Largest physics meeting of 2008 in New Orleans

Over 7000 physicists to gather for the American Physical Society annual meeting, March 10-14

The March Meeting of American Physical Society will take place March 10-14, 2008 in New Orleans, Louisiana. More than 7,000 scientists are expected to be on hand. The principal topic areas will be condensed matter physics, industrial applications, new materials, chemical and biological physics, fluids, polymers, and computation.

The March meeting is both a great showcase for fundamental physics research and an engine for producing the kind of practical devices and phenomena that characterize our technological society.

Below are some selected talks that will be presented at the meeting. For further information visit the APS March Meeting program site at http://www.aps.org/meetings/march/index.cfm

OPTICAL LATTICES FOR QUANTUM COMPUTING

Quantum computing just got one stop closer with an advance in optical lattice technology. David Weiss (Penn State) will describe a 3D optical lattice partially filled with individual atoms at 250 sites. Ultimately, Weiss and his colleagues hope to use the atoms as qubits in a quantum computer. Unlike previous 3D lattices, the spacing between the atoms in the new system is large enough that the atoms can be individually manipulated with lasers and microwaves without disturbing neighboring atoms. The atoms' individual addressability and the fact that the atoms have multiple neighbors to quantum mechanically interact with make the system a promising route to quantum computing. (paper B6.4)

MATERIAL PHYSICS GETS OUT OF THE LAB

What do race cars, motorcycles, superheroes and steroids have in common" They're all topics addressed in session D3: Materials Physics in the Fast Lane. Charles Falco of the University of Arizona will start off the session with a look at the high-tech materials that help modern motorcycles achieve power-to-weight ratios a hundred times those of bikes built a century ago. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky (University of Nebraska), author of the forthcoming book "The Physics of NASCAR," follows, describing the science behind the cars, safety gear and tracks that are vital to stock car racing, the nation's most popular spectator sport. Roger Tobin of Tufts takes on a much more controversial subject as he analyzes the effects of illegal performance-enhancing drugs on homerun rates in baseball. NASA's John Wood describes the significance of the advanced optical glass that has made the Hubble Space Telescope one of the most important scientific tools in history. And finally, the author of "The Physics of Superheroes," James Kakalios (University of Minnesota), will talk about modern marvels that were once only the domain of comic book superheroes, including shape-memory materials, artificial retinas, and adhesive surfaces modeled on gecko feet.

TIN BUCKYBALLS ARE BETTER THAN GOLD