Each year the AAAS Council elects members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished. Dave is honored:

"For pioneering work in the use of modulation optical spectroscopies, particularly electroreflectance and ellipsometry to understand the electronic structure of semiconductors and other solids."

Congratulations to Beth Rieg, 2001 - 2002 winner of the NC State EPA Professional Award for Outstanding Service in support of Teaching and Learning. Beth received her plaque and an award at a luncheon honoring Teaching and Learning at NC State.

Also recognized were Robert Beichner, Michael Paesler, and Willyetta Brown

Congratulations to Jim York (NC State BS, PhD), recipient of the 2003 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, along with Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat. The citation reads:

"For their separate as well as joint work in proving the existence and uniqueness of solutions to Einstein's gravitational field equations for a variety of sources, and for formulation these equations so as to improve numerical solution procedures with relevance to realistic physical systems."

Partners III Update: The bids on construction of Partners III were recently opened, and will allow everything in the construction plans to be included. The time required for complete contract negotiations and award will be about 3 to 4 months. Construction should begin by February 2003, and a move-in date around September 2004.

2002 Nobel Prize for Physics: The 2002 Nobel Prize for Physics will be presented to Raymond Davis (University of Pennsylvania and Brookhaven National Lab), Masatoshi Koshiba (University of Tokyo), and Riccardo Giacconi (Associated Universities Inc.). Davis and Koshiba for the detection of solar neutrinos, and Giacconi for the development of x-ray telescopes.

Additional information is available from the American Institute of Physics at: www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2002/split/608-1.html

Semiconductor Research Corporation Graduate Fellowship Program and Master's Scholarship Program for the 2003 - 2004 academic year.

Competition for the Graduate Fellowship Program is open to US or Canadian citizens (or Permanent Residents) who are pursuing Ph.D. study in microelectronics. Competition for the Master's Scholarship Program is open to women or members of an underrepresented minority category who meet admission requirements for graduate school at an SRC participating university.

Additional information is available in the Physics mailroom. Materials for applications for the Graduate Fellowship Program and the Master's Scholarship Program may be found at www.src.org/member/students/fellowships.asp .

Physics quiz: Match wits with Ramanujan. The famous Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan ("friend of the integers") once figured out that if you multiply pi by the square root of 163, and then raise "e" to this power, you get a number that is an integer up to ten decimal places. That is, e ^{pi* √163} has ten zeros after the decimal point before you hit a non-zero entry. He did this between 1900 and 1920, needless to say, without the help of MAPLE and MATHEMATICA.

This week's competition is to guess, or describe the method he used to do make this calculation. Free large coffee at Encounters for the best entry received by November 1.

In case you'd like to know more about this interesting number, courtesy of Physics major Lyam Lynch, and MAPLE, it is at the bottom of the of the newsletter. (Mathematica experts may wish to check it out also)

Shrimp-a-roo! The rescheduled Shrimp-a-roo will be held October 31 at Pullen Park shelter number 5, 11:30 to 1:30. Dick Patty will be the cook. Come on over!

2002 Ig Nobel prize in Physics awarded. Awarded each year by the Annals of Improbable Research to recognize "Dubious Research" (and thus more fun to read about than the real Nobel Prize), this year's Ig Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Karl Kruszelnicki of Australia (who is both a physicist and a radio host) for his research into why human belly-button lint is most often blue. Like most Ig Nobel winners, Dr. Kruszelnicki flew to Boston to accept the award in the humorous spirit in which it was intended.

Reminder: The Physics Department's travel form is available on-line at www.physics.ncsu.edu/department/travel_form.html

Jackie Krim: to Knoxville, Tenn. to present a seminar at the University of Tennessee; to Genova, Italy, to present an invited talk at the European Symposium on Nanotribology; to Denver, Co, and Bloomington, Ill, to present invited talks; and to New Haven, Conn, to present a seminar at Yale.

State Employee's Combined Campaign. Please remember to return your SECC forms (even if you are not contributing) to either Robert Egler or Rebecca Savage.

Ramanujan's number is: 262537412640768744.000000000024

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