摘要:

The mid‐ocean ridge is a 75 000‐kilometer network of undersea mountain chains that, like the seam of a baseball, winds around the globe from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic, around Africa, Asia, and Australia, under the Pacific, and skirts the west coast of North America. This fundamental feature of Earth's superstructure delimits the intersection of tectonic plates and is the source of 85&percent; of Earth's volcanism. As plates separate and cracks form, the mantle wells up to fill the gap. Partial melting of the solid mantle produces magma that percolates upward through pores and grain boundaries in the rock and then crystallizes into basalt—new layers of Earth's crust. The process prompted oceanographer Bruce Heezen to characterize the ridge system as “the wound that never heals.”

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881889

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Office of Science Director Raymond Orbach was upbeat in the wake of congressional approval in late November of the massive omnibus appropriations bill. The bill contained a 4.3&percent; increase in R&D money for Orbach's office; for the second year in a row his funding has gone up. Given years of flat funding for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, Orbach is a big winner in the fiscal year 2005 funding of science.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881890

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

As part of a campus‐wide explosion in faculty numbers, the physics department at Texas A&M University in College Station aims to launch a topnotch astronomy program.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881891

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

The creation of an interdisciplinary and international Center for Soft Matter Research makes physics the first field to get a boost from New York University's $2.5 billion expansion plans. By hiring people in clusters rather than individually, according to NYU's dean of arts and sciences Richard Foley, “the university can achieve what is often very difficult: rapidly and effectively building academic strength in several fields in the arts and sciences.”

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881892

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

The World Year of Physics kicks off this month with a conference at the Paris headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). More than 1500 people from around the world, about a third of them students, are expected to attend the conference, which will feature roundtable discussions on how to improve the public's perception of physics and how physics can help solve socioeconomic problems, as well as public lectures by prominent physicists. The year commemorates the centennial of Albert Einstein'sannus mirabilisand is intended to raise public awareness of the field of physics and its importance to society.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881893

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Physicist Pier Oddone has been named as the next director of Fermilab and will take the post on 1 July 2005. Oddone, currently deputy director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), will succeed physicist Michael Witherell, who announced in October 2003 that he planned to step down next July.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881895

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.2405549

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

A vacant lot sprinkled with puncture vines spread westward, and the Sun was setting over the coast ranges. It must have been near the end of school for I was already walking barefoot, something that my father, the local country doctor, looked on with disfavor. There were clouds in the west, left over from a late spring rain, and the sun was sending shafts of golden rays earthward. “God's rays,” said my companion, aged six, and we kneeled in obeisance until they disappeared.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881897

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Computers have become indispensable to scientific research. They are essential for collecting and analyzing experimental data, and they have largely replaced pencil and paper as the theorist's main tool. Computers let theorists extend their studies of physical, chemical, and biological systems by solving difficult nonlinear problems in magnetohydrodynamics; atomic, molecular, and nuclear structure; fluid turbulence; shock hydrodynamics; and cosmological structure formation.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881898

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Outreach is a tremendous amount of fun, and it can change a person's approach to physics and education. I have organized two major outreach efforts, participated in many events run by others, and co‐organized a conference on physics outreach held last summer at the Aspen Center for Physics (see http://www‐ed.fnal.gov/aspen). From 1994 to 2003, I was the faculty coordinator of Boston University's Pathways Program for female high‐school students (http://www.bu.edu/lernet/pathways). During the program's poster and demonstration sessions, I would play the role of itinerant magician, prowling around with my favorite physics toys in hand, asking passing students to help me operate them and challenging them to figure out the relevant physics. That was a great way to help them make connections to what they were studying in science classes, to their own areas of interest, and to other session demonstrations they'd enjoy. My Pathways experience also allowed me to witness many exciting “Aha” moments when students really grasped an idea and took a step beyond what I'd just shown them—often by suggesting a novel way to use my physics toys to demonstrate other principles. In one sense, my experiences have been valuable because I got to work closely with and learn from scientists and teachers in a wide variety of fields. But they had profound additional value: They helped me renew my intrinsic love of physics.

ISSN:0031-9228    

DOI:10.1063/1.1881899

出版商:AIP    

年代:1905

数据来源: AIP