"This was conceptually unthinkable for cosmic rays.… There is no cosmic ray physicist I know who ever expected that they would not all be coming equally from all directions."
Stamatios Krimigis, Johns Hopkins University, on recent unexpected readings from the Voyager 1, The Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2013.

"We're all sitting at the edge of our seats with what's going to happen there…. We expect discovery, but it doesn't always work out the way you expect."
Nigel Lockyer, Fermilab's new director, on the science coming out of the LHC, The Chicago Tribune, June 29, 2013.

"We see a little bump in the data, so we take more data. The bump gets bigger and bigger, until we know that it could no longer be attributed to random chance."
Paul Tipton, Yale University, describing how the Higgs Boson was discovered, ABCNews.com, July 4, 2013.

"What they have done is a major step, because they have been able to provide a much more complete description of what really happens near the black hole singularity using loop quantum gravity…. We still don't have a clear picture of the details of what happens. So it is opening a new door that other people will follow."
Abhay Ashtekar, Pennsylvania State University, commenting on new developments using loop quantum gravity, NBCNews.com, July 12, 2013.

"We don't often connect what goes on in giant particle physics laboratories to what goes on in our everyday lives.… But that connection is there, and the story I try to tell in my book is a very human one, of people doing their best, working their hardest, taking risks and discovering something really amazing."
Sean Carroll, Caltech, The Toronto Star, July 13, 2013.

"Cultural heritage, even by itself, is important.… It's something that we have to preserve for our children and the generations that will follow."
Volker Rose, Argonne National Laboratory, on using his lab's particle accelerator to save old daguerreotypes, The Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2013.

"If the four-quark explanation is confirmed, our particle physics zoo will need to be enlarged to include new species.… And our understanding of quark taxonomy will have expanded into a new realm."
Eric Swanson, University of Pittsburgh, on an unusual particle seen at the Belle experiment in Japan, and BESIII in China, FoxNews.com, June 19, 2013.

"This is a process that particle physicists have been trying to find for 25 years…. [it's a] rare process involving a particle with a mass that is roughly 1,000 times smaller than the masses of the heaviest particles we are searching for now."
Joe Incandela, CERN, after measuring the decay time of the BS meson, The Associated Press, July 19, 2013.

"By my read, the idea of a functioning warp drive remains far-fetched, but the real take-away is that people are thinking about it–reminding us all that the urge to explore continues to run deep in our species."
Neil deGrasse Tyson, American Museum of Natural History, commenting on theories for building a faster-than-light warp drive, The New York Times, July 22, 2013.

"So you have vanilla ice cream, you throw it into space—some time later, it turns into chocolate ice cream, or strawberry ice cream…. This is a very, very weird phenomenon."
Chang Kee Jung, State University of New York at Stony Brook, describing how neutrinos change flavors, Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2013.

"[W]e need different people in Congress… Congress is a place that's filled with lawyers. Now the law is an honorable profession, but lawyers are trained to argue and trained to dispute facts. What we need are people who work with facts."
George Gollin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, declaring his candidacy for the House of Representatives, The Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette, July 23, 2013.

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Editor: Alan Chodos
Staff Science Writer: Michael Lucibella

August/September 2013 (Volume 22, Number 8)

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Articles in this Issue
APS Members Elect Homer Neal to Presidential Line
APS Set to Launch Applied Physics Journal
Phys Rev X Debuts with Top-Ten “Impact Factor” Ranking
APS to Participate in Multi-Publisher Open Access Research Clearinghouse
Meeting Helps Bridge Programs Interact
Executive Officer Kate Kirby Plans Strategically for 2nd Term
All Five US Physics Olympians Come Home with Medals
Winners Selected in APS Middle-School Science Program
APS Committee Endorses Next Generation Standards
Letters to the Editor
The Back Page
Members in the Media
This Month in Physics History
Washington Dispatch
International News
Zero Gravity: The Lighter Side of Science
Education Corner