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A P u b l i c A t i o n o f t h e A m e r i c A n P h y s i c A l s o c i e t y

www.APs.org/PublicAtions/APsnews

April 2013 Vol. 22, No. 4

The newly formed Mid-Atlan-tic Section of the APS got a big boost when physicist and Con-gressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) joined its ranks. In a letter he wrote to the section (text on page 3), Holt con-gratulated its founding members and emphasized the dual role that scientists have to advance knowl-edge and weigh in on important national issues.

The sections past-Chair, Charles Clark of NIST, first reached out to Holts office during the 2012 campaign. At the time, Holt was the only PhD physicist serving in Congress.

To get him to join this newly founded section is a very great thing for us, Clark said. On the national scene, hes probably one of the best known physicists in the country. Clark added that he was excited that the letter came in time to be included in the sections first newsletter.

I thought it would be a very

great thing for the APS as a whole to hear, reiterated by a person of his stature, the value that he thinks our Society offers society at large, Clark said.

Holt represents central New Jersey. Before winning office, he was Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Labora-tory and a professor of physics at Swarthmore College before that. He is a Fellow of APS.

Holt used several sections in the letter in recent testimony be-fore a subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. His pre-sentation to the Subcommittee on Federal Work Force, U.S. Postal Service and the Census highlight-ed how important it is for scien-tists to travel to conferences and expressed his opposition to new restrictions on travel for federal workers.

The Mid-Atlantic Section in-corporates physicists who live or work in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wash-ington DC, and West Virginia. It officially formed in the fall of 2012 and is planning to hold its first elections later in 2013 and its first meeting at Penn State in 2014. The sections organizers also held a reception at the APS March Meeting in Baltimore as a way to attract more local mem-bers.

Congressman is Charter Member of New APS Section

Congress Weighs Action to Ease Helium Crisis

Niels Bohr and Much More at April MeetingPhysicists the world over will

soon be converging on the Mile High City for the annual APS April Meeting, being held this year from April 13 through 16 at the Sheraton Denver Down-town Hotel in Denver, Colorado. The meeting will draw more than 1,200 physicists to share the latest results in particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics and plasma physics research. There will be 72 invited sessions, more than 120 contributed sessions and three poster sessions.

Kavli KeynoteSaturday mornings Kavli

Keynote Session (A1) will kick off the meeting by highlighting some of the amazing high en-ergy, quantum and astrophysics research being conducted around the world. John Harris of Yale University will present recent re-sults from the LHCs collisions creating quark-gluon plasma, and

the insights it offers. Nobel lau-reate David Wineland of NIST will talk about his research into quantum entanglement and infor-mation using trapped ions. Lloyd Knox from the University of Cali-fornia, Davis will present the sky maps of the cosmic microwave background generated from data taken by ESAs Planck telescope.

Bohrs Atom at 1002013 marks the 100th anniver-

sary of Niels Bohrs discovery of the quantum atom. Physicists and historians will speak about the important milestone throughout

the week. At Monday mornings plenary session (P1.01) John Hei-lbron of the University of Cali-fornia, Berkeley will share fresh perspectives on Bohrs thinking and the influence of his wife Mar-gre the drawn from soon to be published letters written by the acclaimed physicist. In addition, on Tuesday morning, a full ses-sion (X7) will be devoted to re-capping the importance of Bohrs new paradigm in understanding the quantum structure of atoms, and the lasting effects its had to this day.

Other Plenary TalksOther plenary sessions will

highlight new and exciting di-rections in physics. On Tuesday morning (W1) Geralyn Zeller from Fermilab will review some of the important recent neu-trino experiments and discover-ies, such as the smallest mixing

MEETING continued on page 6

A recent memorandum issued by the Office of Science and Tech-nology Policy (OSTP) sets a goal of making direct results of federal-ly funded science, including peer-reviewed publications and digital data, freely accessible to the pub-lic to the greatest extent possible, consistent with law and other ob-jectives, including the continued availability of peer review. OSTP directs each Federal agency with over $100M in annual research ex-penditures to develop, within six months, a plan for public access, after consultation with stakehold-ers including researchers, univer-sities, libraries, publishers, and representatives of other potential users.

The memorandum, issued on February 22, comes in response to a petition submitted to the White Houses We The People website, which received more than 65,000 signatures. The memorandum urges agencies to cooperate on their plans, where appropriate, and directs that funds for implementa-tion should come from within ex-isting agency budgets.

The memorandum has been generally greeted with cautious support from publishers of sci-entific journals. It specifically mentions the role that publishers play in organizing peer review, and allows agencies to craft poli-cies suited to individual scientific fields and agency missions. In particular the memorandum gives a twelve-month embargo period as a guideline for public access to published papers, but allows stakeholders to petition for differ-

ent embargo periods.In a statement on its website,

APS similarly highlighted the im-portant role that publishers play in the scientific enterprise.

The APS supports the princi-ple of making federally supported research available to the public and is in the process of evaluating the potential benefits and impacts of the OSTP directive, the statement reads. The APS will work with federal agencies to develop public access policies that best meet the needs of the science community and the American taxpayer.

As reported in the February APS News, APS has established a high level Task Force to coordinate its policy on open access. APSs Trea-surer/Publisher Joseph Serene said that he and other members of the Task Force appreciate the flexibil-ity provided in the memorandum. He added that they look forward to helping agencies develop plans that meet the OSTP goals while protecting the Societys high-qual-ity peer-reviewed journals.

We support open access to the greatest extent possible consistent with the health and stability of our journals, Serene said. The basic message of the OSTP memo is entirely consistent with what APS policy has always been.

We are very concerned that implementation of the OSTP di-rectives allows high quality sci-entific publishers to continue pro-viding the essential services such as peer review, powerful online platforms, and secure archiving, Serene said. Peer review plays a

OSTP Memo Sets Goal of Public Access

congressman rush holt (D-nJ)

Photo by gene sprouse

Answer: a ceremonial gavel, presented by APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby (left) at the february executive board meeting to bob byer of stanford, in commemoration of the five Board meetings and two Council meetings that he chaired, among his many other duties as APs President in 2012.

What's in the Box?

HELIUM continued on page 6

HOLT LETTER on page 3

By Michael LucibellaIn the absence of Congressio-

nal action, the United States is facing a Helium Cliff, resulting in an acute helium shortage and price spike even more dramatic than the current supply problems that are seriously impacting re-searchers, industry and clowns. Proposed legislation would pre-vent the worst disruptions in the market, but helium prices are al-most certainly going to jump sub-stantially by the end of the year.

The United States is the larg-

est single supplier of helium in the world, but its authorized to keep selling it for only a few more months. In addition, the low cost of crude helium from the federal government has led to over-consumption resulting in supply shortages.

The pricing for the helium is not correct. The helium is being priced well below what the de-mand reflects, said Jodi Lieber-man, senior government relations specialist at APS. Its essentially underpriced and has been for

many years.In February, Congressman

Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) intro-duced a bill in the House of Rep-resentatives to let the Bureau of Land Managements (BLM) Na-tional Helium Reserve continue to sell its helium for years at a cost that will more closely re-flect market rates. A similar bill is likely to be introduced soon in the Senate. It should prevent current shortages from worsening, but it is not likely to add excess capac-

OSTP continued on page 7

2 April 2013

The 17th century scientist Robert Hooke is best known for the eponymous Hookes Law and for his masterwork, Micrographia, a treatise detailing his observations of everyday objects under a mi-croscope, complete with eye-popping illustrations. But his scientific interests were very diverse, and among his earliest work was a pamphlet on the phenomenon of capillary action.

Born on the Isle of Wight to a curate, Hooke was initially destined to become a minister, like his three brothers, but he suffered from bad head-aches, which made studying difficult,