Monthly Archives: May 2020

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has announced the election of University of New Mexico Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy Carlton Caves as a member. This prestigious honor is one of the highest accorded to scientists and is given in recognition of distinguished and continuing achievement in original research.

Caves is UNMs fifth selection to the prestigious group since its inception in 1863. He is one of 120 new members and becomes part of a select group of more than 2,400 active members in the NAS. Approximately 190 of those selected have received Nobel prizes. The election of new members is by current members based on outstanding achievement and commitment to service.

"What a well-deserved honor this is for Dr. Caves the culmination of a long and distinguished career, as well as a professional acknowledgement of his groundbreaking research, innovation, and service," said UNM President Garnett S. Stokes. "Membership in the National Academy of Sciences is one of the highest honors conferred on scientists, and we salute Dr. Caves for his remarkable accomplishment. We're proud of him, and of the cutting edge research he's conducted here at UNM."

UNM Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy Carlton Caves elected to National Academy of Sciences.

Caves conducts research in the burgeoning field of quantum information theory and quantum computation and has been a pioneer in the field for nearly 40 years. Related areas include the theory of open quantum systems and decoherence, nonlinear dynamics and quantum chaos and theoretical quantum optics.

Quantum Information Science(QIS) is an emerging field with vast potential to revolutionize advances in fields ofscienceand engineering involvingcomputation, communication, precision measurement and fundamentalquantum science.

I am a theoretical physicist, and my election to the Academy is, generally, recognition of a sustained series of contributions to quantum metrology, the science of making the best possible measurements in the presence of quantum uncertainties, and, specifically, acknowledgmentof an idea I had in 1981 for making interferometers more sensitive, said Caves.

"Carlton Caves has made extraordinary contributions to both the theory and practical application of ideas in quantum information and quantum optics, said UNM Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs James Holloway.His election to the National Academy of Sciences is a career-capping honor in a long list of honors and awards he has received for his work.

For a US scientist, this election is considered perhaps the most prominent national honor. Professor Caves is still actively working and publishing, and contributing to the frontiers of human knowledge. Congratulations to Professor Caves!

Caves is the founding directorof UNMs Center for Quantum Information and Control (CQuIC), a research center co-located at The University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and the University of Arizona in Tucson. Research at CQuIC is focused on the control of complex quantum systems with an aim to make quantum systems march to scientist orders, instead of doing what comes naturally.

CQuICsresearch is organized asquantum information and computation,quantum control and measurement,quantum metrology, andquantum optics and communication, with extensive theoretical and experimental research programs in all these areas.

Caves current research is focused on various topics drawn from quantum information science and quantum metrology, and he works on these topics with colleagues at UNM and around the world. Just at present, he is working with two postdocs at UNMs Center for Quantum Information and Control.

Caves and Rafael Alexander are investigating a technique, called quantum illumination, for detecting a faint target against a bright background using fundamental quantum effects, Additionally, he and Christopher Jackson are developing a general theory of the classical limit of quantum systems, which goes under the name of generalized coherent states.

After nearly 40 years of technical development, the idea of using squeezed light in interferometric gravitational-wave detectors was implemented in the LIGO and VIRGO gravitational-wave detectors a little over a year ago, and it made them measurably better, said Caves. When an idea tops off a $1 billion investment, it does attract attention, he added.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private nonprofit institution that provides expert advice on the most pressing challenges and the world. It was founded when President Abraham Lincoln signed a congressional charter forming the NAS as an independent adviser on scientific matters.

Go here to see the original:

Caves elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences - UNM Newsroom

ARIES (March 21-April 19)According to Aries author and mythologist Joseph Campbell, The quest for fire occurred not because anyone knew what the practical uses for fire would be, but because it was fascinating. He was referring to our early human ancestors, and how they stumbled upon a valuable addition to their culture because they were curious about a powerful phenomenon, not because they knew it would ultimately be so valuable. I invite you to be guided by a similar principle in the coming weeks, Aries. Unforeseen benefits may emerge during your investigation into flows and bursts that captivate your imagination.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious, says businessperson and entrepreneur John Sculley. You Tauruses arent renowned for such foresight. Its more likely to belong to Aries and Sagittarius people. Your tribe is more likely to specialize in doing the good work that turns others bright visions into practical realities. But this Year of the Coronavirus could be an exception to the general rule. In the past three months as well as in the next six months, many of you Bulls have been and will continue to be catching glimpses of interesting possibilities before they become obvious. Give yourself credit for this knack. Be alert for what it reveals.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)For 148 uninterrupted years, American militias and the American army waged a series of wars against the native peoples who lived on the continent before Europeans came. There were more than 70 conflicts that lasted from 1776 until 1924. If there is any long-term struggle or strife that even mildly resembles that situation in your own personal life, our Global Healing Crisis is a favorable time to call a truce and cultivate peace. Start now! Its a ripe and propitious time to end hostilities that have gone on too long.

CANCER (June 21-July 22)Novelist Marcel Proust was a sensitive, dreamy, emotional, self-protective, creative Cancerian. That may explain why he wasnt a good soldier. During his service in the French army, he was ranked 73rd in a squad of 74. On the other hand, his majestically intricate seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time is a masterpieceone of the 20th centurys most influential literary works. In evaluating his success as a human being, should we emphasize his poor military performance and downplay his literary output? Of course not! Likewise, Cancerian, in the coming weeks Id like to see you devote vigorous energy to appreciating what you do best and no energy at all to worrying about your inadequacies.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)Fortune resists half-hearted prayers, wrote the poet Ovid more than 2,000 years ago. I will add that Fortune also resists poorly formulated intentions, feeble vows, and sketchy plansespecially now, during an historical turning point when the world is undergoing massive transformations. Luckily, I dont see those lapses being problems for you in the coming weeks, Leo. According to my analysis, youre primed to be clear and precise. Your willpower should be working with lucid grace. Youll have an enhanced ability to assess your assets and make smart plans for how to use them.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)Last year the Baltimore Museum of Art announced it would acquire works exclusively from women artists in 2020. A male art critic complained, Thats unfair to male artists. Heres my reply: Among major permanent art collections in the U.S. and Europe, the work of women makes up five percent of the total. So what the Baltimore Museum did is a righteous attempt to rectify the existing excess. Its a just and fair way to address an unhealthy imbalance. In accordance with current omens and necessities, Virgo, I encourage you to perform a comparable correction in your personal sphere.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)In the course of my life, Ive met many sharp thinkers with advanced degrees from fine universitieswho are nonetheless stunted in their emotional intelligence. They may quote Shakespeare and discourse on quantum physics and explain the difference between the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, and yet have less skill in understanding the inner workings of human beings or in creating vibrant intimate relationships. Yet most of these folks are not extreme outliers. Ive found that virtually all of us are smarter in our heads than we are in our hearts. The good news, Libra, is that our current Global Healing Crisis is an excellent time for you to play catch up. Do what poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti suggests: Make your mind learn its way around the heart.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)Aphorist Aaron Haspel writes, The less you are contradicted, the stupider you become. The more powerful you become, the less you are contradicted. Lets discuss how this counsel might be useful to you in the coming weeks. First of all, I suspect you will be countered and challenged more than usual, which will offer you rich opportunities to become smarter. Secondly, I believe you will become more powerful as long as you dont try to stop or discourage the influences that contradict you. In other words, youll grow your personal authority and influence to the degree that you welcome opinions and perspectives that are not identical to yours.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)Its always too early to quit, wrote author Norman Vincent Peale. We should put his words into perspective, though. He preached the power of positive thinking. He was relentless in his insistence that we can and should transcend discouragement and disappointment. So we should consider the possibility that he was overly enthusiastic in his implication that we should NEVER give up. What do you think, Sagittarius? Im guessing this will be an important question for you to consider in the coming weeks. It may be time to re-evaluate your previous thoughts on the matter and come up with a fresh perspective. For example, maybe its right to give up on one project if it enables you to persevere in another.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)The 16-century mystic nun Saint Teresa of Avila was renowned for being overcome with rapture during her spiritual devotions. At times she experienced such profound bliss through her union with God that she levitated off the ground. Any real ecstasy is a sign you are moving in the right direction, she wrote. I hope that you will be periodically moving in that direction yourself during the coming weeks, Capricorn. Although it may seem odd advice to receive during our Global Healing Crisis, I really believe you should make appointments with euphoria, delight, and enchantment.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)Grammy-winning musician and composer Pharrell Williams has expertise in the creative process. If someone asks me what inspires me, he testifies, I always say, That which is missing. According to my understanding of the astrological omens, you would benefit from making that your motto in the coming weeks. Our Global Healing Crisis is a favorable time to discover whats absent or empty or blank about your life, and then learn all you can from exploring it. I think youll be glad to be shown what you didnt consciously realize was lost, omitted, or lacking.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself, declares poet Natalie Diaz. I think she means that she wants to avoid defining herself entirely by her past. She is exploring tricks that will help her keep from relying so much on her old accomplishments that she neglects to keep growing. Her goal is to be free of her history, not to be weighed down and limited by it. These would be worthy goals for you to work on in the coming weeks, Pisces. What would your first step be?

Read the original:

Week of May 6 - Style Weekly

Key Point: The Germans made many errors in their quest for the bomb. Also, their evil andfoolish prejudice against minorities meant that they ignored and prosecuted many of their brilliant scientists.

The most nightmarish of World War II alternative history scenarios is the one in which Nazi Germany acquires atomic weapons. In fact, by the spring of 1945, when Americas massive nuclear program was reaching its culmination, the Nazi atomic program consisted of one experimental reactor in a cave in southern Germany, operated by scientists who lacked a clear conception of how to build an atomic weapon.

Even if the German scientists had known what they were doing, they still lacked suitable radioactive material to produce a weapon. One of World War IIs most remarkable and controversial stories is just how the Nazi atomic program came to this sorry pass.

The potential power of atomic energy is a corollary of Einsteins famous Theory of Relativity equation, E = MC2. Simply put, the equation means that all matter is energy. To determine the energy contained in any bit of matter, one need only multiply its mass times the square of the speed of light. As the speed of light is somewhere in excess of 186,000 miles per second, the resulting number is correspondingly huge.

Early in the 20th century, physicists realized that if it was possible to release the atomic energy in a piece of matter, say a brick, they could create a doomsday weapon. Fortunately, the atoms in bricks, and in almost all ordinary matter, are quite stable and not likely to erupt in an atomic chain reaction. However, by the mid-1930s, experiments with the unstable element uranium revealed the potential to tap into its store of nuclear energy and create machines of awesome power.

Nazi Germanys Rejection of Jewish Physics

Theoretically, by the 1930s Germany had a jump on the rest of the world in atomic research. Many of the worlds top nuclear physicists were German or Austrian, or worked closely with German or Austrian colleagues. It was a German scientist, Otto Hahn, who first split the atom in 1938. Although Hahn later tried to claim all the credit for his experiment, at the time he did not actually know what he had done.

It was Lise Meitner, an Austrian Jewish colleague, who realized the significance of Hahns discovery and described the processes involved. Meitner realized that Hahn, by bombarding a small sample of uranium with neutrons, had literally broken some uranium atoms apart, releasing powerful atomic energy. Incredibly, in accord with Nazi policy, Hahn and other German academics had recently driven Meitner from her post at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry near Berlin to refuge in Sweden. Meitner was a brilliant scientist, but evidently socially and politically inept enough that she continued to assist Hahn despite his treatment of her and Nazi Germanys policies toward Jews in general.

Although Meitner continued to assist her former colleagues in Nazi Germany for a time, most Jewish scientists were not so lucky or nave. By the late 1930s almost all of Germany and Austrias Jewish physicists, along with many others who rejected Nazism, had fled, mostly to Britain or America. Einstein was by far the most famous among them, but only one of a great many.

Nazi academics began to take over Germanys great educational institutions, hungrily seizing positions and offices previously held by Jews, foreigners, or anti-Nazi German academics. Some of these newcomers were marginal teachers and scientists, envious of successes by those they considered racially or ideologically inferior. Many disdained theoretical physics and Einsteins relativity theories.

These men and the Nazi hierarchy regarded Einsteins relativity theories and their progeny as Jewish physics. For them, the only valid physics was Deutsche or Volkish physics, by which they apparently meant a classical experimental physics that could somehow ignore the realities Einstein described. Nonetheless, not all of Germanys scientists disdained Jewish physics, and as war loomed and then broke out, even high-ranking Nazis came to appreciate the tantalizing prospect of an atomic super weapon.

Werner Heisenberg: Germanys Top Physicist

In the late 1930s, the most famous physicist in Germany (Einstein having left Germany for New Jersey) was Werner Heisenberg. Heisenberg was internationally renowned for his work in quantum mechanics and the Uncertainty Principle that usually bore his name. He was a brilliant theorist and mathematician and prided himself on his practical abilities as a physicist, although in fact these were suspect. For a time he was Germanys youngest full professor.

In 1932, Heisenberg was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on the Uncertainty Principle, although the prize committee slighted several other physicists who arguably deserved as much credit as the charismatic Heisenberg. In 1937, Heisenberg was appointed to a senior professorship at Leipzig University.

While not a card-carrying Nazi, Heisenberg was a loyal and patriotic German. Like many German academics and professional soldiers of his time, he considered himself above politics, and so was willing to serve whatever government ruled Germany, even Hitlers. He was the logical choice to lead the countrys atomic weapons program.

However, in July 1937, just months before Hahn split the atom, Heisenberg came under attack in an article that appeared in Das Schwarze Korps, an SS magazine. The instigator behind the article was Johannes Stark, a rabidly anti-Semitic experimentalist who resented Heisenbergs success and his association with Jewish physicists, a practical necessity in Heisenbergs field. The article accused Heisenberg of being a part of a white Jewish establishment that sought to keep true Germans from positions of importance, promoted Einsteins relativity theory, and by implication sought to undermine the Nazi Party.

Such an attack was serious business in Nazi Germany and threatened internment in a concentration camp or worse. Heisenberg sought the assistance of friends and associates within the establishment, including Nazi Party members, to clear his name. Heisenbergs mother, who had been an acquaintance of Heinrich Himmlers father, passed on a personal letter from the physicist to the SS Reichsfhrer. After a thorough investigation by the SS, which included a terrifying interview at its Berlin headquarters, Himmler personally exonerated Heisenberg, effectively inoculating him from charges of treason until the end of the war.

In his letter clearing Heisenberg, Himmler permitted him to continue with his work, but with the proviso that Heisenberg could only apply relativity theory and the work of Jewish scientists without acknowledging them. Relieved, Heisenberg readily agreed to the conditions and began working in earnest on the German atomic project.

Heavy Water Reactor Project

While Germany began state-sponsored atomic research several years before the Allies, its efforts did not go unnoticed. Because so many physicists were driven from the Reich, Allied governments were quickly able to form a relatively clear picture of German efforts. Americas program was sparked in part by Einsteins warning to President Franklin D. Roosevelt concerning possible German successes.

By 1941, the Germans were operating two experimental reactor projects, but German success had in fact been limited. Heisenbergs team in particular made certain engineering decisions that put the German program almost immediately at risk.

Very basically, a nuclear reactor operates by inducing a chain reaction in masses of Uranium 238 within the reactor. To initiate a reaction, the flow of neutrons around the radioactive isotope must be moderated by another substance, such as graphite or deuterium (heavy water). The Germans chose to use heavy water, which is rare in nature and difficult to manufacture.

In 1940, the Germans captured a heavy water plant in Vermok, a Norwegian town 100 miles north of Oslo. British intelligence had learned the basic outline of the German reactor project and realized that the Norwegian heavy water supply was a weak link. By mid-1942, the Norwegian factory was producing up to 10,000 pounds of heavy water per year for Heisenbergs teams in Leipzig and Berlin. An initial raid on the plant by British paratroopers ended in disaster when the gliders carrying the troops crashed far from the target.

The British were concerned enough about the plant to mount another operation. The second raid was more subtle than the first. A daring team of Norwegian commandos infiltrated the plant and blew up the water tanks. Later, British submarines interdicted further shipments. The loss of so much heavy water set the German project back but did not derail it. That, the Germans unwittingly did themselves.

The Challenges of U-235 Enrichment

Despite the continuing attacks on the heavy water supply line, by 1941 German scientists had come to several broad theoretical conclusions that mirrored American conceptions of how to build an atomic device: (1) an enriched uranium fission device, (2) a plutonium-based fission device, or (3) a reactor bomb. While the United States would build successful atomic reactors and both uranium and plutonium bombs by the end of the war, the German scientists never approached a working conception for actual production of a successful atomic machine.

The American bomb that exploded over Hiroshima was a uranium fission device. The key to manufacturing such a bomb was producing sufficient quantities of highly enriched Uranium 235, an isotope that exists naturally only in tiny quantities within the much more abundant Uranium 238. Extracting U-235 from U-238 cannot be done chemically and requires a time-consuming and expensive gaseous diffusion process.

Go here to read the rest:

Nuclear Weapons Denied: How Hitler Failed to Even Get Close to the Bomb - The National Interest Online