Unit Briefs

Texas Section - Annual Spring Meeting
The APS Texas Section held its annual spring meeting at the Incarnate Word College in San Antonio, Texas, 19-21 March. Wei Kan Chu of the University of Houston opened the meeting with a Friday morning plenary lecture on the current status of high temperature superconductors, while NASA's Kamlesh Lulla spoke on space images of global changes on Earth at the Friday evening banquet. Saturday morning's program included an AAPT-sponsored plenary lecture on the latest results in the search for life on Mars. In addition to the regular program, the meeting featured a special student competition, awarding prizes for outstanding papers presented by undergraduate and graduate students.

New England Section - Annual Spring Meeting
The APS New England Section held its annual spring meeting 3-4 April at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Friday afternoon's events opened with a demonstration of "Rhapsody," Apple Computer's new operating system, as well as "Linux" and programs from Physics Academic Software. This was followed by a tutorial session on condensed matter physics, featuring talks on pattern formation, symmetry and chaos, and the physics of granular matter. Friday evening's banquet featured a keynote address by John Deutch of MIT, entitled, "Reflections on Government's Role in Research and Development." A tutorial session on magnetism and superconductivity followed an AAPT-sponsored session on science and mathematics teaching on Saturday morning. The AAPT also organized the Saturday afternoon sessions on teaching mechanics and thermal physics, and teaching electricity and magnetism.

New York State Section - Annual Spring Meeting
The APS New York State Section held its annual spring meeting 24-25 April, featuring 15 experts in the field of imaging to present and discuss the underlying physics that makes our modern information age possible. Friday morning included lectures on digital mirror imaging and stream-based media processing, followed in the afternoon by talks on silver halide photophysics; the physics of electrophotographic photoreceptors, xerographic development, and liquid toner electrophotography; and digital color image processing. Saturday morning's speakers addressed such topics as sensor design, bandwidth compression, image sequence processing, and Mars Pathfinder imaging. The symposium was hosted by Eastman Kodak's Imaging Research and Advanced Development, Xerox's Wilson Center for Research and Technology, and the University of Rochester's Center for Electronic Imaging Systems.

Division of Laser Science - Lectureship Program
The APS Division of Laser Science is currently accepting applications from host schools for the next round of awards for its Distinguished Traveling Lecturer program, intended to bring distinguished scientists to predominantly undergraduate colleges and universities for two-day visits, which may include lectures and informal meetings with faculty and students. Lecturers for the 1998-1999 academic year and their topics are Geraldine Richmond (University of Oregon), surface nonlinear optics; Jagdeep Shah (AT&T Bell Laboratories), quantum optics; Stephen Leone (University of Colorado), chemical physics; Philip Bucksbaum (University of Michigan) high-field laser physics; and Bill Phillips (NIST), atom cooling and trapping. Lee Casperson of Portland State University will be available for lectures in instabilities and chaos in lasers, waterfalls and other physical systems. Wolfgang Ketterle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will be available to speak on atom cooling and trapping, Bose-Einstein condensation, and atom lasers. And Carlos Stroud of the University of Rochester will be lecturing on electric wave packets in atoms, Schr"edinger cat-like states, and fractional dynamic revivals. They join the continuing traveling lecturers, Bucksbaum, Richmond, and Shah. The deadline for spring 1999 applications is June 15, 1998.

Forum on Education - College High School Interaction Committee
A new committee of the APS Forum on Education has taken on the functions of the former College-High School Interaction Committee of the APS and the American Association of Physics Teachers. These include a new version of the "CHIC" newsletter, which is now on the web as The Physics Alliances Newsletter, accessible through the home page of the APS Department of Education and Outreach. It will feature interactive discussions of topics in physics education, and news about local alliances between high schools and colleges and universities. Peter Lindenfeld (Rutgers University) continues as editor.