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Speaker abstractsAngela BelcherFacilitating Scientific Interfaces between Nature and Advanced Technologies Organisms make exquisite inorganic materials with many desired physical properties such as strength, regularity, and environmental benign processing. There are many properties of living systems that could be potentially harnessed. One approach is to evolve organisms to work with a more diverse set of building blocks. An example is a virus enabled lithium ion rechargeable battery that has many improved properties over conventional batteries. This talk will address conditions under which organism first evolved to make materials, scientific approaches to move beyond naturally evolved materials to genetically imprint advanced technologies, and working with and training students between scientific disciplines Martin Blume PROLA: How a Step Back was a Step Forward Philip Howard BucksbaumControlling the Quantum World of Atoms, Molecules, and Photons. Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics (AMO) has developed remarkable new capabilities in the last decade, including Bose Einstein Condensation, sub-femtosecond laser pulses, and atomic clock stabilities of one second in sixty million years. Some of these revolutionary new tools have already produced Nobel Prizes. Our field now stands at the threshold of an age where the quantum world is not merely studied, but precisely controlled. I will outline a few of the great opportunities and challenges of the coming decade in this field.1sup> 1Controlling the Quantum World of Atoms, Molecules, and Photons: An Interim Report, Committee on AMO 2010, National Research Council, (2005) Steven ChuSeeing the Light Most of our awareness of the world around us comes to us through our eyes, and perhaps for this reason, our earliest scientific discoveries was in the form of "observations". Some of the most crucial scientific tools that shaped science in the last 400 years started as extensions of our sight to astronomical and microscopic scales, while significant theoretical advances are described as great "insights". I will discuss how new optical tools developed in the later half of the twentieth century have further extended our ability to see the natural world and give a "vision" of the future. Ralph J. CiceroneScience Tomorrow Historically, physics and physicists have been critical in many intellectual and practical advances across many fields, while also creating new ones. I will argue that due to continued growth in human numbers and consumption, energy and Earth's environment are likely to require more research attention from physicists rather than less. Physicists can make several kinds of contributions through teaching and research; in contrast, ceding these fields to others would forego some benefits and incur several types of risks. Marvin L. CohenCondensed Matter Physics: Looking Back and Forward It can be argued that physics is the central science. It has strong connections to the other sciences and to mathematics. In some sense, it can also be argued that condensed matter physics is the center of physics. The size and energy scales are “sort of in the middle” of what physicists study, and there are strong connections to chemistry, biology, engineering, and computer science. In addition, the research in this field spans a broad range of topics from very basic conceptual studies of physics to applied physics. After some comments about the past, I will describe a few trends which appear suggestive of what might happen in this field in the future. John Cox The system of scholarly journal publishing was established in the seventeenth century with the publication of Philosophical Transactions by the Royal Society, and has served the research community effectively for over 300 years. But economics and technology are combining to challenge the established order: the inability of library budgets to keep pace with increases in the volume of information and the opportunities provided by the Internet to improve information distribution. Authors and readers have heightened expectations of the information system on which they depend. Brian D. CrawfordDifferences Between Commercial and Society Journal Publishing As publishers of peer-reviewed scientific, technical, and medical information for the international community of researchers, students, and professionals, both commercial and not-for-profit society publishers share a commitment to promoting the broad dissemination of research results, and ensuring the integrity of the scientific record. Whereas commercial publishers seek to serve the scholarly community while delivering value for customers and shareholders, society publishers must balance also the economic expectations of their professional associations with the mission-oriented priorities and pursuits of their memberships. Management of today’s publishing enterprise in a competitive global marketplace for scientific information requires careful calibration of investments in editorial development, web production technology, sales and marketing, and evaluation of the benefits and risks of engaging in strategic alliances and collaborations, including outsourcing of internal activities. The decision-making processes followed by commercial and non-profit society publishers when addressing such economic, operational and policy issues can be a study in contrasts. Lawrence CrumAcoustics—representing the diversity of physics The Acoustical Society of America was founded mostly by physicists in 1929 because at that time, acoustics was an integral part of physics. Gradually over the years, acousticians have diversified into a number of other fields of science that are not normally considered a part of mainstream physics. However, acousticians still use the basic physical laws to address a number of important topics in science and engineering. In this lecture, a variety of these topics will be discussed, such as sonoluminescence, in which a collapsing gas bubble can generate extreme pressures and temperatures by inertial confinement; thermoacoustics, in which, by utilizing a basic property of waves, one can build an environmentally-friendly refrigerator with no moving parts; time-reversal acoustics, in which one can greatly improve communication over large distances in the ocean or perform precision surgery in the brain; language development in children, from which we can learn the intricacies of how the brain learns. Jim GatesSuperstrings To Rule Fundamental Theories All? As superstring/M-theory enters an epoch of fundamental physics Paul Ginsparg“Why us? Why now? What next?" There have been many dramatic changes in the dissemination of physics research results over the past 15 years. The current state of affairs, however, would not have been projected as stable 10 years ago. What additional changes might we anticipate in the next 5-10 years? Evelyn R. HuFrontiers of Nanotechnology The field of nanotechnology has been brought to life through the launch of the National Nanofabrication Initiative. Nanoscience and nanotechnology are the culmination of development and mastery in the multiple strands of science and engineering. They have converged and intertwined to form areas of endeavor that have tremendous potential for augmented scientific discovery and technological advances. The frontiers of nanotechnology lie along the interfaces of more traditional scientific disciplines: the challenges involve our ability to effectively assimilate and integrate understanding across those interfaces. Patrick HughesRelativespective Through this fascinating survey, viewers will experience English artist Patrick Hughes’ witty exploration of paradox and perspective. Both physical entity and painted illusion, his dimensional work masterfully employs reverse perspective to challenge perception and trigger movement. In defiance of orthodox logic, objects closest to viewers are the most distant in the scene, and vice-versa, forcing a new appreciation of relativity and change. Often, a landscape and the interior of a room are shown coexisting in dynamic equilibrium, and paintings by other famous artists who share his passionate study of perspective are included. Doors have been a favorite metaphor to convey the liberation of conventional thinking and the conjoining of opposites. As the eye-dazzling Brick Doors attests, in Hughes’s world, the impossible and the possible become one. Raymond JeanlozPlanetary Geophysics Observational realms of natural science combine field observations with experiment and theory to uncover fundamental new concepts while also documenting the world and universe around us. Multi-scaling in space and time, among the conceptual breakthroughs of planetary geophysics during the 20th century, now lead to studies determining material properties that govern the evolution - and help document the origins - of planets. Such cross-disciplinary approaches offer an exemplary training in science, whether to advance basic research or to address society's most urgent problems. Heather JosephOpen Access to the results of scholarly research has the potential to help individual researchers vastly increase the visibility, usefulness and impact of their work. Perhaps even more importantly, its potential benefit extends far beyond individual researchers to institutions, the scholarly community, and to society as a whole. By providing free and unrestricted access to scholarly works, open access can help accelerate research efforts, speed the understanding of outstanding scientific questions, and increase the pace of scientific innovation and discovery. These goals also speak to the core of the mission of the majority of scholarly societies. It would seem that Open Access and scholarly societies would be a match made in heaven, yet a widespread transition of society journals to open access has yet to occur. Is there a fundamental disconnect, or is it simply a matter of time before a convergence occurs? Michael J. KurtzInformation Dissemination in Astronomy: Current State, Use, and Future Two decades into the internet era astronomers make routine use of a tightly interconnected set of complementary information services. This has transformed the role of the traditional journals, and greatly improved the efficiency of astronomical research. The main elements in this system are: the Journals; the arXiv e-print server; the Strasburg (France) Data Center (CDS); and the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS). In addition the new, worldwide Virtual Observatory movement is poised to make substantial improvements. I will show how the system works, and demonstrate some of the synergies inherent in its sophisticated use. I will then discuss how the combination of the arXiv, the ADS and the journals are actually used, using per article readership and citation information as a I will conclude with some thoughts on what these results might imply for other disciplines. Shirley MalcomDemographics and Diversity Cognitive scientist Dr. Alison Gopnik describes the concept of “everyday physics.” The implication of this idea is that every child has the capacity to discover, test through experiences and make personally relevant basic physical principles that cover such ideas as force and motion that they encounter as they develop. These experiences occur when children are quite young and often are elements of what might be considered “play.” While claiming physics as a universal aspect of humanness, the world of physics research and application as expressed in the community of professionals is the world of elites, characterized by “exclusiveness.” The Challenge? How does one go about reclaiming the ideas of physics as a part of what all students need to learn? When working to broaden the talent pool for physics and to encourage more participation in the professional ranks by women and minorities, the push for diversity has often been set in opposition to the demand for quality. Yet the future of physics depends on our developing and tapping into a larger and more diverse talent pool such as that represented by women of all races, African American, Latino and American Indian males and persons with disabilities. Without a change in expectation and behavior, physics and the institutions in which it is practiced will not flourish. John MarburgerFuture of Science and Government World War II was a milestone in the relation between science and government, but it lay at the center of a long period of transition between the Great Depression and the launch of Sputnik. Patterns were established then that have guided science policy to this day, and are likely to persist into the future. Following the end of the cold war, important adjustments were made to postwar federal science programs. The focus of support shifted from national security to economic competitiveness, a shift that can be seen in nearly every developed country. Martin ReesSeventy five years ago, Hubble's tentative evidence for cosmic expansion was 'hot news'; and it was still a mystery what made the stars shine. We owe the amazing subsequent progress to advances in technology and instrumentation -- in space and on the ground. We now have firm measures of the scale and structure of our universe; we can, with confidence, trace cosmic history back to the first microsecond after the 'big bang'; we understand the physics of normal stars, and of neutron stars and black holes as well. There are three challenges: to delineate more fully how, over 13-14 billion years, our universe evolved to its present state; to understand the exotic physics of the very beginning; and to explore 'extreme cosmic phenomena' to probe the laws of physics beyond the range of direct experimental test. Bernard RousPrimary Publishers and Institutional Repositories This talk describes Institutional Repositories from a primary publisher's perspective. A general definition of Institutional Repositories is attempted in terms of the types of content they house or plan to house. Their long-term viability is assessed. Motives and goals common to many of them are described. These are compared and contrasted with the goals of primary publishers. The talk focuses on potentials both for conflict and for collaboration between Institutional Repositories and primary publishers. Some attention is given to the special role society publishers might play in the evolution of Institutional Repositories. Mary VanAllenA comparison of the performance of society journals in the field of physics vs the non-society physics journals, with comments on journal growth potential. Spencer WeartIn 1931, the year AIP was founded, scientists could see promising paths into the future. Some would use the new quantum theory to investigate the invisibly small — the nucleus and fundamental particles. Others would use quantum theory to study the stuff of daily life, especially matter in its solid state. While physicists could not predict nuclear fission or the transistor, they were confident their work would yield amazing applications. But some of their other hopes, such as a unified theory for the entire cosmos, are still not realized despite great advances. And some ideas available in 1931, such as stimulated emission (the laser) and greenhouse warming, attracted scant attention until the 1950s. Today’s vastly larger physics community likewise sees some clear paths forward for the next 75 years. We should deepen our understanding of fundamental particles and cosmology, and find astonishing applications to daily life in nanoscale materials and biophysics. But like our predecessors, we surely overlook ideas that will someday be prominent. As for our growth in numbers by orders of magnitude since 1931: that cannot be repeated. Further growth will depend on the world’s economy — whose prospects in a stressed environment are poor without vigorous help from science. |
