systemic issues.

U.E,;isen..~;:c.co

icoIII

~.~u

Publications have impact on investors.

5. Tenure Tracks. Will faculty entrepreneurs get tenure?Entrepreneurship can wait until tenure is earned, as I choseto do. But assistant professors can and do have business ideasand take on the juggling act. Someday, entrepreneurship maybe a standard tenure track.6. Risks versus Benefits. Entrepreneurship may force a careerchange, leaving faculty reluctant to try it. Much history beyondmine has shown, however, that the partnered faculty entre-preneur can successfully combine the new and old careers.

The Stay-Home MessageIn summary, the following steps, I believe, can be taken

to manage the risk for the partnered faculty entreprerieur:-Obtain a tenure-track position in traditional STEAMdisciplines.- Master a discipline anywhere in STEAM, training stu-dents as you go.-Grow a network of former students, colleagues, andcollaborators in scholarship/research.- Learn from ESTEAM mechanisms: internships, businessschools, master's programs, etc.- Create a commercialization venture from connectionswith industry, networks, SIT, etc.- Choose a business partner from your network (or havethem choose you) who can lead.-Get help inside or outside the university to write busi-ness plans, determine shares, manage IP, get financing,and ... learn how to charge for your product/service.- Establish a conflict of interest management plan withthe university.-Contribute as an interim president, recruiter, researcher,grant writer, advisory board member, and so forth.-Spend time consistent with the university's policy ofallowing other outside activities such as consulting orbook writing.

And you can gain the pride of ownership, of creating newjobs - and of maintaining the rewarding closeness of yourformer students.ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Adapted from a keynote speech,

Third Lubar-CEAS Joint Workshop on Entrepreneurship &Tech-nology Management, University ofWisconsin-Milwaukee, 2014.

Robert W.Brown is Institute Professor and DistinguishedUniversity Professor in the physics department of CaseWestern Reserve University. He partners with a dozen manu-facturing companies in a long career of industrial design,applied research, and entrepreneurial physics education.

REFERENCES1. E. Schurenberg, "What's an Entrepreneur? The Best Answer Ever," WNW,inc.com!

eric-schurenberglthe-best-definition-of-entepreneurship.html

2. S. Nambisan, "Make Entrepreneurship Part of Education,· www.jsonline.comlnewslopinionfmake-entrepreneurship-a-part-of-education-b99214666z1-247680431 ,html

3. D. Boyd and J. Goldenberg, Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for8feakthrough Resufts (Simon and Schuster, 2013).

4. C. Carlsonand W. Wilmot, Innovation: The Five Disciplines for Creating What Cus-tomers Want, NSF Workshop: The Scientific Basis of Individual and Team Innovationand Discovery, August, 2006

APS News welcomes and encourages letters and submissions from its members responding to these and other issues. Responses may be sent to: [email protected]