APS News

October 2009 (Volume 18, Number 9)

Members in the Media

“These are baby problems,”
Peter Limon, Fermilab, describing the initial problems most accelerators, including CERN, experience early in their operating lives, The New York Times, August 4, 2009.

“As a physicist, my big complaint was that people don’t consider the odds and worry about things that are terribly unlikely…I never worried about things that were unlikely, and it came back to bite me.”
Robert Park, University of Maryland, describing when he was nearly killed by a falling tree, The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 10, 2009.

“I don’t see it in quite those apocalyptic terms…Everyone there was unhappy about the earlier accident, but I didn’t get the feeling that there was panic or that they were resigned to anything but a delay.”
Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin, talking about the mood at CERN, The New York Times, August 8, 2009.

[T]he LHC is an example of an enormously complicated machine that is pushing the edge of accelerator technology, and it is not surprising that it has had some unanticipated problems,”
Neal Lane, Rice University, The Associated Press, August 7, 2009.

“What the U.S. and China do over the next decade will determine the fate of the world.”
Steven Chu, Department of Energy, Time, August 13, 2009.

“These neutrinos are a type of matter that essentially form a shadow universe…They share space with us, but they have very little interaction with us. So you have neutrinos going through your body all the time–neutrinos from the sun, neutrinos from the cosmic rays coming down from space, neutrinos left over from the birth of the universe–but they go right through you.”
Marvin Marshak, University of Minnesota, The Washington Post, August 17, 2009.

“A big part of the worldwide neutrino program is to gather evidence that neutrinos in fact had a role in making the universe asymmetric,”
Boris Kayser, Fermilab, The Washington Post, August 17, 2009.

“[Jennifer Mass] is one of an emerging, growing group of scientists who have a foot planted in both worlds,”
Sol Gruner, Cornell, describing Mass’s discovery of a lost N.C. Wyeth painting using X-rays, The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 20, 2009.

“If somebody sneezed on that kilogram standard, all the weights in the world would be instantly wrong,”
Richard Steiner, NIST, National Public Radio, August 20, 2009.

“If Advanced LIGO doesn’t see gravitational waves I think people will be very surprised…It is likely such a situation would require revision of General Relativity.”
Vuk Mandic, University of Minnesota, MSNBC.com, August 19, 2009.

“We have respected people on both sides of the medical profession speaking very loudly and now with greater and greater vitriol as to whether that theory is legitimate…We’ve got to have somebody like the National Academy of Sciences look at all of the studies that are put forth as validating that theory–and see whether they’re valid.”
Thomas Bohan, MTC Forensics, calling for a definitive verdict on the cause of shaken baby syndrome, National Public Radio, Aug 24, 2009.

“[H]ere’s a case where you shine a laser on something and it actually cools down, and not just a handful of atoms, but a macroscopic object,”
Trey Porto, NIST, describing a new technique developed by a German research team, National Geographic, September 8, 2009.

“We rent one early-bearing tree and one late-bearing tree…It’s a nice feeling knowing that’s my apple tree.”
Richard Raymond, University of Michigan, on renting apple trees from an orchard, Detroit Free Press, September 10, 2009.

“There are a number of demonstrably false claims which have been put forth such as there is no evidence, one can’t get here from there, governments can’t keep secrets, if aliens were visiting they would want to talk to me or land on the White House lawn,”
Stanton Friedman, describing his research into flying saucers, The Denver Post, August 9, 2009.
 

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Editor: Alan Chodos

October 2009 (Volume 18, Number 9)

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Articles in this Issue
APS-Led Project Receives $6.5M NSF Grant
Climate Statement Gets Renewed Scrutiny
Members Elect Robert Byer to APS Presidential Line
Air Force Restrictions Impact Adaptive Optics
Chu Lays Out Ambitious Plan for Energy Research
Wise Old Proton Saved in Stirring Tale
Letters to the Editor
The Back Page
Members in the Media
This Month in Physics History
Zero Gravity: The Lighter Side of Science
Inside the Beltway
Education Corner
Focus on APS Topical Groups