A warm southern day, in a venue once used for Olympic sporting events, welcomed one of the largest gatherings ever of Nobelists. More than 40 laureates lunched with more than 100 of greater Atlanta's brightest high school students and 50 of the nation's top high school physics teachers.
"It was a chance to honor some very outstanding high school students and symbolically pass the baton from the physicists to the next generation," said Ramon Lopez, director of education and outreach for the APS and an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland in College Park.
For a golden lunch invitation with the superstars of physics, students in the Atlanta area sent essays describing their favorite Nobel laureate's research. The APS, in cooperation with the Center for Education in Science, Mathematics and Computing (a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology), culled the best essays and rewarded the writers with an invitation.
Four Cornell Nobel laureates -- 10 percent of those there -- attended: Professor Emeritus Hans Bethe; Robert Richardson, Cornell vice provost for research and the F.R. Newman Professor of Physics; David Lee, the J.G. White Professor of Physics; and Douglas Osheroff, a Cornell graduate who is now a Stanford University physics professor. Richardson, Lee and Osheroff, then a graduate student at Cornell, won the 1996 Nobel Prize in physics for their seminal research in superfluidity. Bethe won the physics prize in 1967.
It was an occasion for good humor among Nobelists and students, prompting old friends to renew ties. Osheroff offered a Cheshire grin and reminded his former mentor, Richardson, "I'm only here because of Cornell."
Richardson smiled back and retorted, "Well, I'm only here because you were a graduate student at Cornell."
At the luncheon, the group heard Jerome Friedman, president of the APS, describe the importance of education. At one point, he asked who in the audience had been influenced by a teacher. Everyone, laureates included, raised their hands.
Later, in his keynote address, Bruce Alberts, the president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, outlined the importance of physics and education in the 20th century. He preached teaching for subject understanding, not teaching to meet the multiple-choice standards of college-admissions tests.
Yu Lin Yang, who is studying advanced-placement physics at Lakeside High School in Atlanta, wrote her essay on superfluidity and relished the opportunity for a lunch with Lee.
So, what was it like being with a Nobel laureate? "At first pretty intimidating," said Yang. "But, he's real nice, he's a got a great sense of humor and kept everyone pretty relaxed at the table."
Yang has applied to Cornell for admission next fall. Was she accepted?
"I don't know yet," she said. "I haven't heard yet." She'll know in April.
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