The Ides of March

Photo credit: Ken Cole

Photo credit: Ken Cole

On the 2049^th anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar in Rome, APS hosted a reception on Capitol Hill in Washington. The event, which attracted physicists, members of the administration, Congressional staffers, and members of Congress, was titled "Physics Today for a Brighter Tomorrow". The goal was to inform attendees about the ways in which fundamental physics research positively impacts their daily lives and how it can help them face tomorrow's challenges. To this end, attendees could, for example, witness cryogenic demonstrations by Nobel laureate Bill Phillips, hear about the physics of superheroes from Jim Kakalios, and find out about superconductivity from Paul Chu.

In the top picture, APS Fellow and member of Congress Rush Holt (D-NJ) addresses the crowd while APS Fellow and member of Congress Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) looks on, together with event organizers Charles Clark of NIST and Susan Coppersmith of the University of Wisconsin. In the lower picture, Ehlers (3^rd from left) chats with Sidney Nagel of the University of Chicago, former APS President Myriam Sarachik of CCNY, and current APS President-elect Leo Kadanoff of the University of Chicago.