WINTER NEWSLETTER
OF THE
SOUTHEASTERN SECTION
OF THE
AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY
APRIL 1, 2001
The 68th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society (SESAPS) will be held November 4-6, 2001 (Sunday-Tuesday) at Charlottesville, VA. Our host for this meeting will be the University of Virginia Department of Physics. The meeting hotel will be the Omni Hotel in downtown Charlottesville. The local arrangements committee is chaired by Tom Gallagher who may be reached at (804)-924-6817 (phone), (804)-924-4576 (fax), and TGF@virginia.edu (e-mail). The Program Committee Chair is Walter Croft of Mississippi State University, who may be reached at (662)-325-2806 (phone), (662)-325-8898 (Fax) wlcroft@ra.msstate.edu (e-mail).
THIS IS THE FIRST CALL FOR ABSTRACTS OF CONTRIBUTED PAPERS: SESAPS will use electronically submitted abstracts (brief instructions are at the end of this newsletter) for publication in the BULLETIN of the AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY. The deadline for the receipt of contributed papers and abstracts is no later than Friday, August 17, 2001. (We have requested a later date, but the issue is not yet resolved with APS) The entire program will be organized the following week. All abstracts received electronically by the deadline will be published in the November, 2001, BULLETIN of the AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY. All abstracts of contributed papers must be prepared in the standard APS format as specified in recent issues of the APS News. If the abstract is submitted to the APS only on paper, just the title and authors will appear in the BULLETIN.
The Program Chairman is:
Dr. Walter Croft
Department of Physics
Mississippi State University
Drawer N.C.
Mississippi State, MS 39762
(662) 325 2806 (Phone)
(662) 325 8898 (Fax)
wlcroft@ra.msstate.edu (e-mail)
The scheduled time for your presentation must be obtained from the bulletin WHICH WILL BE AVAILABLE ELECTRONICALLY on the WWW. Meeting rooms will have an overhead projector and chalkboard - to request other audio-visual aids, including 35 mm projectors, please make your request in writing by typing it in the special instructions box of the abstract template. Any questions about the program should be directed to Dr. Croft.
CONTRIBUTED/INVITED PAPERS! Invited papers at this meeting, as in all APS meetings, are given by experts in areas selected by the Program Committee, and these talks are usually of thirty minutes duration. Contributed papers, however, are on topics of the author's choice and are ten minutes in length. On the day following the abstract deadline, all papers are organized into sessions and the sessions into the program of the meeting. This year the Program Committee will continue an idea suggested by an APS member. Some of the contributed abstracts are of such interest that the committee will INVITE THE AUTHORS to give a SPECIAL PAPER of twenty minutes duration on the topic of their abstract at the beginning of the contributed paper session to which their talk is assigned. There will only be a few such papers selected. The invitations will be listed in the printed program of the meeting and will be verified promptly by mail to the authors. If the author(s) would like to be considered for such an invitation, they are asked to type the following statement in the special instructions box: If invited to do so, the author is willing to expand the talk for the above abstract to twenty minutes.
THE 68th ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOUTHEASTERN SECTION of the American Physical Society (SESAPS) will be held November 4-6, 2001 (Sunday-Tuesday) in Charlottesville, Va. The Physics Department at University of Virginia will host the meeting. The Local Arrangements Chair is Tom Gallagher, Department of Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va. 22901; E-mail: TGF@VIRGINIA.EDU; Telephone: (804)924-6817. The Program Chair is Walter Croft, Physics Department, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762; E-mail: wlcroft@ra.msstate.edu; Telephone: (662)325-2806.
A PROGRAM OF PHYSICS TEACHING DEMONSTRATIONS IS BEING PLANNED for Sunday evening. There will also be tours of the University of Virginia laboratories Sunday evening.
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA PHYSICS DEPARTMENT will be our host for this meeting. All primary meeting sessions will be held at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville. Registration is on Sunday and Monday at the meeting hotel. The first paper will be at about 2PM. The banquet will take place Monday evening at the Omni hotel.
THE REGISTRATION FEE STRUCTURE IS UNCHANGED. Registration will be $35.00 for SESAPS and other APS members, $50 for nonmembers, $5 for retired physicists and $15 for graduate students. Awardee and banquet speakers will not pay the registration or banquet fee.
A MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF PHYSICS STUDENTS will be held in conjunction with the SESAPS meeting and will include a student paper session where the Marsh W. White Award will be presented for the best paper given at that session. This meeting is planned for Saturday.
TRAVEL SUPPORT WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR STUDENTS THIS YEAR. Students will be pleased to learn that modest travel grants will again be available for those presenting research papers at the SESAPS sessions. SPS students giving papers in the SPS sessions only are not eligible for travel support. An application is included in this letter.
SUGGESTED NOMINATIONS FOR SECTION OFFICERS should be sent to the Secretary at the address given at the end of this letter for consideration by the Nominating Committee, which is made up of the Executive Committee.
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ELECTION WINNERS. The new vice chair is Bradley Cox of University of Virginia. The new executive committee member who will serve from 2001-2004 is Glen Edwards of Duke. The names and addresses of all Executive Committee members is in this news letter, and members are urged to contact the committee with their suggestions and concerns. Do not forget to urge your colleagues to join SESAPS as it is free if they are APS members.
THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS will host the annual meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society November 4-6, 2001. The meetings will be held at the Omni Hotel in Charlottesville. Charlottesville can be reached by train, Amtrak and Greyhound bus. The airport in Charlottesville is only 7 miles from town and a cab is about $20. Members should check air fares as it is usually cheaper to fly to Washington and rent a car for the easy 90 mile drive, or fly to Richmond, rent a car, for the easy 70 mile drive. Charlottesville is located near the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is one of the most scenic roads in the nation.
PROCEDURES FOR SESAPS AWARDS
The following procedures were suggested by Chair Tom Gallagher after the November meeting and adopted by a vote of the executive committee by e-mail.
1. Each committee will consist of three members: the previous award winner, one member appointed for a two year term by the chair of the section, and the returning members from the previous year's committee, who will serve as chair.
2. Each committee will be charged by the chairman of the section to select a recipient and communicate the result to the chair of the section by September 15. The information to be communicated is:
a. The name and institution of the recipient.
b. The name and institution of the nominator.
c. A short citation ~ 15 words.
3. The chair of the section will notify the winner and the nominator by October 1, and indicate that the nominator usually introduces the winner at the banquet. Should there be more than one nominator, only one introduces the winner. At the same time, the chair informs the secretary of the winner, the nominator and the citation.
4. The nominations for all awards will be sent to the secretary of the section by June 1. The secretary will forward copies of the nominations to the appropriate committees by June 15.
Nominations will considered for two years and then destroyed.
Time Table
Receipt of nominations by secretary June 1
Transmission to Chair of award committee June 15
Transmission of report of committee report to
Chair and secretary of section Sept. 15
Notification of winners and nominators Oct. 1
LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
The Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society (SESAPS) is the "oldest" and one of the largest regional units of the APS. Its annual meeting provides an extensive program with symposia and contributed talks on a broad range of scientific and physics education topics. In addition, a number of other organizations meet in conjunction with SESAPS. This year's meeting will be held at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville during November 4-6, 2001. We hope to see you there. The local arrangements committee has planned an exciting program.
Each year SESAPS makes three awards which are presented at the annual meeting. They are:
1) George B. Pegram Award, for excellence in teaching;
2) Jesse W. Beams Award, for outstanding research;
3) Francis Slack Award, for excellence in service.
I am requesting that you look among your colleagues, former students, mentors, etc., and nominate persons who are worthy to receive one of the above indicated distinguished awards. Clearly, within the southeastern region, there exist many individuals who satisfy the criteria for receiving one of these awards. You now have the opportunity to honor them by providing the appropriate award committee a letter of nomination along with supporting documentation. The deadline for nominations is June 1, 2001. All materials should be sent to SESAPS - Secretary Dr. Kenneth Hardy
Finally, I urge you to bring along your students to the 2001 SESAPS Meeting. The Section has modest funds to support student travel. The only requirement is that any student selected must present a contributed talk on their research activities. This Newsletter contains an application form.
Ronald E. Mickens
Chair, SESAPS (2001)
MINUTES OF THE SESAPS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING OF NOVEMBER 3, 2000
These minutes are included to keep the membership informed but HAVE NOT been accepted by the executive committee, so should be regarded as unofficial.
The executive committee meeting was called to order at 10:20 by Thomas Gallagher at the SESAPS year 2000 meeting in Starkville, Ms., at the Mississippi State University. Those attending were Larry Akers, Larry Cain, Walter Croft, David Ernst, Thomas Gallagher, Joe Hamilton, Ken Hardy, Ron Mickens, and Buzz Piercey. Judy Franz, chief executive officer of the American Physical Society was a guest.
The minutes were read and corrected, and approved as corrected. A significant change was correcting the data of the 2001 meeting. The 2001 meeting will be held in Charlottesville, Va. The meeting hotel will be the Omni Hotel in downtown Charlottesville. The meeting will be held from Sunday, November 4 to Tuesday, November 6. University of Virginia will be the host of the meeting and Thomas Gallagher will be the local arrangements chair. The program chair is Walter Croft. The 2002 meeting will be held in Auburn, Alabama. The local arrangements chair is Mitch Pindzola. The tentative dates are October 30 to November 2.
The executive board was asked to approve a certificate for the Marsh White award. The committee approved this request and the first certificate will be awarded at this meeting.
Larry Cain presented the treasurers report. In summary, we still are in excellent condition financially. A lively discussion was held about budget items, and the following is a breakdown of the $16,000 budget.
Chairman $ 100
Secretary $2500
Treasurer $ 100
Banquet Speakers $ 500
Bull of the APS $7200
Student Travel Support $2100
Workshops $2000
Marsh White $ 200
Telephone $ 300
Meeting Support $1000
The meeting support funds go to the local organizing committee to help support the meetings. The student travel support was increased to a maximum of $300 per student. Efforts will be made to advertise these funds better, through mass email from APS in the spring. Buzz is to provide a list of email to the chairs in the southeast to the secretary, who will also email the chairs about the availability of these funds.
A discussion about the APS representative was held. Joe Hamilton was reelected to the position, which runs for four years, and is concurrent with the appointment to the APS council. At this time it is unclear if we need a bylaws amendment or not. J. Franz is to give our bylaws to the APS lawyer. The question must be resolved by April.
A request was made to change the abstract deadline to a later date. J. Franz is going to try for the Friday AFTER Labor Day. The issue will be resolved.
Larry Cain announced the election results. Brad Cox of UVA is the new Vice Chair, Glen
Edwards of Duke is on the executive committee, and Joe Hamilton was reelected as the APS representative.
The prize winners this year were Kirby Kemper for the Beams award, Bascom Deaver for the
Pegram award, and two Francis Slack awards were made to J. Hamilton and Worth Seagondollar.
THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION WAS GENERATED BY APS TO ASSIST YOU WITH THE PREPARATION OF ELECTRONICALLY SUBMITTED ABSTRACTS
The deadline for the submission of all abstracts is Friday,
August 17, 2001, 5:00 pm EST at the APS Headquarters.
The deadline is
firm, so don't wait until the last minute!
Send early - save yourself the stress.
Last year, the APS instituted an electronic abstract submission process, which was an enormous success, with almost 80% of all the abstracts being submitted electronically. We are hoping for an even better turnout electronically this year. There are many advantages to submitting electronically.
Ø E-mail message confirming receipt of your abstract
Ø E-mail notification of the scheduling of your paper
Ø The complete abstract will appear in the electronic version of the program which will be posted on the APS Home Page, well in advance of the printed program. (Abstracts submitted in paper form will have only the title and author listed in the electronic program)
For information on how to submit an abstract electronically, send an e-mail message to "abs-info@aps.org" and use the word "info" in the text of your message. To receive the template, send a message to "abs-request@aps.org" and put the words "request <meeting ID>" in the text of your message. The information and/or template will be returned to you by e-mail. If you have particular questions regarding the information, or need assistance, send a message to “abs-help@aps.org".
Submitting electronically is very easy. The mark-up language we use is LaTex, but you do not need to know LaTex in order to submit an abstract. Simple ASCII text will suffice, unless you need to put mathematical symbols or Greek characters in the text of your abstract - and most of those instructions are very simple.
Abstracts received via postal mail will be accepted; however, only the title and authors of the paper will appear in the printed version of the Bulletin and on the World Wide Web version of the Bulletin.
Please follow the instructions for the preparation of paper abstracts as they appear in each issue of APS Meeting News. These abstracts should be sent to:
<Meeting ID or Meeting Name>
Meeting Abstracts
APS Meetings Department
One Physics Ellipse
College Park, MD 20740-3844
Please do NOT also send a paper abstract to APS if you are submitting your abstract electronically. All abstracts must be at the headquarters office by the deadline date. APS assumes no responsibility for mail delays. Receipt of paper abstracts will not be confirmed unless accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
Do not simply "reply" to the address from which you received the abstract template. Send the abstract to "abs-submit@aps.org". Make sure you have the correct meeting ID <Meeting ID>.
One abstract per message! The system is automated. Sending two or more abstracts in one message increases the likelihood that all but the first abstract will disappear into the ether.
Use only one sorting category for your abstract in the "Sort Category" field. In order to sort the papers properly, it is important that the system deal with only one request If you wish to give additional guidance to those who are putting the program together, please do so in the "Special Instructions" field. The Sort Category" field has four curly braces. Please use them as follows:
\Sort Category {15}{L}{}{}. Not \Sort Category {15L}{}{}{}
and not \Sort Category{15}{L}{32}{B}. Do not remove left over braces.
Only submit your abstract once. You should receive an e-mail message telling you that we got your message within 24 hours. If you have not, contact "abs-help@aps.org".
Respectfully
Ken Hardy, Secretary
SOUTHEASTERN SECTION OF THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 2001
Past Chair Chair
Dr. Thomas Gallagher Dr. Ronald Mickens
Department of Physics Department of Physics
University of Virginia Clark Atlanta University
Charlottesville, Va. 22901 Box 172, Atlanta, Ga. 30311
804 924 6817 P 404 880 6923 P
804 924 4576 F 404 880 6258 F
TFG@VIRGINIA.EDU ROHRS@MATH.GATECH.EDU
Chair elect Vice Chair
Dr. Walter Croft Dr. Bradley Cox
Mississippi State Univ. Department of Physics
Drawer N.C. University of Virginia
Mississippi State, MS 39762 Charlottesville, Va. 22901
662 325 2806 P 804 982 5377 P
662 325 8898 F 804 982 3575 F
wlcroft@ra.msstate.edu COX@UVAHEA.PHYS.VIRGINIA.EDU
Treasurer Secretary
Dr. Larry Cain Dr. Kenneth Hardy
Department of Physics Department of Physics
Davidson College Florida International Univ.
Davidson, NC 28036 Miami, FL. 33199
704 894 2347 P 305 348 2605 P
704 894 2894 F 305 348 6700 F
lacain@DAVIDSON.EDU HARDYK@FIU.EDU
Executive Committee 98-01 Executive Committee 99-02
Dr. Rodney Piercey Dr. Lawrence Akers
Dept. of Phys. and Astr. Department of Physics
Mississippi State Univ. 401 Crewdson Ave.
Drawer 5167, Mississippi Chattanooga, Tn. 37405
State, Ms. 39762 423 756 2329 P
662 325 2688 P 423 755 4279 F
RBP1@RA.MSSTATE.EDU larry-akers@utc.edu
Executive Committee 00-03 Executive Committee 01-04
Dr. David Ernst Dr. Glen Edwards
Vanderbilt University Department of Physics
Nashville, Tn 37235 Duke University, BOX 90309
615 322 2828 P Durham, NC. 27708
615 322 1103 F 919 681 7416 F
DAVID.J.ERNST@VANDERBILT.EDU edwards@fel.duke.edu
APS Representative
Dr. Joe Hamilton
Department of Physics
Vanderbilt Univ. PO Box 1807-B
Nashville, TN 37235
615 322 2456 P
615 343 7263 F
HAMILTJ1@CTRVAX.VANDERBILT.EDU
APPLICATION FOR STUDENT TRAVEL SUPPORT TO THE SESAPS MEETING
NAME:____________________________________________________________
ADDRESS:_________________________________________________________
CITY:__________________________________ STATE:_______________=20
ZIP:___________
SCHOOL:__________________________________________________________
UNDERGRADUATE/CLASS:_____________________________________________
GRADUATE/CLASS:__________________________________________________
ABSTRACT TITLE:________________________________________________________
ABSTRACT AUTHORS:______________________________________________________
AMOUNT REQUESTED ($300 MAX)___________________________________________
PURPOSE OF REQUESTED FUNDS:____________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
RETURN BY 1 OCTOBER TO:
KENNETH A. HARDY, SECRETARY SESAPS
PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY PARK, MIAMI, FL 33199