Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2023
Volume 68, Number 3
Las Vegas, Nevada (March 5-10)
Virtual (March 20-22); Time Zone: Pacific Time
Session W51: "And It Was a Very Good Year!" Anniversaries of Breakthroughs in Physics and AstronomyDiversity Invited Undergrad Friendly
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Sponsoring Units: FHPP Chair: Rebecca Ullrich, Sandia National Laboratories Room: Room 321 |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 3:00PM - 3:36PM |
W51.00001: Maxwell & Gibbs: 150 Years since the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics Invited Speaker: Lena Zuchowski This talk will demonstrate the importance of the historical and conceptual foundations of statistical mechanics by mapping out different derivational routes to the Arrow of Time. It will demonstrate that there are at least three different derivational routes: (i) starting from the Thermodynamic Entropy and inductively deriving the Empirical 2nd Law to ground the Empirical Arrow of Time; (ii) starting from a notion of randomness, which acts as a desiderata on the definition of Boltzmann and Gibbs Entropy, from which one can deductively derive the Statistical 2nd Law and then ground either (ii) the Universal Statistical Arrow of Time, or (iii) the Local Statistical Arrow of Time. Each of the three Arrows has different epistemic advantages and disadvantages: prominently, the Empirical Arrow of Time provides a straightforward definitional grounding of the direction of time; in contrast, the two statistical Arrows of Time have higher explanatory potentials, but their derivation requires the introduction of additional assumptions. |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 3:36PM - 4:12PM |
W51.00002: Harvard, Howard, and Gradual Incorporation: 1923 Invited Speaker: Virginia Trimble Let's start with the centenary! In 1923, Cecilia Payne (later Gaposchkin) arrived at Harvard, where she became the first astronomy PhD recipient, via Radcliffe, for a thesis that, we now recognize, demonstrated that stars are made mostly of hydrogen and helium, a discovery that had to be confirmed by more senior (male) colleagues before winning general acceptance. It was also the birth year of Harvey Washington Banks, the first African-American astronomy PhD. And Marcelle Bernice Brown earned a 1923 MS at Howard, an historically black university, the first in a STEM subject there, having worked on a topic in materials science, with St. Elmo Brady, who published a now very rare book on Metallurgy for Dentists the same year. Let me slip a year from 1973 to 1972 to rejoice for the first Black woman to earn a physics PhD, Willie Hobbs Moore, at the University of Michigan (whom you will hear about in a moment). Nobelists none, though Physics in 1923 was Millikan, the first US-born winner, but all outstanding scientists in their own ways, about whom we should know more. Mexican-American Mario Jose Molina (Nobel 1995) would have celebrated his 80th birthday in 2023 and began his work on ozone depletion by chlorine compounds here at UCI in 1973. My hearty thanks to Ron Mickens (concerning Dr. Moore), David DeVorkin (concerning Dr. Banks), ACS colleagues Dean Martin, Vera Mainz, and Gregory Girolami (concerning Dr. Brady and Ms. Brown). Dr. Payne Gaposchking was my own friend, and Dr. Molina at least an acquaintance. |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 4:12PM - 4:48PM |
W51.00003: Seventy-Five Years of QED Invited Speaker: Chad R Orzel Looking back from 2023 at the history of quantum physics through the traditional frame of quarter-century anniversaries, neither the 100th anniversary nor the 50th stand out as particularly prominent. 1923 was solidly in the "Old Quantum Theory" era, before Heisenberg's matrix mechanics and Schrödinger's wave equation, and by 1973 the theory had long since reached its full modern form. 2023 is, however, the 75th anniversary of a significant milestone: the 1948 Pocono Conference at which Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman first presented their theories of quantum electrodynamics (QED), followed closely by the receipt of Sin-Itiro Tomonaga's independently developed version from Japan. This talk will look back at that moment in quantum history, and reflect on the rapidity of the development of quantum mechanics between 1923 and 1948. |
Thursday, March 9, 2023 4:48PM - 5:24PM |
W51.00004: Willie Hobbs Moore: the First African-American Woman Physics Ph.D. Invited Speaker: Donnell Walton Willie Hobbs Moore became the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in Physics from a U.S. university in 1972. In 1958 and 1961, she earned her BSEE and MSEE degrees from the University of Michigan, making her the first African-American woman to receive electrical engineer degrees from UMich. After her master's degree, she held several engineering positions before returning to the University of Michigan to obtain her PhD in physics. The presentation will provide a brief overview of her engineering career and her dissertation research into secondary chlorides in PVC. Additionally, we will discuss her post-graduate work on biological macromolecules and subsequent industrial career. We will discuss her impact on the American automotive industry, followed by a discussion of her mentoring and community involvement. To conclude, I would like to share my great fortune of having befriended her during my graduate school years. |
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