'bout time...pull on the reigns for scientific misconduct

"UK funders get tough on research misconduct"

by

Leila Sattary

March 4th, 2013

Chemistry World

Universities who do not take cases of research misconduct seriously could have their funding withdrawn. The new sanctions are set out in the revised  Policy and Guidelines on Governance of Good Research Conduct , published by Research Councils UK (RCUK).

Research misconduct usually involves offences like the fabrication or falsification of data or the misrepresentation of the level of involvement of individuals. Penalties could be applied to universities or research organisations which fail to meet RCUK’s obligations for research integrity – for example, if institutions conduct incomplete or biased investigations into alleged misconduct or if their researchers have committed ‘persistent research misconduct’. Such failures could result in existing grants being revoked, applications getting rejected ‘for any period of time, including indefinitely’ or even retrospectively clawing back funding from the institution.

There has been a steady rise in scientific misconduct cases, with approximately one in 10,000 papers retracted because of misconduct. In 2010, UK-based journal Acta Crystallographica Section E was forced to retract dozens of papers describing over 70 crystal structures found to have been fabricated by Chinese researchers.

Ethical behaviour by peer reviewers is also discussed in the new policy. Peer reviewers of grant applications and papers are warned against breaches of confidentiality, misappropriation of the contents of documents and failures to speak up about conflicts of interest or when they are not expert enough to complete a review. The potential for misconduct by peer reviewers is a common worry for researchers and famous cases highlight that bad practice can happen.

The addition of penalties to the original RCUK policy published in 2009 have come in response to criticisms by the House of Commons science and technology committee.

James Parry, chief executive of the independent UK Research Integrity Office welcomes the revised guidance and sees the development as an important step in the journey towards sustaining and enhancing integrity in UK research. ‘Organisations which fund research must be able to satisfy themselves that those funds are used appropriately, checking this through clear and proportionate means,’ he says.

RCUK’s new policy is clear on the onus on institutions to train and support their researchers and also protect whistleblowers in research misconduct cases. Rick Rylance, chair of RCUK, said: ‘A commitment to good research conduct lies at the heart of an effective research system. High standards of integrity underpin the quality and reliability of research outcomes and of the decisions we make about funding.’

Vocabulary list--#17

Wake up!...POSP stringer Tim and compiled another vocabulary list.

abecedarian

ay-bee-see-DAIR-ee-uhn

noun

1. One who is learning the alphabet, hence, a beginner.
2. One engaged in teaching the alphabet.
3. Pertaining to the letters of the alphabet.
4. Arranged alphabetically.
5. Rudimentary, elementary.


adrumbrate

ad-um-brate

transitive verb

To give only the main facts and not the details about something, especially something that will happen in the future.


anencephalous

an-a-sef-a-lus

adjective

Brainless, lacking a brain, empty-headed.


anthropomorphism

an-throw-po-mor-fizm

noun

The attribution of human traits to inanimate objects and nonhuman beings, such as animals and gods. 


atavistic

at-uh-VIS-tik

adjective

Of, pertaining to, or characterized by atavism, reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.


bon vivant

bon-vee-VONT

noun

A person with refined and sociable tastes, especially one who enjoys fine food and drink.


brabble

BRAB-uhl

verb

To argue stubbornly about trifles, wrangle.

noun

Noisy, quarrelsome chatter.


butterfaith

noun

A girl who is fun, intelligent, beautiful, perfect in every way... except she's devoutly religious.


dyslogistic

dis-luh-JIS-tik

adjective

Conveying disapproval or censure, not complimentary or eulogistic.


ephemeral  

ih-FEM-uh-rul

adjective

Lasting a very short time.


epexegesis

ep-ek-si-JEE-sis

noun

1. The addition of a word or words to explain a preceding word or sentence.
2. The word or words so added.


eurytopic

yur-ih-TAH-pik

adjective

Tolerant of wide variation in one or more environmental factors.


factotum

fak-TOH-tuhm

noun
1. A person having many diverse activities or responsibilities.
2. A general servant.


intemerate

in-TEM-er-it

adjective

Inviolate, undefiled, unsullied, pure.


irrefrangible

ir-i-FRAN-juh-buhl

adjective

1. Not to be broken or violated, inviolable, an irrefrangible rule of etiquette.
2. Incapable of being refracted.


jabberwocky

JAB-er-wah-kee

noun

Meaningless speech or writing.


jackanapes

JAK-uh-neyps

noun

1. An impertinent, presumptuous person, especially a young man, whippersnapper.
2. An impudent, mischievous child.
3. Archaic. An ape or monkey.


Jacobin 

JAK-uh-bin

noun

1. An extreme radical, especially in politics.
2. (In the French Revolution) a member of a radical society or club of revolutionaries that promoted the Reign of Terror and other extreme measures, active chiefly from 1789 to 1794: so called from the Dominican convent in Paris, where they originally met.
3. A Dominican friar.
4. (Lowercase) one of a fancy breed of domestic pigeons having neck feathers that hang over the head like a hood.


kibitzer

KIB-it-ser

noun

1. A giver of uninvited or unwanted advice.
2. A spectator at a card game who looks at the players' cards over their shoulders, especially one who gives unsolicited advice.
3. A person who jokes, chitchats, or makes wisecracks, especially while others are trying to work or to discuss something seriously.


kinchin

kin-chin

noun

A child.


mainour

MEY-ner

noun

A stolen article found on the person of or near the thief, to be taken with the mainour.


mala fide

mal-uh-FYE-dee

adverb or adjective

With or in bad faith.


meretricious

mair-uh-TRISH-us

adjective

1. Of or relating to a prostitute, having the nature of prostitution.
2. Twdrily and falsely attractive.
3. Superficially significant, pretentious.


métier

MET-yay

noun

1. Vocation, trade.
2. An area of activity in which one excels, forte.


nomothetic

nah-muh-THET-ik

adjective

Relating to, involving, or dealing with abstract, general, or universal statements or laws.


obnubilate

ob-NOO-buh-leyt

verb

To cloud over, becloud; obscure.


paraph

PAR-uhf

noun

A flourish made after a signature, as in a document, originally as a precaution against forgery.


roseate

ROH-zee-ut

adjective

1. Resembling a rose especially in having a pink color.
2. Overly optimistic, viewed favorably.


satrap

SEY-trap

noun

1. A subordinate ruler, often a despotic one.
2. A governor of a province under the ancient Persian monarchy.


sangfroid

SAHNG-FRWAH

noun

Self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain.


tchotchke

CHAHCH-kuh

noun

Knickknack, trinket.


thimblerig

THIM-bul-rig

verb

1. To cheat by trickery.
2. To swindle by a trick in which a small ball or pea is quickly shifted from under one to another of three small cups to fool the spectator guessing its location.


umber

UHM-ber

noun

1. North England Dialect, shade, shadow.
2. An earth consisting chiefly of a hydrated oxide of iron and some oxide of manganese, used in its natural state as a brown pigment (raw umber) or, after heating, as a reddish-brown pigment (burnt umber).
3. The color of such a pigment, dark dusky brown or dark reddish brown.
4. Ichthyology. the European grayling, Thymallus thymallus.

adjective

Of the color umber.

verb

To color with or as if with umber.


varia

VAIR-ee-uh

noun

Miscellaneous items, especially a miscellany of literary works.


word-hoard

WURD-hawrd

noun

A person's vocabulary.


zakuska

zuh-KOOS-kuh

noun

An hors d'oeuvre.


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No, Wittgenstein isn't "dead"

"Was Wittgenstein Right?"

by

Paul Horwich

March 3rd, 2013

The New York Times

The singular achievement of the controversial early 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was to have discerned the true nature of Western philosophy — what is special about its problems, where they come from, how they should and should not be addressed, and what can and cannot be accomplished by grappling with them. The uniquely insightful answers provided to these meta-questions are what give his treatments of specific issues within the subject — concerning language, experience, knowledge, mathematics, art and religion among them — a power of illumination that cannot be found in the work of others.

Admittedly, few would agree with this rosy assessment — certainly not many professional philosophers. Apart from a small and ignored clique of hard-core supporters the usual view these days is that his writing is self-indulgently obscure and that behind the catchy slogans there is little of intellectual value. But this dismissal disguises what is pretty clearly the real cause of Wittgenstein’s unpopularity within departments of philosophy: namely, his thoroughgoing rejection of the subject as traditionally and currently practiced; his insistence that it can’t give us the kind of knowledge generally regarded as its raison d’être.

Wittgenstein claims that there are no realms of phenomena whose study is the special business of a philosopher, and about which he or she should devise profound a priori theories and sophisticated supporting arguments. There are no startling discoveries to be made of facts, not open to the methods of science, yet accessible “from the armchair” through some blend of intuition, pure reason and conceptual analysis. Indeed the whole idea of a subject that could yield such results is based on confusion and wishful thinking.

This attitude is in stark opposition to the traditional view, which continues to prevail. Philosophy is respected, even exalted, for its promise to provide fundamental insights into the human condition and the ultimate character of the universe, leading to vital conclusions about how we are to arrange our lives. It’s taken for granted that there is deep understanding to be obtained of the nature of consciousness, of how knowledge of the external world is possible, of whether our decisions can be truly free, of the structure of any just society, and so on — and that philosophy’s job is to provide such understanding. Isn’t that why we are so fascinated by it?

If so, then we are duped and bound to be disappointed, says Wittgenstein. For these are mere pseudo-problems, the misbegotten products of linguistic illusion and muddled thinking. So it should be entirely unsurprising that the “philosophy” aiming to solve them has been marked by perennial controversy and lack of decisive progress — by an embarrassing failure, after over 2000 years, to settle any of its central issues. Therefore traditional philosophical theorizing must give way to a painstaking identification of its tempting but misguided presuppositions and an understanding of how we ever came to regard them as legitimate. But in that case, he asks, “[w]here does [our] investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important? (As it were all the buildings, leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble)” — and answers that “(w)hat we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stand.”

Given this extreme pessimism about the potential of philosophy — perhaps tantamount to a denial that there is such a subject — it is hardly surprising that “Wittgenstein” is uttered with a curl of the lip in most philosophical circles. For who likes to be told that his or her life’s work is confused and pointless? Thus, even Bertrand Russell, his early teacher and enthusiastic supporter, was eventually led to complain peevishly that Wittgenstein seems to have “grown tired of serious thinking and invented a doctrine which would make such an activity unnecessary.”

But what is that notorious doctrine, and can it be defended? We might boil it down to four related claims.

— The first is that traditional philosophy is scientistic: its primary goals, which are to arrive at simple, general principles, to uncover profound explanations, and to correct naïve opinions, are taken from the sciences. And this is undoubtedly the case.

—The second is that the non-empirical (“armchair”) character of philosophical investigation — its focus on conceptual truth — is in tension with those goals.  That’s because our concepts exhibit a highly theory-resistant complexity and variability. They evolved, not for the sake of science and its objectives, but rather in order to cater to the interacting contingencies of our nature, our culture, our environment, our communicative needs and our other purposes.  As a consequence the commitments defining individual concepts are rarely simple or determinate, and differ dramatically from one concept to another. Moreover, it is not possible (as it is within empirical domains) to accommodate superficial complexity by means of simple principles at a more basic (e.g. microscopic) level.

— The third main claim of Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy — an immediate consequence of the first two — is that traditional philosophy is necessarily pervaded with oversimplification; analogies are unreasonably inflated; exceptions to simple regularities are wrongly dismissed.

— Therefore — the fourth claim — a decent approach to the subject must avoid theory-construction and instead be merely “therapeutic,” confined to exposing the irrational assumptions on which theory-oriented investigations are based and the irrational conclusions to which they lead.

Consider, for instance, the paradigmatically philosophical question: “What is truth?”. This provokes perplexity because, on the one hand, it demands an answer of the form, “Truth is such–and-such,” but on the other hand, despite hundreds of years of looking, no acceptable answer of that kind has ever been found. We’ve tried truth as “correspondence with the facts,” as “provability,” as “practical utility,” and as “stable consensus”; but all turned out to be defective in one way or another — either circular or subject to counterexamples. Reactions to this impasse have included a variety of theoretical proposals.  Some philosophers have been led to deny that there is such a thing as absolute truth. Some have maintained (insisting on one of the above definitions) that although truth exists, it lacks certain features that are ordinarily attributed to it — for example, that the truth may sometimes be impossible to discover. Some have inferred that truth is intrinsically paradoxical and essentially incomprehensible. And others persist in the attempt to devise a definition that will fit all the intuitive data.

But from Wittgenstein’s perspective each of the first three of these strategies rides roughshod over our fundamental convictions about truth, and the fourth is highly unlikely to succeed. Instead we should begin, he thinks, by recognizing (as mentioned above) that our various concepts play very different roles in our cognitive economy and (correspondingly) are governed by defining principles of very different kinds. Therefore, it was always a mistake to extrapolate from the fact that empirical concepts, such as red or magnetic  or alive stand for properties with specifiable underlying natures to the presumption that the notion of truth must stand for some such property as well.

Wittgenstein’s conceptual pluralism positions us to recognize that notion’s idiosyncratic function, and to infer that truth itself will not be reducible to anything more basic. More specifically, we can see that the concept’s function in our cognitive economy is merely to serve as a device of generalization. It enables us to say such things as “Einstein’s last words were true,” and not be stuck with “If Einstein’s last words were that E=mc2, then E=mc2; and if his last words were that nuclear weapons should be banned, then nuclear weapons should be banned; … and so on,” which has the disadvantage of being infinitely long!  Similarly we can use it to say: “We should want our beliefs to be true” (instead of struggling with “We should want that if we believe that E=mc2, then E=mc2; and that if we believe … etc.”). We can see, also, that this sort of utility depends upon nothing more than the fact that the attribution of truth to a statement is obviously equivalent to the statement itself — for example, “It’s true that E=mc2” is equivalent to “E=mc2”. Thus possession of the concept of truth appears to consist in an appreciation of that triviality, rather than a mastery of any explicit definition. The traditional search for such an account (or for some other form of reductive analysis) was a wild-goose chase, a pseudo-problem. Truth emerges as exceptionally unprofound and as exceptionally unmysterious.

This example illustrates the key components of Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy, and suggests how to flesh them out a little further. Philosophical problems typically arise from the clash between the inevitably idiosyncratic features of special-purpose concepts —true, good, object, person, now, necessary — and the scientistically driven insistence upon uniformity. Moreover, the various kinds of theoretical move designed to resolve such conflicts (forms of skepticism, revisionism, mysterianism and conservative systematization) are not only irrational, but unmotivated.The paradoxes to which they respond should instead be resolved merely by coming to appreciate the mistakes of perverse overgeneralization from which they arose. And the fundamental source of this irrationality is scientism.

As Wittgenstein put it in the “The Blue Book”:

    Our craving for generality has [as one] source … our preoccupation with the method of science. I mean the method of reducing the explanation of natural phenomena to the smallest possible number of primitive natural laws; and, in mathematics, of unifying the treatment of different topics by using a generalization. Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness. I want to say here that it can never be our job to reduce anything to anything, or to explain anything. Philosophy really is “purely descriptive.

These radical ideas are not obviously correct, and may on close scrutiny turn out to be wrong. But they deserve to receive that scrutiny — to be taken much more seriously than they are. Yes, most of us have been interested in philosophy only because of its promise to deliver precisely the sort of theoretical insights that Wittgenstein argues are illusory. But such hopes are no defense against his critique. Besides, if he turns out to be right, satisfaction enough may surely be found in what we still can get — clarity, demystification and truth.
 
[Paul Horwich is a professor of philosophy at New York University. He is the author of several books, including “Reflections on Meaning,” “Truth-Meaning-Reality,” and most recently, “Wittgenstein’s Metaphilosophy.”]
 

Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy

by

Paul Horwich

ISBN-13: 9780199661121

Congratulation to chemistry competitor...Trent Morris

 

Winners of the You be the Chemist competition Saturday at Penn State Berks are, from left, Trent Morris, 13, Berks Christian School, first place; Marc Chmielewski, 12, Wilson West Middle School, third place; Haley Savastano, 11, Hamburg Middle School, fourth place; and Bhanu Oruganty, 12, C.E. Cole Intermediate School, Muhlenberg School District, second place.

"Eighth-grader scores second victory in chemistry competition"

by

Anthony Orozco

March 3rd, 2013

Reading Eagle

When Trent Morris got dressed Saturday morning, it was for success.

Standing out from his fellow competitors in a sport coat and tie, Trent, 13, a Berks Christian School eighth-grader, won first place in the You Be The Chemist competition at the Penn State Berks Perkins Center Auditorium for the second consecutive year.

The quiz-show style competition drew 100 students from around Berks County. The event was sponsored by the Chemical Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to promote the sciences, and Brenntag North America Inc., a global chemical distributor in Ontelaunee Township.

"This is a part of our community outreach," said Tom Corcoran, commercial vice president of Brenntag North America Inc. "If we can get young kids interested in chemistry now, they can pursue it in high school and college. This is like the (Scripps) National Spelling Bee, but for chemistry."
Questions ranged from lab procedure to understanding the differences between effusion and diffusion, quickly calculating volume and differentiating among solvates, solvents, solutes and solates.

"That show, 'Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?' comes to mind," Corcoran said. "Some of these questions are really hard."

The competitors were whittled down through four rounds of questions and a tie-breaking lightning round.

The top four finalists all received trophies, gift certificates to Educational and Fun, a teaching and learning supply store in Bern Township, and a six-month membership to the Reading Public Museum. Second place was taken by Bhanu Oruganty, a 12-year-old sixth-grader at C.E. Cole Intermediate School in the Muhlenberg School District.

Marc Chmielewski, a 12-year-old seventh-grader at Wilson West Middle School, took third place. Hamburg Middle School sixth-grader, Haley Savastano, 11, who had been studying chemistry as an extracurricular, finished fourth.

The four competitors will go on to the state competition in April and, if they are sharp enough, to the national competition in June.

Trent, who not only won last year but also placed second in 2011, said that he dressed for the occasion and it is something special for him.

"This is the last year I can do this," Trent said. "So I want use my talent the best I can."

A career of teaching chemistry...Jim Baker

Jim Baker
1976

He reminds me of James Hilton's Mr. Chips...a dedicated teacher over the decades.

"Teaching chemistry is my career and my hobby"

Jim Baker went into teaching because he enjoyed passing on his knowledge. After 42 years, despite how much the profession has changed, he's not ready to switch off the bunsen burner yet

by

Emily Drabble   

March 3rd, 2013

Guardian News

My own chemistry teacher from Swanwick Hall Grammar School, my great mentor Tom Cook, advised me to become a teacher. I remember him telling me about friends who'd gone into industry who looked more haggard than he did – something that might not necessarily be true nowadays.

I studied specialised chemistry at Sheffield University and I loved it but at the end of the day I'm a people person and I just couldn't see myself in a lab working on my own. So after my degree I did a year's diploma in education.

I remember my professor of education telling us: "You are entering teaching at a very interesting time." And how right he was. Of course he couldn't have foreseen all the many changes, but in the course of my career, teaching has changed radically.

I started teaching in 1970. I've been teaching for so long that in 2008 one lad told me I had taught his grandad. I remembered him too; I've taught thousands of pupils but I'm usually able to remember their names and faces.

When I started teaching, all pupils would be taught chemistry by a chemistry graduate, physics by a physics graduate and biology by a biology graduate. The problem now is that everyone has to do science and there aren't enough specialists to teach them. There are people teaching chemistry who don't know much about the subject.

In my travels I have seen trainee teachers who have done A-levels in psychology and photography and they are becoming secondary science teachers. But children won't be inspired if their teachers are only one step ahead of them in knowledge of the subject.

I retired from full-time work in August 2008 after teaching in the same school, Lincoln Christ's Hospital School, for 38 years. I was head of chemistry and deputy head of science in charge of behaviour management when I retired.

People say you should be moving every two years to get progression, aiming I suppose to get out of the classroom. But I went into teaching because I liked being with people and passing on my knowledge: that's why I became a classroom teacher and that's why I stayed one.

You might think I'd get fed up in the same school as a classroom teacher, but I didn't because every class and child is different. I've found children learn when it's fun and they want to be there so I became a bit of an entertainer in the classroom – it's no good having the subject knowledge if you can't explain it. For me teaching is all about relationships. If you can't build relationships with students, and they don't want to be in your class, no matter what else you do, it's wasted.

In 1997 I got to the final 13 in the Salter's Chemistry Teacher of the Year award. Three years after that one of my lessons was judged by Ofsted to be unsatisfactory. It was probably the worst day of my life. My head couldn't believe it and he asked for another lesson to be observed. The head of science pointed out the high A-level results of my students, but the Ofsted inspector gave the second lesson a satisfactory. She criticised me for doing forces with my students because they are supposed to learn that in primary school. I was so happy that my head and head of department stood by me but it was a horrible, horrible day.

The great thing about being semi-retired now is that I can say what I like. After 42 years teaching I think that the key to being a good teacher has to be developing strong relationships with the children. I also know my subject inside out: I almost daren't say this but I don't plan lessons. I just go in and know what I need to teach. Some of the trainees tell me they've been advised not to smile until Christmas, but I ask them what sort of people do you want to be around? People that are fun and have a good time – the children are no different. If you walk in with a smile, they will feel positive about their learning. Trouble is, there's so much pressure on teachers now that they're tired when they walk into the classroom.

After I retired, my old head of science at Christ's, went to be head of house at St Peter's and St Paul's Catholic High School. He asked if I would give his chemistry teacher some help and, when she went part-time, I started teaching A and AS-level chemistry one day a week. I only teach part of the course but after applying my methods the AS pass rate has improved so they've given me another year's contract.

I teach the things I want to do, my way. It works and I feel sorry for the rest of the staff who can't have this freedom. Often schools with badly behaved children arrange for these kids to be absent when the Ofsted inspectors come around and the school say they'll do the same with me. It's almost funny but in fact it's deadly serious. Things are changing so quickly and teachers are so busy they don't have time to sit back and think about it. But if I were the chief executive of a company in which 50% of my employees left in the first three years I'd seriously review my policies – yet that's what's happening with maths and science teachers.

I soon realised the huge value of modern technology and set up my website back in 1998 in the early days of the internet. I heard about twiducate and now all my year 12 and 13 chemists use it to keep in touch with me and access my resources. They can post their questions and I can answer them.

My students can also email me their questions when they need to know the answers, usually in the evenings or weekends. It takes me ten minutes to answer them while I'm relaxing with a cup of coffee, far better than being chased down the corridor in the school day when there's no time to talk.

Teaching chemistry is my career and my hobby so why should I stop? Statistically teachers working on the frontline tend to have a low life expectancy once they retire, so I don't dare.

Deceased--Donald Arthur Glaser

 Donald Arthur Glaser
September 21st, 1926 to February 28th, 2013

 

"Physics Nobelist and biotech pioneer Donald Glaser dies at 86"

by

Robert Sanders

March 1st, 2013

UC Berkeley News Center

Donald Arthur Glaser, a Nobel-prize winning physicist who reinvented himself as a biotech pioneer and later dove into the field of neurobiology, died in his sleep Thursday morning, Feb. 28, at his home in Berkeley. He was 86.

Glaser, a professor emeritus of physics and of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the bubble chamber, a device that allowed scientists to track the paths of electrons, protons and other elementary particles after collisions, which led the discovery of whole families of new particles.

With the freedom that accompanies a Nobel Prize, he soon began to explore the new field of molecular biology, and in 1971 joined two friends, Ronald E. Cape and Peter Farley, to found the first biotechnology company, Cetus Corp., to exploit new discoveries for the benefit of medicine and agriculture. The company developed interleukin and interferon as cancer therapies, but was best known for producing a powerful genetic tool, the polymerase chain reaction, to amplify DNA. In 1991, Cetus was sold to Chiron Corp., now part of Novartis.

In the 1980s, Glaser turned his attention to the field of neurobiology and spent a semester at The Roland Institute for Science in Cambridge, Mass., Polaroid inventor Edwin Land’s research center, where he began psychophysics experiments in vision to understand, for example, how humans perceive motion. Based on these experiments, he developed mathematical models that he simulated on a computer, said neurobiologist Tomaso Poggio, a professor in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who first met Glaser as he was changing fields in the 1980s.

“He was a great human being and a close friend who was incredibly kind,” Poggio said. “He was always able to see the world in a different way, and make remarks that were refreshing, original and very often witty.”

Glaser was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 21, 1926, the son of Russian immigrant parents William J. Glaser, a businessman, and his wife Lena. He received his early education in the public schools of Cleveland Heights, and completed his B.Sc. degree in physics and mathematics at the Case Institute of Technology in 1946 while playing viola with the Cleveland Orchestra. After serving as a teacher of mathematics at the institute, he began his graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology in fall 1946. He obtained his Ph.D. in physics and mathematics from Cal Tech in 1950 with a thesis on the momentum spectrum of high energy cosmic ray and mesons at sea level.

In 1949, Glaser began teaching in the physics department of the University of Michigan, where he examined various experimental techniques, including diffusion cloud chambers and parallel-plate spark counters, for visualizing elementary particles. He finally hit on the idea of a bubble chamber – “a pressure cooker with windows,” in his words – and built the first one-inch prototype in 1952. The device worked by superheating a liquid, such as xenon, above its boiling point so that when a particle moved through it, it left a trail of boiling bubbles that could be tracked and photographed.

“The bubble chamber was a major breakthrough and led to the discovery of a zoo of new particles,” said particle physicist Herbert Steiner, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of physics. “It was the dominant particle detector in the 1960s and ‘70s, and had an enormous impact on the field of particle physics.”

Nobel Prize at 34

Glaser moved to UC Berkeley in 1959 and in 1960, at the age of 34, won the physics Nobel. It wasn’t long, though, before he began to explore a new and growing field, molecular biology. He worked in UC Berkeley’s Virus Lab, conducting experiments with bacteria and bacterial viruses called phages and mammalian cells. He designed automated equipment that made it easier to grow these cells and to study how they grow, repair themselves and reproduce.

His experience automating visual tasks in physics and molecular biology eventually led him to an interest in human vision and how the brain processes what is seen.

“He was a man of wide-ranging interests, very inventive, always thinking outside the box,” Steiner said.

“I think all his life he had the mind, the curiosity, the freshness of a kid,” Poggio said. “He was fun. That is something I will really miss a lot.”

Glaser received many honors for his work, including the1953 Henry Russel Award at the University of Michigan for distinction and promise in teaching and research; the 1958 Charles Vernon Boys Prize of the Physical Society, London, for distinction in experimental physics; the 1959 American Physical Society Prize for his contributions to experimental physics; and in 1959 the honorary degree of Doctor of Science by the Case Institute of Technology.

“Although I did not meet Don til late in his life, I feel privileged to have had the chance to spend time with this great scientist and am truly thrilled that we are able to name the Physics 111 Advanced Lab after him,” said Frances Hellman, professor and chair of UC Berkeley’s Department of Physics. “Physics 111 is the capstone class of our major and provides a unique opportunity for students to experience the joys and tribulations of experimental science and remember Don’s contributions to this aspect of physics.”

In the years since 1960, Glaser was a consultant and advisor to many governmental organizations, industrial boards of directors, non-profit groups, and a member of the editorial boards of several scientific publications.

Glaser is survived by his wife, Lynn Glaser (nee Bercovitz), a musician and painter; two children, pediatrician Louise Ferris Glaser of Sacramento and high-tech leader William Thompson Glaser of Berkeley, from his first marriage to Ruth Bonnie Thompson; and four granddaughters.

A physics department memorial in honor of Glaser is planned for the spring.

From UCtelevision...a lecture by Don Glaser...

Invention and History of the Bubble Chamber

Donald Arthur Glaser [Wikipedia]

Bubble chamber [Wikipedia]

Fermilab...a new documentary film

"Fermilab documentary offers inside look"

A new documentary about the people and science of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is now available on YouTube.

by

Andre Salles

February 12, 2013

Symmetry

When Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross were commissioned to direct a new documentary about Fermilab, they had a couple of questions. The most important one, Ross says, was this: Should the movie be a standard informational video, or should it tell a story about the lab and its people?

Focus on the people and tell the story, said Judy Jackson, former head of the Office of Communication. And that's when Brown and Ross started getting excited about the idea.

The resulting film, shot over two years in and around the laboratory, is called "Fermilab: Science at Work." Over its 40 minutes, it follows 10 of the laboratory's scientists, giving viewers an inside look at their work (and sometimes, home) lives. But that's not to say that the film skimps on the science. It features the installation of part of the MINERvA detector, the construction of the Dark Energy Camera and an animated look at the configuration of Fermilab's accelerator complex.

Above all, the film puts forth a passionate argument in favor of what Brown calls "curiosity-driven science." Finding the necessary funding for basic research is difficult, Brown says, but there's immense value there. As artists, he says, he and Ross could relate.

Brown and Ross are no strangers to the ongoing conversation about fundamental research. As partners in the Chicago-based 137 Films, they previously co-directed "The Atom Smashers," a 2008 PBS film documenting Fermilab's efforts to find the Higgs boson. They worked for four years on that film, shooting extensively at Fermilab, so they were already familiar with the lab when it came time to roll cameras on this new documentary.

"We did feel like Fermilab was home to us," Ross says. "We came in as insiders. We knew Fermilab, we understood it."

In selecting subjects for the film, Brown and Ross say they were looking for a mix of women and men of different ages, backgrounds and interests. It was not an easy task, but the 10 they chose—Brendan Casey, Mary Convery, Brenna Flaugher, Bonnie Fleming, Deborah Harris, Craig Hogan, Denton Morris, David Schmitz, Aron Soha and Herman White—all proved compelling, Ross says.

Shooting began in the summer of 2010. Brown and Ross made several appointments with each of the scientists, following them as they worked on experiments and observing some of them at home. The film opens at Casey's house as he and his family get ready to start their day, and Brown recalls with a laugh that Casey had neglected to tell his wife that the camera crew would be there that day.

"His wife came down the stairs in her pajamas and gave him an icy glare," Brown chuckles. "She was a good sport about it."

Since their earlier effort "The Atom Smashers" focused on the high-energy physics of the Tevatron, they were less familiar with the Intensity Frontier and Cosmic Frontier experiments they explored for "Science at Work," Brown and Ross say. The film features the lab's slate of neutrino experiments as well as the Dark Energy Camera.

The filmmakers also got the chance to shoot in the Large Hadron Collider Remote Operations Center for the first time and to observe the real-time video link between Fermilab and CERN in Switzerland.

Some of the most striking sections of the film don't feature people at all—they're animations by Seattle-based artist Luke Haddock, illuminating scientific concepts in visual ways. In one section, cartoon drawings of ice cream trucks are used to explain neutrino oscillations. In another, a scale model of the Fermilab site becomes an animated diagram of the new accelerator complex.

Filming wrapped in the first half of 2012, and after six months of editing, the movie was complete. Ross says she enjoyed shooting at a place with such strong aesthetics, noting founding director Robert Wilson's combined interests in science and art. Fermilab, she says, "is a special place."

And Brown says the people of Fermilab made the shoot a special one.

"We never met a person who wasn't thrilled to be there at all times," Brown says. "There is no one who just shows up and clocks in. Everyone's excited to be there."

Science at Work

Fermilab home page

Fermilab [Wikipedia]