Letter from the DCMP Chair
Unity in Physics
Condensed matter and materials physicists are part of a larger physics and scientific enterprise. Even if our research of the moment is specialized, we nevertheless have strong ties to other areas of physics. Our inherent competitiveness and our ever-increasing anxiety over funding must not lead to destructive infighting between fields that can jeopardize our common scientific goals. I have written at more length about this in Physics Today and FermiNews (Sept. 2002). As the largest APS Division and the one most responsible for stewarding the March Meeting, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to lead the physics community with a more unified front. Such cohesion is not only crucial for approaching the public for funding but, more importantly, is essential for enticing the next generation of eager and talented students into science.
During the past two years, the DCMP has led such a effort. In both the Austin (2003) and Montreal (2004) meetings, the Monday night plenary sessions were devoted to what have been called Unity Sessions. These Symposia, which have attracted enormous crowds, have brought different areas of physics – from string theory and cosmology to atomic and biophysics – into the March Meeting. The aim has been to emphasize that condensed matter physics is only one branch of a much larger subject and that the intellectual interactions go both ways – ideas emanate from condensed matter physics and influence other fields as well as enter our field from elsewhere. In the Austin meeting five speakers were invited to give their dreams for the future of their branch of physics. Steve Girvin (Yale) presented his dreams for condensed matter physics. The transparencies of his presentation are reproduced on the DCMP website: http://dcmp.bc.edu/. At the Montreal meeting, the lecturers were scientists who have crossed the boundaries between different branches of physics and have made significant contributions in more than one area. Many in the audience were inspired by the presentations. I hope that such efforts will continue within the DCMP and will also be taken up by other Divisions at other APS meetings.
The Montreal March Meeting
The graph below shows the steady growth of the March Meeting over the past five years. While concerns over visas did decrease the number of USA residents, especially students, the number of overseas participants increased. The net result was that, aside from the Centennial Celebration in 1999, the 2004 Montreal meeting was the largest March meeting yet in terms of the number of registrants (6035), contributed talks (5502) and invited speakers (737).
The program, Students Lunch with the Experts, which was initiated at the Minneapolis Meeting in 2000, has continued to be successful. The DCMP sponsored a dozen tables, each one with an established scientist who is knowledgeable in some area of condensed matter physics. Students sign up to have (a free) lunch at a table of their choice and chat informally (no overheads and no computers) with the "expert". The other participating Divisions and Topical Groups also sponsor tables so that a total of approximately 30 tables have been sponsored in each of the last two years. The students as well as the experts have been enthusiastic about the interactions.
Funding and Lobbying
Funding for physical science remains a concern for all of us. In order to improve our chances of increasing the science budget, more effort has to be spent on telling the public and Congress why it is important to keep funding healthy for all of science. We need to convey what we need, why we need it and why such funding is a good use of public money.
For the past three years, the DCMP has taken the lead in organizing a letter-writing campaign at the March Meeting. During the meetings computers were set up in conspicuous places near the entrance where passers-by could sit down and email or write a letter to their representatives in Congress. To make things easier, the APS Office of Public Affairs (Michael Lubell, Stephen Pierson, David Cooper, and previously Susan Ginsberg) wrote sample letters that could be used as templates to address the points that the APS thought were most pressing. During the Montreal meeting, 3,557 letters, a record number, were sent to Congress. I would like to thank all of the volunteers who helped convince so many of their fellow March Meeting attendees to sit down and write these letters. Mike, Steve, David, and Sue assure us that these letters help.
During the year, when the DCMP Executive Committee members have met in the Washington, DC area, the APS Public Affairs Staff has organized a visit to Capitol Hill. After being briefed by the APS about current concerns and given glossy leave-behinds about the public value of physics, we met with a number of Congressional staffers from our own districts. We are told that these face-to-face meetings with the Congressional staffers are even more valuable than letter writing for getting our message across. I can attest that working with the APS Public Affairs Staff is easy, informative and rewarding - I encourage all of you to become more involved.
Finally, I think that we all owe a debt of gratitude to John Wilkins for having fought so effectively in the interests of DCMP in his tenure as DCMP Chair.
Sidney Nagel