“Invisibility. Teleportation. Mind reading. Psychokinesis. Time travel. Star ships. Parallel universes. Normally, these would be dismissed by scientists as being impossible. One hundred years ago, the same was thought about lasers, televisions and visiting outer space.” This is the first sentence of Michio Kaku’s abstract from his presentation to AAPT entitled, “Physics of the Impossible.” Dr. Kaku can also be seen on Sci Q Sundays every Sunday night.

By Pat Viele, Physics & Astronomy Librarian for the Edna McConnell Clark Physical Sciences Library at Cornell University

Edmonton, Alberta, site of the AAPT Summer Meeting (http://www.aapt.org/Events/SM2008/index.cfm) held from July 19-23, 2008, was very colorful with huge fields of bright yellow canola plants (used to make a type of edible cooking oil) in full bloom. The plants only flower for about one week, so our timing was good.

First on my agenda was to give my “Mining the Hidden Web” tutorial. I always enjoy these sessions and learn from those who participate. I then spent time with David Jones, who has just taken on the position of liaison to the physics department at the U. of Alberta. The science and technology library at the U. of Alberta is currently undergoing renovation taking advantage of one of its two seasons: winter and construction.

Michio Kaku, faculty at the City College of New York and author of “Physics of the Impossible” spoke on that topic. He will host a TV (Sci Q Sundays) series this month. For details, see: http://science.discovery.com/tv/sci-q/about/about.html. Michio is a very engaging and entertaining speaker whose talents can be experienced on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW8rgKLPHMg

As chair of the Committee on Professional Concerns, I facilitated the committee meeting, attended sessions that the committee sponsored, and attended Programs I and Programs II meetings to help plan the next national meetings.

The session “Graduate Education in Physics: Which Way Forward?” was a follow-up session to the conference itself which was held in late January at the American Center for Physics. I have great interest in the recommendation of the Task Force on Graduate Education in Physics that physics graduate students be offered instruction in information fluency.

The session “Rethinking the Upper-Level [physics] Curriculum” was arranged by Cornell University alum Dr. Ernie Behringer. Attending sessions like this helps me learn more about what faculty and students need at various levels in my work with Cornell faculty and grad students.

“Scientific Communication and Writing” was an excellent session. I was especially impressed with the program developed by husband and wife team of Dr. Dan Budny, U. of Pittsburg, and Dr. Teresa Larkin, American University. In collaboration with librarians, the English department, and the writing center, they have developed an excellent writing program for engineering and physics students. At the end of the year, the students work in groups to prepare papers for their own conference. Details are here: http://www.engr.pitt.edu/%7Eeng11/.

As always, the physics demonstration show was both entertaining and informative. After the conference I traveled to the Canadian Rockies’ Jasper National Park–the trip was spectacular.