physics update letters search & discovery issues & events books new products we hear that obituaries
November 2001 Volume 54, Number 11
Links to Advertisers

Cover: A Josephson junction is embedded in the center of this logarithmically periodic antenna. The junction was formed from a high-temperature superconductor at the boundary between two grains with different crystalline orientations. The orientations match those of the underlying substrate (evident in the striations in each half of the image). For more on grain boundaries in high-Tc superconductors, see the article by Jochen Mannhart and Praveen Chaudhari on page 48. (Image courtesy of M. Schilling, University of Hamburg, Germany.)

Physics in a New Era
If physics is to flourish at the threshold of the 21st century, the physics community must respond to the needs of a rapidly changing society.
-- Thomas Appelquist and Donald Shapero

Sprites, Elves, and Glow Discharge Tubes

The venerable field of gaseous electronics underlies the understanding of a lightning-like phenomenon of spectacular extent, shape, and color
-- Earle R. Williams

High-Tc Bicrystal Grain Boundaries
Grain boundaries in high-temperature superconductors illustrate the interplay of
physics, materials science, and applications in complex materials
-- Jochen Mannhart and Praveen Chaudhari

Readings from the Physics Today Archive
We are proud to present a collection of readings from our archives that are associated with this issue. Updated throughout the month.

  Departments

Physics Update

From the Editor
Our Community

Reference Frame
Scaling Mount Planck II: Base Camp

Letters
Walking the Planck Length through History
On Keeping Chinese Science Students
Computer Overkill?
Nature Has the Answers
Galileo's Sentence Restated

Search and Discovery
Understanding Why Sound Waves Travel Faster along Earth's Axis in the Inner Core
New calculations of iron's elasticity at the temperatures and pressures of Earth's inner core show that the directional dependence of sound waves in the crystals is larger than expected.

X-ray observations of young stars address a puzzle of the Solar System's origin
Must we really invoke a supernova midwife to explain why the new-born Solar System harbored so much short-lived radioactivity? Maybe not.

Issues and Events
As Decision Time Approaches for Radioactive Waste Repository, a Mountain of Issues Still Unresolved

The debate over Yucca Mountain has focused mainly on safety concerns thousands of years in the future. The 11 September terrorist attacks are changing the debate and making safety issues more immediate.

AIP Urges Documenting Big Physics for Posterity
Want your grandchildren to know how you built that satellite? Measured salinity and other properties of the world's oceans? Discovered the top quark or conducted some other major collaborative project? If so, start thinking now about saving records, says a new report by AIP's Center for History of Physics.

US Panel Nixes Astronomy Move
Astronomers in the US gave a collective sigh of relief when a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel rejected a proposal outlined in President Bush's 2002 budget to move ground-based telescopes from NSF's to NASA's auspices.

NSF Centers Stimulate Research at Physics Frontiers
Cosmology, gravitational wave physics, ultrafast physics, and particle physics are the topics that triumphed in NSF's first annual competition to form Physics Frontier Centers. Four inaugural centers will get up to $3 million a year each for five years, with home institutions chipping in at least 15% more.

Secondary, Undergraduate Physics in Crisis in UK
The refrain is familiar, but the volume is up: UK secondary schools desperately need physics teachers, and university physics departments should broaden their reach in undergraduate education. So says the Institute of Physics (IOP) in a report released last month on undergraduate physics in the UK.

Science Teacher Initiative Launched
In an effort to create more and better-prepared K-12 science teachers from the ranks of college physics and physical science students, a partnership of physics organizations, backed by federal grants totaling more than $6 million, has established the Physics Teacher Education Coalition, or PhysTEC.

News Notes
Software pro leads Bell Labs
UK research council chiefs
Researchers innovate in education
Online digests
Degrees down, enrollments up

Web Watch
Some Physics Projects with LEGO
Animations of Processes within the Ear
The Museum of HP Calculators

Books
Memoirs: A Twentieth-Century Journey in Science and Politics, Edward Teller with Judith Shoolery (reviewed by Hans A Bethe)

The Historical Development of Quantum Theory. Volume 6: The Completion of Quantum Mechanics, 1926-1941, Jagdish Mehra and Helmut Rechenberg (reviewed by Silvan S. Schweber)

Exploring Black Holes: Introduction to General Relativity, Edwin F. Taylor and John Archibald Wheeler (reviewed by Omer Blaes)

Nearest Star: The Surprising Science of Our Sun, Leon Golub and Jay M. Pasachoff (reviewed by Ramon E. Lopez)

Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Michael A. Nielsen and Isaac L. Chuang (reviewed by Daniel F. V. James)

Managing Science: Management for R&D Laboratories, Claude Gelès, Gilles Lindecker, Mel Month, and Christian Roche (reviewed by Thomas N. Theis)

New Books

New Products
 Focus on lasers and optics

We Hear That
New International Medal Honors Munk

Cosmology Prize Goes to Rees

Lorius Wins Balzan Prize

Weinhous is AAPM's President-Elect

In Brief

Obituaries
Fred Hoyle

Persa Raymond 'P.R.' Bell

John Wyrill 'Jack' Christian

Lochlainn O'Raifeartaigh

Reuven Ramaty

Job Opportunities