Table of Contents August 2005

FEATURES

• Pyroelectricity: From Ancient Curiosity to Modern Imaging Tool
  Changes in the net dipole moment of certain materials form the basis for a broad range of IR detectors - Sidney B. Lang
• Einstein's Unknown Insight and the Problem Quantizing Chaos
  Chaotic systems were beyond the reach of an ingenious coordinate-invariant quantization scheme developed by Albert Einstein, and to this day, their quantization remains a challenge - A. Douglas Stone
• Polarized Gamma-Ray Beams
  Polarized high-energy photons are excellent probes of protons, neutrons, and nuclei. Nowadays they are readily made by shining laser light at a high-energy electron beam. - Carlo Schaerf

DEPARTMENTS

PHYSICS UPDATE

Letters

• Validating the Need to Validate Code
• Comments on the Culture of Force
• Albert Einstein to Max Born

Search & Discovery

• Black-hole physics in an electromagnetic waveguide
  By rapidly changing the dielectric constant in part of the guide, one can create mode-trapping horizons and an analogue of Hawking radiation.
• Supernova spectral feature addresses the connection with gamma-ray bursts
  Evidence is growing that gamma-ray bursts are generated by relativistic jets of material ejected from atypically massive and energetic supernovae flattened by high spin.

Issues & Events

• Evolution wars show no sign of abating
  Scientists have been fighting creationists and intelligent-design advocates on school boards and in state legislatures, the courts, and even the Smithsonian Institution.
• GE makes high-profile pledge to green up
  From fluorescent light bulbs to power stations, General Electric is betting on profits from energy-efficient and environmentally friendly products.
• Deal puts ITER in Europe, compensates Japan
• US nanotech program strong, but international race is on
• NIF threatened with closure
• Women unite to improve physics culture
• News Notes
• Web Watch

Books

• Zeldovich: Reminiscences, edited by R. A. Sunyaev (reviewed by G. Gorelik)
• Fundamentals of Seismic Wave Propagation, C. Chapman (reviewed by B. Romanowicz)
• Rubber and Rubber Balloons: Paradigms of Thermodynamics, I. Müller and P. Strehlow (reviewed by M. Marder)
• Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Statistical Thermodynamics, M. Le Bellac, F. Mortessagne, and G. G. Batrouni (reviewed by A. Muriel)
• New Books

New Products

• Focus on Software

We Hear That

• Heilmeier to Receive Kyoto Prize
• In Brief

Obituaries

• Asher Peres
• Dietrich Wolfgang Bechert
• Martin Jacob Berger
• Charles Hosea Braden
• John Roderick Cameron
• Piet Cornelis Gugelot
• Richard Guy Helmer
• Daniel Joseph Zaffarano

JOB OPPORTUNITIES