Woodstock west and other physics press conferences

A new press conference has been added to the schedule at the American Physical Society March Meeting in Seattle. It concerns a special session, comprising more than 65 papers, on the topic of the brand new magnesium boride (MgB2) superconductors, first discovered less than two months ago in a lab in Japan. The session will take place Monday, March 12 in the Westin Hotel in Seattle.

The speed with which research groups from around the world have embraced this subject testifies to its potential importance. Already session has taken on the informal name of "Woodstock West," in loving memory of "The Woodstock of Physics," the name given the 1987 March APS meeting at which the high-temperature ceramic superconductors made their first organized appearance.

MgB2 is an old compound but only now shown to be superconducting. The chief physics interest seems to be the possibility that the old BCS theory, good for the low temperature (around 4 K) metal materials but not so good for the higher-temperature (above 77 K) ceramic materials, might still be robust at 40 K, where the MgB materials operate. And on the practical side, one would like to fabricate wire that is cheap, formable, and able to sustain large current densities in the presence of high magnetic fields. Magnesium and boron are relatively cheap metals, and very early studies of the current carrying capabilities of the compound are favorable.

The Monday night session will address these issues. Speakers come from Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Italy, the US, Britain, China, Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. One can see the current list of speakers and abstracts at the following web address: http://mgb2.msd.anl.gov:55000 The press conference will present some of the most expected highlights of the evening session.

PRESS CONFERERENCE TIME—Monday, March 12, 4 PM
LOCATION—Room 306 in the Washington Convention Center in Seattle
SPEAKERS—Moderator, Robert Cava, Princeton (609-258-0016); he will also report on current density measurments.

—Jun Akimitsu (unconfirmed), Ayoama-Gakuin University, Japan (jun@soliton.phys.aoyama.ac.jp), in whose lab superconductivity was first observed in MgB2 in January.

—Paul Canfield, Iowa State University (515-294-6270, canfield@ameslab.gov) will report on numerous topics, such as isotope effect in the new compounds, and currents.

—Two more speakers will be determined in the next few days.

Numerous other press conferences are scheduled throughout the week. Go to the following website for more information http://www.aps.org/meet/MAR01/baps/vpr/news_conf_sched.html

WEB PRESSROOM AND LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS

Reporters are encouraged to check out the APS Virtual Pressroom (http://www.aps.org/meet/MAR01/baps/vpr/), which contains the news conference schedule, all of our news releases on the meeting, and lay-language versions of several meeting papers such as: Four New Maxwell Demons, Hearing Thresholds in Primates, Why Monkeys Can't Hear Human Speech As Well As Humans; and Unprecedented Force Resolution Achieved With Ultra-Cold Cantilever.

For more information contact Phillip Schewe at the American Institute of Physics, 301-209-3092, pschewe@aip.org, or Ben Stein, 301-209-3091, bstein@aip.org, or Randy Atkins, 301-209-3238; atkins@aps.org. At the meeting, as of March 12, call the pressroom at 206-219-4504. The fax number is 206-219-4510. The meeting pressroom is Rm 305 in the Convention Center.