Featured Speakers (Cont.)
2005 Summer Meeting — Salt Lake City, UT
Aug. 6-10, 2005 Information about the plenary speakers and seesions is provided below. (Click on the name of an awardee to return to "Awardee" page.)
Melba Newell Phillips Tribute  Melba Newell Phillips (1907-2004) was born in Hazleton, Indiana. She graduated from high school at the age of 15 and studied mathematics at Oakland City College, Indiana. She received a master’s degree in physics from Battle Creek College of Michigan in 1928 and her doctorate in physics in 1933 at the University of California at Berkeley. Phillips’ supervisor at Berkley was J. Robert Oppenheimer, who later went on to work on the atomic bomb. Together they described the Oppenheimer-Phillips effect, explaining the behavior of accelerated nuclei of radioactive hydrogen atoms. Phillips took her first teaching position at the Connecticut College for Women in 1937, moving on to Brooklyn College in 1938. While at the College she helped organize the founding of the Federation of American Scientists in 1945. During World War II she taught at the University of Minnesota, returning to Brooklyn College after the war. She was fired from the college in 1952 for refusing to testify before the McCarran internal security subcommittee during the McCarthy era. Brooklyn College publicly apologized in 1987. Phillips returned to teaching in 1957, when she became associate director of a teacher-training institute at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1962 she took a position at the University of Chicago. She retired from the University in 1972. An author of several textbooks, including Classical Electricity and Magnetism (1955), with Wolfgang Panofsky, Phillips was active in AAPT throughout her career and was the association’s first female President in 1966.
(Adapted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia) Speakers: Roderick Grant - 3:30 p.m.
The life of Melba Newell Phillips began on a farm in Hazleton, Indiana in 1907, broadly impacted the world of physics to which she was drawn. From her analysis of an important reaction between deuterons, through her courageous stand on moral issues, and in her imaginative leadership of the physics education community, her life story gives inspiration to us all.
Sallie Watkins - 3:45 p.m.
Beneath the Cap and Gown
Professor Phillips, first and foremost a scientist and academic, was also a close friend to many. Having had the privilege of being in their number, the presenter of this brief talk will share selected personal anecdotes garnered from informal conversations with Dr. Phillips over the years.
E. Leonard Jossem - 3:55 p.m.
Melba Newell Phillips, Teacher, Scientist, Leader
These words on the Medal which accompanies the Phillips Award speak to the variety and importance of Melba’s connections to AAPT and to the physics education community generally. A more explicit sampling of some of her many contributions will be provided.
Dwight Neuenschwander - 4:25 p.m.
The Fruits of Her Work
The dedication with which Melba Newell Phillips poured her life into her students, and into the understanding of nature are enduring monuments to her integrity. The words of Albert Einstein, speaking of Marie Curie in 1935, may be applied to Dr. Phillips today: “At a time when a towering personality has come to the end of her life, let us not merely rest content with recalling what she has given to mankind in the fruits of her work. It is the moral qualities of its leading personalities that are [of] greater significance for a generation and for the course of history than purely intellectual accomplishments. Even these latter are dependent on the stature of character.” It is my privilege to review the “fruits of her work,” to reflect on Melba Phillips’ legacy in writing and research, from the Oppenheimer-Phillips Effect, to “Classical Electricity and Magnetism,” to “Principles of Physical Science.”
Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky - 4:55 p.m.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Bargain Under Siege
Melba Phillips’ many interests included the search for peace in our time. Perhaps the most crucial tool towards that end is the non-proliferation regime whose cornerstone is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which came into force in 1970. This treaty enshrines a complex bargain: non-nuclear weapons states agree not to acquire nuclear weapons, and the five designated nuclear weapons states agree not to transfer nuclear weapons nor the tools and know-how to make nuclear weapons to non-nuclear weapons states. To lessen the discriminatory impact of that treaty, all states are granted the “inalienable right” to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and the nuclear weapons states agree to de-emphasize nuclear weapons in international relations, working in good faith to their eventual elimination. All countries in the world other than Israel, India, Pakistan, and now North Korea adhere to that Treaty. Today, the non-proliferation regime is under siege since some non-nuclear weapons states appear to harbor nuclear weapons ambitions under the guise of peaceful nuclear power, while the nuclear weapons states—in particular, the United States—have failed in abandoning their continuing emphasis on nuclear weapons. Possible solutions to relieve this crisis will be discussed.
Plenary Session II |
Horst Stormer, Columbia University (Nobel Laureate)  Horst Störmer received his Ph.D. in 1977, from the University of Stuttgart, joined Bell Labs as a post-doctorate and became a member of Technical Staff in 1978. In 1983 he headed the Semiconductor Physics Research Department of AT&T Bell Labs, becoming director of the Physical Research Laboratory in 1992. In 1997 Störmer moved to Adjunct Physics Vice President at Bell Labs, now Lucent Technologies, and became a professor of Physics at the Applied Physics Department of Columbia University. Störmer has worked on the properties of lower-dimensional electron systems and published more than 200 papers on the subject. He continues to study electronic transport, emphasizing nanosized structures, such as two-dimensional and one-dimensional semiconductor as well as molecules. Störmer received several awards including the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics, which he shared with D. C. Tsui and R. B. Laughlin for the discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect. Störmer is a member of several scientific organizations including the National Academy of Sciences. Small Wonders: The World of Nano Science
“Nano” means one billionth and when used in “nano science” or “nano technology” means one billionth of a meter. One nano-meter is just about 5-10 times the size of an atom and the nano-scale reaches all the way to the micro-meter—from a few atoms to just about what we can see in a micro-scope. It’s a vast stretch. What makes this scale so interesting? Atoms represent the most gigantic LEGO set of the universe—everything is made from them—and the nano-scale is the scale where the game becomes interesting for the first time. This lecture will focus on the nano-scale, its wondrous meeting of physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering, and its potential to shape our technological future.
Tuesday, Aug. 9 - 4:00 p.m.
Plenary Session III (Joint Session with APS) |
Carl Wieman, University of Colorado (Nobel Laureate)  Carl Wieman grew up in the forests of Oregon and received his B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1977. He has been at the University of Colorado since 1984 where he is currently a Distinguished Professor of Physics and a Fellow of JILA. He has carried out research in a variety of areas of laser spectroscopy, including using laser light to cool atoms. This led to cooling atoms sufficiently to attain Bose-Einstein condensation in a vapor, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001, as well as numerous other awards. He has worked on a variety of innovations in teaching physics to a broad range of students, including the Physics Education Technology Project, which creates online interactive simulations for learning physics. He is a 2001 recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Board of Physics and Astronomy, the Committee on Undergraduate Science Education and the National Task Force on Undergraduate Physics. He is also Chair of the Board on Science Education at the National Academies. Bose-Einstein Condensation: Quantum Weirdness When Flirting with Absolute Zero
In 1924 Einstein predicted that a gas would undergo a dramatic transformation at a sufficiently low temperature (Bose-Einstein condensation or “BEC”). In 1995, my group was able to observe this transformation by cooling a gas sample to less than 100 billionths of a degree above absolute zero. The atoms in the BEC lose their individual identities and behave as a single quantum wave function. BEC, although large enough to be easily seen and manipulated, exhibits the nonintuitive quantum behavior normally important only at much tinier size scales. The study and use of the curious properties of BEC has now become an important subfield of atomic physics with many connections to condensed matter. I will discuss how we create BEC and some of the subsequent research we and others have done on it. Interactive applets as a tool for teaching science will be demonstrated. Wednesday, Aug. 10 - 1:30 p.m.
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Philip Bucksbaum, University of Michigan  Philip Bucksbaum received his A.B. from Harvard University in 1975 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980. He conducted his post-doctoral research at AT&T Bell Labs and at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories in Berkeley, California. Bucksbaum also served as Principle Investigator Member of Technical Staff in the Physics Research Division of AT&T Bell Labs and adjunct associate professor of physics at Columbia University. In 1990, he became a professor of physics at the University of Michigan, where he is currently the Otto Laporte Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan. His primary research interest is fundamental light matter interactions, and he has developed new sources of ultrafast laser light in the infrared visible, ultraviolet, and x-ray regions of the light spectrum. In 2001, Bucksbaum received the Michigan Sokal Award for Research, and in 2004, he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He also serves as Divisional Associate Editor of Physical Review Letters for the Laser Science Division, a member of the Physics Today Advisory Committee, and chairs the APS Nominating Committee. Coherent Control: Light That Learns on the Job
Lasers are now so advanced and varied that they can provide coherent radiation with nearly any wavelength, from DC to soft x-rays; nearly any intensity, from single photons to several billion-trillion watts per sq.cm.; and nearly any pulse duration, from continuous to less than a femtosecond. Optical pulse shapers can change laser light properties under computer control. Can shaped laser pulses affect matter in new ways, controlling physics and chemistry in molecules, solids or even biological systems? To explore this, we have developed learning algorithms that teach the light to perform a desired task. This is coherent control, a new way to explore and manipulate matter with lasers. Wednesday, Aug. 10 - 2:00 p.m.
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Steven Chu, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (Nobel Laureate)  Chu graduated from the University of Rochester in 1970 with a B.S. in physics and an A.B. in mathematics. He received his Ph.D. in 1976 from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a postdoctoral fellow from 1976 to 1978. He joined the staff at AT&T Bell Labs in 1978 and became the head of the quantum electronics research department in 1983. He became a professor in the physics and applied physics departments at Stanford University in 1987. Chu, along with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips, was awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize for Physics for pioneering research in cooling and trapping atoms using laser light. He is currently the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Frontiers of Atomic and Optical Science
(Abstract To Come.) Wednesday, Aug. 10 - 2:30 p.m.
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