bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A bibliographic search by computer
Authors: Brown Sanborn C.
Published: January 2009

ANY COLLECTION OF DATA one can make these days is out of date before it is published. This is true, for example, of my Basic Data of Plasma Physics. In the book I tried to bring together in useful form the data of gaseous electronics and plasma physics upon which scientists base calculations and further work with basic parameters.
Current problems of fluid dynamics
Authors: Fowler Richard G.
Published: January 2009

A PARADOX CONFRONTS contemporary physicists: although scope, importance and utility of fluid dynamics in physics have grown spectacularly, teaching of the subject in physics departments has been receiving less and less attention. Not only are advanced courses becoming rare, but fluids are often eliminated from introductory physics for lack of time. Even when they are included, outdated aspects are usually presented, and modern contributions are ignored.
Two neutron sciences
Authors: Goldstein Herbert , Goldman David T.
Published: January 2009

NEEDS FOR MICROSCOPIC neutron data in nuclearenergy applications have continued to expand over the years. The last two decades have seen steady and at times dramatic progress in the detail and extent to which neutron cross sections can be measured or calculated. Pulsed neutron sources, with associated time-of-flight techniques, now dominate almost all energy ranges from fractions of an electron volt to many millions of electron volts. Concurrently, improved detectors such as large liquid scintillator tanks have been developed, and on-line computers have been designed to manage and analyze experiments involving many parameters.
A debate on preprint exchange—Pro: Physics Information Exchange
Authors: Moravcsik Michael
Published: January 2009

THE PHYSICS INFORMATION EXCHANGE (PIE) is a program, currently under active discussion, that aims at improving communications within high-energy theoretical physics. The program was proposed in September 1965 by Charles Gottschalk of the technical information division of the US Atomic Energy Commission, and I like to believe that an article of mine in PHYSICS TODAY (“Private and Public Communications in Physics,” March 1965) might have in part stimulated the proposal. The idea is by no means new, however; it has been tossed around among active researchers in high-energy physics for many years.
A debate on preprint exchange—Rebuttal: Some comments on Pasternak's criticism
Authors: Moravcsik Michael
Published: January 2009

PIE IS PROPOSED AS AN EXPERIMENT in prepublication communication. Just as with a scientific experiment, the outcome can not be entirely known beforehand; otherwise it would not be necessary to carry out the experiment. If we had definite answers to all the questions one can ask about scientific communication patterns and methods, this and other debates would not have to take place at all. We would simply institute programs that embody the answers, and, barring mismanagement, success would be assured.
Instrumentation for nuclear-structure analysis
Authors: Kane John V.
Published: January 2009

N UCLEAR INSTRUMENTATION is undergoing revolutionary changes because of rapidly increasing use of stored-program computers by experimentalists in nuclear-structure laboratories. With currently available electronic instrumentation (see box on page 60) and the principles that make a computer useful in running a laboratory, it appears possible to achieve the goal of this revolution: a maximum of wish fulfillment for every user in his scientific investigations.
Instrumentation for plasma diagnostics
Authors: Eubank Harold P.
Published: January 2009

T HE LAST DECADE has brought about enormous growth in efforts toward understanding plasmas. This growth has come primarily from two sources: the controlled-thermonuclear-research program and the space program, both of which have lent support to many research fields with overlapping interests, such as applied optics, low-energy-beam cross-section measurements and electromagnetic-wave propagation in ionized media.
Matter-antimatter asymmetry found in intermediate interaction
Authors: Lubkin Gloria B.
Published: January 2009

The symmetry of matter and antimatter in electromagnetic interactions is seriously in doubt. An experiment on the decay of the η0 meson into a π+, π− and π0 shows that, on the average, the π+ comes off with more energy than the π−. This result, reported in the 27 June issue of Physical Review Letters, implies that charge-conjugation invariance, believed valid in strong interactions, does not hold in interactions that have less strength. The discovery of this matter-antimatter asymmetry has intrigued such diverse beings as particle physicists, newspaper reporters and space-agency workers.
Memories of Niels Bohr
Authors: Nielson J. Rud
Published: January 2009

When I saw Niels Bohr for the last time, a few weeks before his death, he gave me a reprint of his Rutherford Memorial Lecture and inscribed it “With the thought of many common memories”.
Reminiscences of Niels Bohr
Authors: Bloch Felix
Published: January 2009

This special occasion, I realize, calls for a special selection among the many remarkable instances which the name of Niels Bohr brings back to my mind. It seemed indicated, at first, that I should restrict my account to those reminiscences which bear directly upon specific topics in physics and to omit others of more general human interest. But as I thought more about this talk, I realized that such an omission would present a grossly distorted picture, and that an essential feature of Bohr's character would be lost if one tried to distinguish between the professional and the personal manifestations of his great personality.
Niels Bohr and nuclear physics
Authors: Wheeler John Archibald
Published: January 2009

No one can take up the background of the contributions of Niels Bohr to nuclear physics without being reminded at once of the first paper he ever published, “The Determination of the Surface Tension of Water by the Method of Jet Vibration”. It appeared in 1909 when he was 24 years old. It and a second paper on the same subject in the following year marked early stages in Bohr's lifelong interest in liquid drops and their vibrations. Twenty-eight years later the vibrating fluid sphere found in his hands a new application as a model for nuclear excitations; thirty years later it became his model for nuclear fission.
Niels Bohr a memorial tribute
Authors: Weisskopf Victor F.
Published: January 2009

We are assembled to pay tribute to Niels Bohr. Niels Bohr is the symbol, he is the origin, he is the main architect of our work. It was through him, by him, and with him that all this on which our work and our existence stands was created. He was a great man. What is greatness? A great man is one who creates a new period, a new way of thinking, and truly he and his life correspond to this definition. The influence of what he started is seen in every aspect of our life. Modern science has reshaped our world. It became the determining factor in our thinking, in our culture, even in politics, and it establishes the direction in which mankind will move in the next decades. The real significance of the development which was initiated by Bohr cannot yet be judged by us. We are too close to his life. Only from a distance can one see how much Mont Blanc towers over the other mountains of the Alps.
Interaction of medium-energy nucleons with complex nuclei
Authors: Rosen Louis
Published: January 2009

Although the structure of matter has intrigued and tantalized mankind for tens of centuries, it is only within the past few decades that we have built the tools with which to explore atomic nuclei. The reason for this state of affairs is to be found in the minute size of atomic nuclei and in the fact that each nucleus, by virtue of its proton inhabitants, is surrounded by a coat of armor in the form of an electrostatic, or Coulomb, field. To penetrate this field requires either high-energy charged particles, or particles without charge, namely neutrons; but these latter are themselves constituents of complex nuclei and must be dislodged from their natural habitat either by nuclear interactions (which again involves Coulomb-barrier penetration) or by a self-sustaining chain reaction in fissionable material.
Physics of nonthermal radio sources
Authors: Maran S. P.
Published: January 2009

The fundamental observational problem in radio-astronomical investigations of discrete sources is the determination of the precise positions and spectra of these objects, as well as measurement of the brightness distributions of those sources large enough to be resolved by existing equipment. Recently, polarimeter measurements at a number of frequencies have provided data on the percentage of linear polarization and position angle of the electric vector for some of the more intense sources. This work, in turn, has made it possible to study the effects of Faraday rotation on the cosmic radio waves, leading to model-dependent estimates of the electron density and magnetic field strength in interstellar and intergalactic space.
Some reflections on science and the humanities
Authors: Ashmore Jerome
Published: January 2009

Since the days of the Enlightenment, if not before, there has been a tendency among writers of all kinds to comment on the differences between science and the humanities. Recently the expression of that tendency acquired a new feature in the form of the suggestion that, instead of threatening the security of theological doctrine or of metaphysical concepts, science is threatening to divide what traditionally has been a cultural unity within the western world.
Research technology and public policy
Authors: Kennedy John F.
Published: January 2009

It is impressive to reflect that one hundred years ago, in the midst of a savage fraternal war, the United States Congress established a body devoted to the advancement of scientific research. The recognition then of the value of abstract science ran against the grain of our traditional preoccupation with technology and engineering.
The Mössbauer effect
Authors: Bearden Alan J.
Published: January 2009

Meetings to discuss the theory and applications of the Mössbauer effect can be summarized by the application of a mathematical series. This was pointed out by Dr. Hans Frauenfelder (University of Illinois) in an after-dinner talk at the Third International Conference on the Mössbauer Effect, sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency and held at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. The odd-numbered meetings take place in isolated places, have long sessions, and are free of temptations. The even-numbered meetings take place in exotic places, have short sessions, and provide the conferees with all manner of extracurricular activity. Experimental evidence in support of this theory can be found in Table 1.
The Onsager conference
Authors: Klein Martin J.
Published: January 2009

In 1931, while he was a research instructor in chemistry at Brown University, Lars Onsager published two papers on the theory of reciprocal relations for irreversible processes, and thereby laid the foundations for the now flourishing subject of irreversible thermodynamics. As a most fitting recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of this achievement, Brown University played host, this past June, to an International Conference on Irreversible Thermodynamics and the Statistical Mechanics of Phase Transitions (sponsored by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, the National Science Foundation, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research). The conference began with a suitably impressive ceremonial session at which President Barnaby Keney of Brown conferred the University's honorary degree of Doctor of Science upon Onsager, who is now J. Willard Gibbs Professor at Yale.
A report on the Woods Hole Conference on Transport Theory
Authors: Ziering Sigi
Published: January 2009

A small topical conference on transport theory took place on September 13, 14, and 15, 1962, at the Little Harbor Farm, Woods Hole, Mass. The conference was sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Its broad aims were to bring together researchers in the various fields related to transport theory, and to discuss common interdisciplinary areas of research as well as problem areas more specific to a given area of research.
The Corfu Advanced Study Institute on radio-astronomical and satellite studies of the atmosphere
Authors: Aarons Jules
Published: January 2009

Shortly after the study of astronomy by radio techniques began in earnest, a basic problem arose. Three “sources” of radio flux had been delineated: the sun, the cosmic-noise background, and the discrete sources (radio stars). Were the discrete sources variable, as the sun showed evidence of being, or was the atmosphere modulating fixed-flux sources? The first answer was that the radio-star sources exhibited intrinsic fluctuations in intensity, but studies in Australia and England utilizing spaced receivers indicated that the earth's ionosphere and troposphere produced effects similar to the “twinkling” of visible stars. The study of “twinkling” or scintillation was the first of the upper-atmospheric effects to be investigated in detail.
The AAPT–AIP Regional Counselor Program a counselor's report
Authors: Hollingsworth G. L.
Published: January 2009

The Regional Counselor Program was launched jointly by the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics in October 1961. The broad objective of the program, as stated in the initial news release dated October 10. 1961, is “to improve high-school teaching of physics”. This objective it shares with other agencies and groups, and with Admiral Rickover! Perhaps the most notable of these is the Physical Sciences Study Committee, which has been in operation a great deal longer and has evidenced its activity by the production of what many of us believe to be an outstanding text for the teaching of physics. The unique contribution of the AAPT-AIP Regional Counselor Program is in recognizing that any major improvement in the teaching of physics must come about through local action, through the efforts of people well known in their communities, and to a large extent with the resources we already have. Good as they are, the PSSC texts will be to no avail if they are not adopted widely through the high schools. This will require that constant encouragement be given school boards, teachers, and administrators, as they encounter the many problems inherent in any program to improve teaching in physics. It is evident that encouragement and help must be primarily local.
Pulsed plasma propulsion
Authors: Kunen Alfred E.
Published: January 2009

There are many different types of pulsed-plasma engines, or accelerators, which may be classified by the geometry of the discharge, either a sheet or a line, and by the position of the electrodes, which are either directly in contact with the propellant, or inductively coupled with the propellant. It is the author's belief that, of all the various types of pulsed-plasma accelerators, only the sheet-direct-contact accelerator will ultimately become a working engine. The arguments in support of this belief are partly of a practical nature and may even be only intuitive. There are, however, two devices which fill even this narrow description: the so-called “pinch engine” and the purely axial accelerator illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. Note that both are characterized by coaxial geometries and require that the discharge be axi-symmetric. In the “pinch” type or radial accelerator, the initial discharge formed by axial currents must be turned so that the currents become radial. No turning is apparently required in the axial accelerator. However, the magnetic-field forces are inversely proportional to the radius, and some turning will take place. It would appear that both accelerators should maintain a current sheet normal to the walls of the electrodes. This may be more easily obtained in a curved channel than in a straight one. In addition to symmetry, it appears necessary to obtain a discharge which is relatively thin and impervious to neutral particles by virtue of the high degree of ionization in the discharge. The accelerating sheet, driven by Lorentz forces, should then drive out the propellant situated in the interelectrode region. In general, the thickness of the sheet and its degree of ionization is affected by the energy available to the discharge. Low energy per discharge coupled with a high pulse rate is desirable for low capacitor weight, but is detrimental to the formation of a good driving “magnetic piston”. Experimentally, lower energy per discharge appears to be required in the radial than in the axial accelerator in order to obtain symmetric and nonporous sheet discharges or “pistons”.
Plasmas in space
Authors: Bridge Herbert S.
Published: January 2009

About twenty years ago, the so-called “infall” theory had been thoroughly worked out by Hoyle and by Alfvén. They reasoned that, since the sun moves through clouds of interstellar hydrogen gas, the neutral hydrogen must fall in toward the sun under the influence of the gravitational field. On its way toward the surface of the sun, the hydrogen encounters a strong flux of ultraviolet radiation and, because of the small rate of recombination, it becomes completely ionized. Thus the inner solar system is filled with a dilute, highly conducting plasma. At about the same time the infall theory was worked out, it became rather generally accepted that the corona of the sun has a temperature of 1 or 2 million degrees. In fact, Hoyle tried to account for the heating of the corona in terms of the energy released by the hydrogen falling into the sun.
High school physics teachers and the local sections of physics societies
Authors: Hazzard George W.
Published: January 2009

The New York State Section of the American Physical Society has, in recent years, moved in the direction of programming review meetings on various topics of current interest in physics, designed for the information of physicists who are not necessarily specialists in the fields reviewed.
Problems in fusion research
Authors: Reynolds J. A.
Published: January 2009

The aim of fusion research is the economical release of energy by combining light-element nuclei—the energy source of the stars. Consequently, we require stellar temperatures which are in the region of ten to a hundred million degrees, and, since at these temperatures all matter is ionized, the problems of fusion research are the problems of high-temperature plasma research. Such high temperatures are required because we need to impart sufficient kinetic energy to the reacting nuclei to overcome the mutual coulomb barrier. We do not have the advantage of that natural fluke, the fission process, which can proceed at room temperature because it makes use of the neutron for barrier penetration.
Plasma physics: Modern diagnostic techniques
Authors: Brown Sanborn C.
Published: January 2009

To begin, I would like to define the terms in the title. By modern, I mean within the last ten years. The word diagnostics is borrowed from medical usage and, as linked here with plasmas, it means “looking at the physics of”. In discussing techniques, there is of course such a range that one needs a guiding thread and, in this case, I have arbitrarily chosen to start with dc and work towards higher frequencies.
Group theoretical methods in elementary particle physics
Authors: Greenberg O. W. , Wigner E. P.
Published: January 2009

The NATO Advanced Study Institute's summer school in Istanbul had group-theoretical methods as its principal theme. It consisted, as all such summer schools do, of lectures, seminars, and private discussions. It provided an opportunity for all participants to become acquainted with each other's work and ideas. This was probably its most useful function. There were 58 participants, from the United States, from Europe, and from Turkey and the Middle East. There was, perhaps, an overemphasis on lectures; these started, as a rule, at 9:15 a.m. and often lasted until 1:00 p.m., with a short coffee break. Many afternoons were devoted to formal seminars and some of these lasted several hours. Nevertheless, there was sufficient opportunity for individual discussion, during and after meals, in the evening hours, and on some of the afternoons. All the lectures were recorded in mimeographed notes, which were distributed with a minimum of delay. They may be published soon.
International practical temperature scale
Authors: Brickwedde F. G.
Published: January 2009

On September 25–27, 1962, the Advisory Committee on Thermometry of the International Committee on Weights and Measures met under the presidency of Professor J. de Boer of Amsterdam, in Sèvres (a suburb of Paris), in the Pavilion de Breteuil, the home of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, and for three days discussed important matters relating to international standards of thermometry. The Advisory Committee on Thermometry is one of the working groups of the International Committee on Weights and Measures, a committee established in 1875 by the “Convention du Mètre”, an international treaty between the principal industrial and scientific nations for obtaining international agreement on physical standards of measurement for science, technology, and industry.
Scientists and society
Authors: Haworth Leland J.
Published: January 2009

It is customary when a Washington bureaucrat gives an after-dinner speech for him to discuss something about his own agency, its past achievements, its aims and ambitions, its predictions for the future. However, I speak to you tonight from an anomalous position. I am a “lame duck” in one agency and an unhatched egg in another. It would be presumptuous of me to discuss the problems or the future of either. I have chosen, therefore, to give you briefly a few of the general impressions I have gained during my two years and one week as a scientist in government. Specifically I would like to speak of the responsibilities of scientists in the society of today.
Science libraries consolidated/departmental?
Authors: Marron Harvey
Published: January 2009

Argument over the degree of centralization of technical library facilities in universities, industrial organizations, or governmental institutions is widespread. The lines of difference are fairly clear. Library administrators claim that centralization is required for economical, efficient acquisition and management of the huge numbers of publications involved in an up-to-date, well-stocked library. Users, on the other hand, argue that they cannot read and study effectively and efficiently unless frequently used documents are within easy reach.
Relativistic theories of gravitation
Authors: Robinson I. , Schild A. , Schucking E.
Published: January 2009

It was already past midnight when the Penroses' Peugeot reached the outskirts of Warsaw. Unable to find our way to the Grand Hotel, where relativists from many countries were to stay, we searched the deserted streets for a pilot who could give us directions in some western language. A lone student of Warsaw University on his way home was the man we had been looking for. He pointed to the gigantic building in the dark, illuminated by red lights: “You go this way to the Palace of Culture,” and then added thoughtfully: “By the way, do you know the answer to this: Why does one have the finest view of Warsaw from the top of the Palace of Culture?” He paused for a moment, got no reaction, and went on: “It's easy, that is the only point in Warsaw where you don't see the Palace of Culture.”
African assignment
Authors: Overbeck C. J.
Published: January 2009

As my wife and I were driven the few miles from the Accra airport in Ghana to the University campus, we felt the balmy evening wind from the Atlantic Ocean. We saw the Ghanaians walking with stately posture along the side of the road; the women, with babies bound to their backs, neatly balancing heavy loads on their heads. Some of them smiled broadly at us and waved friendly greetings. We saw the “Mammy Lorries” careening down the highway as though collisions were impossible. The accident rate is very high. Each lorry, with people packed tight as sardines, expressed the individuality of its owner by its strange printed sign (“It Pains You Why”, “Fear Woman”, “No Time To Die”, “Walk Alone No Friends”). We passed the cassava patches near a mud-hut village and entered the campus of the modern University of Ghana just at dusk of the short tropical twilight. The avenue of mahogany trees and palms was a proper setting for the spacious, airy buildings of heavy, white concrete with red tile roofs. Our own home was located nearly in the middle of the campus about three fourths of a mile down this avenue. The old diamond mines of the Accra plains were near the campus. The rich gold fields of this former Gold Coast Colony, now largely commercially replaced by the cocoa groves, lay in the mountainous area to the north, an area inhabited by the Ashanti tribe whose aggressive forays fill many pages of African history. Our later week-end trips into the interior were adequate proof to us that we were in a land of great contrasts.
Crystals: Slim, slender, single
Authors: Heavens O. S.
Published: January 2009

Some years ago I found it impossible to refute the irreverent comments of a colleague to the effect that thin films should be considered as belonging to the liquid state, such was their condition of disorder, rather than to the solid state. One had of necessity to admit that the grim reality of the early experimenters' films, deposited at an uncertain rate, in a dirty vacuum (or sputtered), on a substrate of uncertain properties, bore but little resemblance to the theoretician's concept, deftly represented by two parallel straight lines, of a homogeneous, isotropic, parallel-sided slab of material with nice, well-behaved physical properties. The development of the electron microscope soon enabled one to see just how different was the harsh reality, revealing a depressingly complex system, sensitive alike to method of preparation and nature of substrate, in which particle size, particle shape, crystallographic orientation, and form of gram boundaries represent but a few of the variable factors in the field. The phenomenon of epitaxy is by no means new, having been discussed as far back as 1836. Interest in the phenomenon received a fillip when electron diffraction was discovered in the late twenties. On my last count, as of some six months back, there were 674 distinct examples of epitaxy in films condensed from the vapor phase on to a monocrystalline substrate. Despite this large number, the detailed mechanism underlying the process remains unclear. Quite apart from the interest in epitaxy as a crystal-growth phenomenon, the possibility arises of using the process (even though we may not understand it) as a means of producing films which more closely approach the theoretician's delight of a well-behaved, ordered film. It was to bring together those interested in this area of thin-film physics—those dedicated to the belief that such systems can possess a state of order justifying their inclusion in the field of solidstate physics—that a meeting was held at the Philco Scientific Laboratory, Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, from May 13 through 15, 1963. Sponsored jointly by the Office of Naval Research, Philco Corporation, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania, the conference, entitled “Single-Crystal Films”, was held under the chairmanship of Roman Smoluchowski. The meeting was ably organized by Carlo Bocciarelli and Maurice Francombe in a manner that combined informality with efficiency. Some 150 people attended, thus obviating the need for parallel sessions (in which the two papers which you want to hear invariably coincide) and insuring a large enough collision cross section so that one had no difficulty in capturing anyone at some stage.
The AAPT apparatus competition 1963
Authors: Bardon Marcel
Published: January 2009

The Third Biennial Apparatus Competition once again attracted the interest of many of the visitors and participants at the joint meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Physical Society held in New York in January. This competition for new and improved apparatus for undergraduate college physics laboratories and lecture demonstrations is conducted by the AAPT Committee on Apparatus.
Teaching physics in the elementary grades
Authors: Karplus Robert
Published: January 2009

During the last ten years, physicists have become increasingly concerned with various aspects of pre-collegiate education. Of greatest interest has been the high-school physics course, which presents a student with his first opportunity to concentrate on coming to grips with our discipline. It has become clear, however, that large elements of the school population never enroll in high-school physics, and that even many of those who do cannot really take advantage of all the opportunities afforded by a modern course like that prepared by the Physical Science Study Committee. Accordingly, there is a growing involvement of physicists with attempts at educational innovation in the elementary and junior high schools.
APS Division of Electron Physics the first 20 years
Authors: Marton L.
Published: January 2009

A few months ago, the officers of the Division of Electron Physics decided to look into the possibility of amending its constitution by enlarging the scope of operations to include atomic phenomena, as well as electron and ionic phenomena, in the fields covered by its activities. A committee has been appointed to look into the Division activities, and this fact has given me an opportunity to look up the old records. To my pleasant surprise I found that on April 28, 1944, the Division, then called the “Division of Electron and Ion Optics”, held its very first meeting. A twenty-year celebration is therefore in order, and this modest talk is offered to look back, and also, if possible, to look forward.
Observations in high-energy physics
Authors: Lederman Leon M.
Published: January 2009

My instructions this morning were to give a survey of the subject we call elementary particle physics, emphasizing the experimental aspects. I will choose what I believe to be interesting and exciting and try to see how we got where we are. The objects we call elementary particles have changed over the years and Fig. 1 is meant to illustrate this.
Fluctuations in solids
Authors: Brophy James J.
Published: January 2009

The seventh Fluctuations in Solids Symposium was held on May 22, 1964, at the University of Minnesota. Organized and hosted by A. van der Ziel and K. M. van Vliet, the informal one-day meeting again provided a forum for those actively working in the field to discuss recent results and resolve current questions. The previous symposium took place in 1962. This year's session was notable for its richness in diversity, ranging from laser noise to use of noise measurements to determine transistor h-parameters.
III. Some aspects of lattice dynamics
Authors: Chipman David R.
Published: January 2009

Because of the proximity of the International Conference on Lattice Dynamics in Copenhagen from August 5 to 9, Symposium III of the Rome meeting in September was designed, not as an opportunity for presentation of the latest results in the field of lattice dynamics, but rather as an elementary course to give the average crystallographer an understanding of the types of problems which have been solved and those being studied now, the techniques which have been used and those showing the greatest promise at present. The speakers could hardly have been better chosen for this task, and there was, as a result, general agreement on the great success of the symposium
The foundations of quantum mechanics
Authors: Werner F. G.
Published: January 2009

What are the leading problems of quantum physics today? Where does reduction of the wave-packet occur? Why single-valued wave functions? To what extent have relativity theory and quantum theory really been united consistently? Does it make sense to speak of “quantum mechanical action at a distance”? What is the significance of electromagnetic potentials in the quantum domain? What does a leading quantum physicist have to say about the physicist's picture of nature?
Invention of the solid-state amplifier
Authors: Bottom Virgil E.
Published: January 2009

The obituary column of a recent issue of Physics Today carried the announcement of the death of Julius E. Lilienfeld at his home in the Virgin Islands. Dr. Lilienfeld was a native of Poland, formerly a professor of physics at the University of Leipzig, and became a United States citizen in 1935. The announcement of the passing of Dr. Lilienfeld recalled to mind an experience which the author had in 1953 when he was engaged in a patent search in connection with the development of the germanium transistor. The patent search disclosed three patents granted in the years 1930, 1932, and 1935, respectively, to Julius Edgar Lilienfeld of Brooklyn and Cedarhurst, New York. The attorney who prepared the patent was Fred'k F. Schuets. A brief inquiry failed to locate either the inventor or his attorney and, inasmuch as the patents had already lapsed, the matter was dropped.
Excitons in molecular physics
Authors: Suna A. , Hopfield J. J.
Published: January 2009

Pleasant fall weather added to the high spirits and congeniality of a group of physicists and chemists attending a symposium on molecular excitons as guests of duPont's Central Research Department. Their common interest in excitons had attracted participants from academic and research institutions across the country, and from Canada as well. Welcoming the visitors, Central Research Director P. L. Salzberg announced that the symposium marked the belated dedication of the site of the meeting, duPont's newly constructed Physical Research Building.
Some results of the 1962 physics roster
Authors: Barisch Sylvia
Published: January 2009

The National Science Foundation has maintained the National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel for all of the natural sciences and psychology for the past decade. Originally designed to provide the basis for a pool of highly skilled manpower in times of national emergency, this function has been overshadowed by the value the Register has come to have as the best available source of statistical information on the American scientific community.
AIP annual report 1963
Authors: Hutchisson Elmer
Published: January 2009

The year 1963 saw many exciting advances in physics, including such exotic items as gravitational collapse, anti-Xi particles, bootstrap dynamics, to say nothing of the extraordinary fertility of new ideas in the fields of lasers and plasmas. More appropriate, however, for discussion in an AIP report are recent striking developments in what one might more properly call the sociology of physics.
Polarized protons
Authors: Williams John H.
Published: January 2009

One of the objectives of nuclear physics is to acquire a better understanding of nuclear forces. The understanding of nuclear forces can be enhanced by investigations of the effects of the nuclear spins of the interacting particles. To make such investigations when protons are interacting with nuclei, one wishes to have available a beam of protons whose spins are oriented in a chosen direction, i.e., a beam of polarized protons. By scattering these protons from nuclei, one can investigate the nature and strength of the spin-orbit force which is required by most phenomenological theories of the nucleus, particularly the shell model.
Luminescence
Authors: Spruch Grace Marmor
Published: January 2009

The first international conference on luminescence ever to be held took place in Poland in 1936. This was pointed out at the opening of the 1963 International Conference on Luminescence last September 25 in Torun, Poland, by Alexandra Jablonski, president of the Organizing Committee, and the man after whom the diagram used by every worker in the field of luminescence is named. As for the appropriateness of Torun for an international scientific congress—Torun is the birth-place of Copernicus. The meeting was held in the Nicholas Copernicus University.
The President's special assistant for science and technology addresses the American Physical Society
Authors: Hornig Donald F.
Published: January 2009

Physics in America is flourishing; it is a robust active science and nothing makes that point better than the number, quality, and variety of researches being reported and discussed at this meeting. One sees progress in high-energy particle physics, in theoretical physics, in nuclear-structure physics, in studies of solids, in the renascent optics connected with lasers, as well as in other areas. Perhaps more than in the formal program, one feels its vitality in the youth of the participants, the little knots of intense people, earnestly engaged in sometimes excited discussion in the corridors and outside the formal meeting rooms. It is not hard to understand that physics in our country occupies a leading position in the world today.
A decade of progress in vacuum technology
Authors: Caswell H. L. , Lange W. J. , Preuss L. E.
Published: January 2009

The Tenth National Vacuum Symposium, sponsored by the American Vacuum Society, was held on October 16 to 18 in the Statler-Hilton Hotel in Boston. The technical meeting, completing a decade of such symposia, was attended by fifteen hundred scientists, engineers, and related technical people. An additional eight hundred others visited the technical exhibits. The size of this meeting was a far cry from the first such assemblage at Asbury Park, which was sponsored by the originating Committee on Vacuum Techniques. In the intervening ten years since Asbury Park, this symposium has grown about tenfold in size, and the group has become an affiliate of the American Institute of Physics. The national symposium is the one meeting in which the technology of and phenomena associated with vacuum are brought together, reviewed, and the most recent advances discussed.
History and accomplishments of the Oak Ridge graphite reactor
Authors: Snell Arthur H. , Weinberg Alvin M.
Published: January 2009

At 4:00 A.M. on November 4, 1943, Louis Slotin knocked on the doors of the Oak Ridge houses of M. D. Whitaker and R. L. Doan, directors of the Clinton Laboratories of the Manhattan District. Through the night, uranium slugs had been continuously loaded into the closely-guarded Graphite Reactor at “Site X” in the rolling hills of East Tennessee, and Whitaker and Doan had left strict instructions that criticality should not be achieved until after they had arrived at work the following morning. However, the critical mass had been overestimated, and the enthusiasm of Henry Newson, Lyle Borst, and Slotin had perhaps been underestimated; at any rate, criticality came sooner than expected, and Slotin found it necessary to jump into a car, drive into town, and rouse the bosses from their beds for a dusty but starlit drive of fifteen miles to the reactor site.
Education and manpower in physics
Authors: Boercker Fred
Published: January 2009

The data in this report show trends in the number of people studying physics in high schools, undergraduate colleges, and graduate schools and show the relationship between degree production and the increase in professional physics manpower.
Chemical reactions in shock tubes
Authors: Greene E. F.
Published: January 2009

From the 20th to the 22nd of April 1964, 85 chemists and physicists from England, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the United States gathered on the campus of Duke University for a symposium on chemical reactions in shock tubes. This meeting served to outline clearly both the contributions which shock tubes have made to chemical research and the prospects which may be anticipated in the near future.
Phonon hydrodynamics and phonon-boundary scattering in nanosystems
Authors: Alvarez F. X. , Jou D. , Sellitto A.
Published: January 2009

We use phonon hydrodynamics with a surface slip flow as a simplified macroscopic model accounting for a reduction in lateral thermal conductivity in nanosystems. For high Knudsen numbers, the corresponding effective thermal conductivity decreases linearly with the radius or the width, in contrast with the quadratic dependence predicted by usual phonon hydrodynamics. The linear dependence is accounted for by the surface slip flow. The difference in the expressions for the surface tangential flow in the hydrodynamic and the diffusive regimes is commented on and the influence of boundary conditions on the form of the effective thermal conductivity is explored.
Structure and evolution of the galactic system
Authors: Rubin Vera C.
Published: January 2009

Ever since the beginning of this century, the Netherlands has been an important center for fundamental research on the structure and dynamics of the galactic system. Work by Kapteyn (1904) and Hertzsprung (1905) has led to methods which form the basis of much current research in this field. Recently, the first comprehensive explorations of the galaxy at 21-cm wavelength were made in Holland. To enable young astronomers to hear, first hand, the results of current investigations, an international summer course in science was held from July 28 to August 16, 1960, at Nyenrode Castle, Breukelen, The Netherlands, on the “Structure and Evolution of the Galactic System”. NUFFIC (Netherlands Universities Foundation for International Cooperation) was the sponsor, aided by a grant from NATO.
Thin films
Authors: Fisher J. C.
Published: January 2009

Lake George is a body of very clear water surrounded by tree-covered granite mountains in the southeastern part of New York State's gigantic Adirondack State Park. Much of its shoreline is state land, maintained in its wild condition, but some is privately owned and dotted with summer camps, motels, and hotels to serve the various requirements of summer visitors. On Labor Day week end, most of these visitors fade away, not to return until the following summer. Their absence makes available fine accommodations at reduced rates, and the still-warm water is most inviting. These factors, plus easy accessibility, drew the International Conference on Structure and Properties of Thin Films to the Sagamore Hotel, Bolton Landing, Lake George, for the three-day period September 9–11, 1959.
College physics conference
Authors: Verbrugge Frank
Published: January 2009

The development of physics teaching in the United States, both as to content and improved methods of teaching, has largely been the result of individual efforts at colleges and universities. Only in the past twenty-five years, and particularly in the past decade, has a degree of coordination between individuals and groups been established. The increasing role of physics in our scientific advances, in our technology, and in our society and culture, together with the rapid advances taking place within physics itself, demand consideration of new approaches, broadly coordinated and national in scope. Accordingly, a series of discussions between interested individuals and representatives of the National Science Foundation last summer resulted in a proposal for a series of three conferences, sponsored by the American Association of Physics Teachers and supported by the National Science Foundation.
Opportunities in biophysics
Authors: Morowitz Harold J.
Published: January 2009

In 1940, John R. Loofbourow wrote an article entitled, “Borderland Problems in Biology and Physics”, which was published in the Reviews of Modern Physics. Since that time physicists have been puzzled by the “aberrant” behavior of some of their colleagues. Why does a theoretician like Max Delbruck start talking about mutations of bacterial viruses? How does it happen that an experimental nuclear physicist like Ernest Pollard begins worrying about bacterial replication? What is Schroödinger's concern with the problem of “What is Life?” Why does an astrophysicist like Gamow begin worrying about coding in biological systems? This straying from the orthodox fields of physics by these and many others represents an interesting modern trend of thought and poses both problems and challenges to the field of physics.
An individual visits Moscow
Authors: Kock Winston E.
Published: January 2009

Group tours of Russia by United States and European scientists, involving about ten or twenty specialists in a given field, have become quite popular recently. On the other hand, it is not too difficult for an individual to gain entrance to Soviet scientific laboratories and this procedure has certain advantages. For one thing, the tour can be planned so that laboratories in more than one specialized field can be included in the visit. Also, individual tours generally do not involve arranging for reciprocal visits, a procedure usually required when group tours are set up.
The new high school physics course
Authors: Arons A. B.
Published: January 2009

After a pilot run in eight secondary schools in 1957–58, the PSSC high-school physics course was taught in about 300 schools in 1958–59, and is operating in about 600 schools throughout the nation this academic year. One day of the recent annual New York meeting of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers was devoted to a symposium describing the nature and basic philosophy of the course and developing some of the reactions of secondary-school and college teachers.
Some recent progress in statistical mechanics
Authors: Uhlenbeck George E.
Published: January 2009

It is the tradition of our Society that the last official act of the retiring president should be an exposition in general terms of the field of physics in which he is especially interested and in which, supposedly, he has done some original work. Although I have had to do such a task a few times before in my life, I must say that I have always approached it with trepidation. It is so unnatural to talk especially about theoretical problems without formulas and without a blackboard that it is like doing a juggling act with your hands tied! So I hope you will forgive me for many statements without proof. I can only try to discuss with you some of the problems which have occupied me and I hope that I can convince you that perhaps they have some real interest.
Electromagnetic waves
Authors: Twersky Victor
Published: January 2009

Although the wave equations of Maxwell's theory have been studied for about a hundred years (or two hundred, if one includes the special cases which also arise for the vibrating strings and pipes treated by Daniel Bernoulli, D'Alembert, Euler, and Lagrange), the subject is far from closed. Emphasis and interests have shifted in the course of time, but the spectrum of activities has remained about the same. Some individuals are concerned with electromagnetics per se, and deal primarily with problems relating to the generation, transmission, and reception of electromagnetic radiation; others are interested in mathematical aspects of the initial value and boundary value problems of the equations; still others take wave physics in general as their field, and regard electromagnetics as one discipline for which the phenomena may be relatively directly associated with theory.