Almost 40 years after receiving a Ph.D. in physics, I am
still working on problems where conservation laws matter. In
particular, for the problems I work on now, the conservation
of the carbon atom matters. I will tell the saga of an
annual flow of 6 billion tons of carbon associated with the
global extraction of fossil fuels from underground. Until
recently, it was taken for granted that virtually all of
this carbon will move within weeks through engines of
various kinds and then into the atmosphere. For compelling
environmental reasons, I and many others are challenging
this complacent view, asking whether the carbon might wisely
be directed elsewhere.
[R3.002] Science Fashions and Scientific Fact
Michael Riordan (University of California, Santa Cruz and Stanford University)
The discovery of quarks during the 1960s and 1970s provides
an excellent example of the manner by which a theoretical
hypothesis becomes established as an “objective” reality.
Quarks are now taken for granted by the entire physics
community. During the first decade of its existence,
however, the quark hypothesis of Gell-Mann and Zweig was
only one of many competing physical ideas — and it was not a
particularly fashionable one, either — about the fundamental
nature of the subnuclear realm. Eventually the accumulation
of experimental data could accommodate no other option; all
other hypotheses fell by the wayside and are now long
forgotten. Practical insights from this process of theory
justification will be applied to the theoretical ideas of
present-day particle physics and cosmology. Of principal
concern is whether some of these fashions can ever be
subjected to similar experimental verification, and thus
have a chance of becoming scientific fact.
[R3.003] The Role of Physicists in Science Education Reform
Ramon Lopez (University of Texas at El Paso)
This abstract not available.