BERITA

• Profesor Wan Ahmad Tajuddin Wan Abdullah telah dilantik Timbalan Dekan

(Ijazah Tinggi), Fakulti Sains, Universiti Malaya. Tahniah dan selamat

menjalankan tugas.

• Profesor Dato’ Dr. Muhamad Rasat Muhamad tamat tempohnya sebagai

Timbalan Naib Canselor, Universiti Malaya dan kini dilantik sebagai Pengerusi

Kluster Penyelidikan Asas Termaju, Universiti Malaya. Tahniah dan selamat

menjalankan tugas.

• Presiden of IFM, Professor S. P. Chia attended the General Council Meeting

of Asia-Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) in Pohang, Korea on 3

April 2009. He also visited Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan , National Center

for Theoretical Science (South Taiwan) National Cheng Kung University,

Tainan, Taiwan, and National Center for Theoretical Science (North Taiwan)

National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan from 18 to 25 May 2009. Prof Chia

also attended the Search Committee Meeting for the President of Asia-Pacific

Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) in Pohang, Korea on 14 August 2009

and the Council Meeting of the Asia-Oceania Forum (AOF) for Synchrotron

Radiation Research in Shanghai, China on 29 November 2009. Malaysia was

formally admitted as an Associate Member of AOF in the meeting.

• Pasukan negara tidak menyertai International Physics Olympiad di Merida Mexico pada bulan Julai 2009 atas sebab penularan H1NI. Kem latihan bagi penyertaan ke IPHO di Croatia pada bulan Julai 2010 akan diteruskan.

• Persidangan Fizik Kebangsaan 2009 (PERFIK2009) telah diadakan di Hotel Avillion, Melaka pada 7 hingga 9 Disember. Persidangan telah dianjurkan oleh IFM bersama Fakulti Sains Gunaan, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam. Lebih daripada 300 peserta dengan 256 kertas penyelidikan telah dibentangkan dalam persidangan ini.

• 25th Regional Conference on Solid State Science and Technology (RCSSST 2009) telah diadakan di Bayview Beach Resort, Pulau Pinang pada 21-23 Disember 2009. Persidangan telah dianjurkan bersama oleh Persatuan Sains dan Teknologi Keadaan Pepejal Malaysia dengan Universiti Malaysia Perlis. Lebih kurang 300 kertas meliputi sains bahan kejuruteraan, kimia dan fizik telah dibentangkan dalam persidangan ini. 8

Ahli IFM yang dihormati,

Kepentingan menulis hasil penyelidikan dalam jurnal yang diindeks oleh agensi tertentu seperti ISI Thomson Reuters dan SCOPUS telah mendapat perhatian universiti tempatan sejak akhir-akhir ini. Ini merupakan satu fenomena yang baru bagi memastikan hasil karya penyelidik Malaysia dapat disebarkan ke seluruh dunia dengan sebaiknya. Ganjaran dan imbuhan kewangan bagi penerbitan dalam jurnal yang diindeks oleh agensi indeks tersebut juga perkenalkan oleh sebahagian universiti di Malaysia. Oleh itu semakin rancaklah penyelidikan dan penerbitan pada masa ini. Diharapkan sistem ganjaran ini adalah berbentuk sementara sahaja bagi meningkatkan bilangan penerbitan pada jangka pendek. Ini kerana menerbitkan makalah dalam jurnal adalah satu tanggung jawab sebagai ahli akademik dan penyelidik. Sudah tentu sebagai ahli IFM yang juga menjalankan penyelidikan dan penerbitan kita juga terlibat dalam usaha-usaha ini. Dalam kita menerbitkan hasil penyelidikan dalam jurnal dindeks dan berfaktor impak, diharapkan penyelidik kita terus menyokong jurnal tempatan yang telah lama diterbitkan walaupun ada antaranya belum diindeks oleh agensi indeks yang besar-besar ini. Sokongan ini diharap akan dapat membantu jurnal tempatan kita berkembang dan maju. Semoga bertemu di tahun 2010. Sekian, terima kasih.

Roslan Abd Shukor

BERITA IFM

Surat Berita INSTITUT FIZIK MALAYSIA

• Editor - R. Abd-Shukor (UKM) • Editor Bersekutu - Sithi V. Muniandy (UM)

Ahli Sidang - Abd Aziz Tajuddin (USM) • Chia Song Choy (Kump. Pendidikan

Fizik) • Noorhana Yahya (UTP) • Kurunathan Ratnavelu (Setiausaha IFM) • Md.

Rahim Sahar (UTM) • Saadah Abdul Rahman (UM) • Jedol Dayou (UMSabah) •

Alamat Editor: Pusat Pengajian Fizik Gunaan, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia. Tel: 03-89215904, Faks: 03-89213777, Email:

ras@ukm.my

Bil. 3&4 Sept./Dis 2009 (Untuk Ahli Sahaja) Dikeluarkan 4 kali setahun

BERITA IFM, Sept./Dis 2009

Physics Nobel Prize 2009 Is All About

Capturing Light

The 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics has just been announced, and instead of

rewarding some esoteric, hard-to-fathom theoretical physics work, it's gone to

pioneers in two fields close to tech-lovers hearts: Fibre-optics and digital

photography.

Half the prize went to Charles Kao for work that led to long-distance

fiber-optic communications. Born in Shanghai, he was educated in the U.K.

and worked in one of the early companies that became the current Nortel. This

is where he did research into the fiber-optic systems available at the time,

which had been puzzling scientists and engineers by not nearing their theoretical efficiency, and remaining good only for short-distance signaling.

Kao's experiments proved the reason behind these inefficiencies was impurities

in the glass making up the fibers--this effected the refractive index of the

medium as well as how much light was wasted by scattering instead of being

neatly piped down the fiber to the receiving electronics.

As a result of Kao's work, confidence in fiber-optics as a

communications medium was restored once it became possible to create ultra-

long fibers with low impurities and imperfections. Why should you care about

this? Because it's huge bundles of fiber that form the backbone of the global

telecommunications system that makes many things from your phone to your

Net connection to your TV work. You can also now get "fiber to the door" systems (like Verizon's FiOS) which deliver ultra-fast broadband and IPTV to

your home. Apple and Intel's new fast-dataline toy, LightPeak, uses essentially

the same system. These devices all rely on discoveries made after Kao's.

The other half of the prize was shared by Canadian Willard Boyle and

American George Smith for their co-invention of the Charge-Coupled Device.

This little optically-sensitive chip, with its neat shift-bit way of getting data

from the individual light-sensitive pixels to the data pipe that connects the

sensor to a computer, is basically the invention that made possible the whole

field of digital photography. And that's a revolutionary technology that doesn't

need any introduction.

Kit Eaton

http://www.fastcompany.com

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BERITA IFM, Sept./Dis 2009

PERSIDANGAN

• 1st International Student Symposium on Environmental Science,

Technology and Management 4 to 18 January 2010 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Organized by: ESTEM and UPMISA, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Website: http://env.upm.edu.my:8080/~estem, Contact name: The Secretariat

• Nuclear Power Asia 25 to 27 January 2010 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia . Website:

http://www.nuclearpowerasia.com/ Contact name: Zaf Coelho

• 2nd ISESCO International Workshop and Conference on Nanotechnology

(IWCN 2010) 25 to 27 January 2010 Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Malaysia

Organized by: National University of Malaysia, ISESCO, MASS Website:

http://www.ukm.my/iwcn2010/ Contact name: Dr Muhammad Hafizuddin Hj

Jumali

• Optoelectronics 2010 (2nd

TMLO) from 13th

-14th

of March 2010, organized

by The Photonics Research Centre, University of Malaya in collaboration with The

British Council at Berjaya Redang Beach Resort, Terengganu.

http://umconference.um.edu.my/2ndTMLO

• 2nd International Conference on Applied Physics and Mathematics (ICAPM

2010) 7 to 10 May 2010 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Sponsored by: IACSIT, UPM,

Enquiries: icapm@vip.163.comm Web address: http://www.icapm.org

• 3rd

International Conference on Functional Materials & Devices 2010

(ICFMD-2010), Organized by the Centre for Ionics University of Malaya (CIUM)

from 14 to 17 June 2010 at Hotel Permai Inn, Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia.

(http://umconference.um.edu.my/ICFMD2010)

• 3rd International Conference on Solid State Science and Technology 2010

(ICSSST2010) 1st-3rd December 2010 Location : Hilton Kuching Hotel, Sarawak,

MALAYSIA , jointly organized by the Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia

Sarawak and Malaysian Solid State Science & Technology Society (MASS).

Contact : icssst2010@feng.unimas.my

7

BERITA IFM, Sept./Dis 2009

Determining the extent and distribution of liquid water is an important aspect

in probing the question of whether life could have emerged on the planet.

Warner and his team intend to develop their research by analysing

spectrographic data from the depressions and their surrounding regions in

search of hydrated minerals. "Very little is known about these crater regions

and it is still not clear whether they will be too dusty to probe the underlying chemistry," Warner told physicsworld.com. This research is published in the

journal Geology.

James Dacey , http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/41357

Nobel prizes and the credit crunch

Future winners may have to do with less

You could say physicists have much to be gloomy about these days with the

Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK cutting funding for

projects to patch up its budget and scientists in Japan bracing themselves for

deep cuts to the country’s science budget next year.

And now future winners of the Nobel prizes could end up feeling

short changed if the Nobel Foundation, which manages the finances of the

prizes, cuts the amount of money it dishes out every year. The Foundation announced at the weekend that it might cut the $1.5m

it hands out for each of the six prizes awarded each year. The reason, it says, is

the credit crunch and the impending recession, which has led to losses in the

foundation’s assets.

Indeed, when the credit crunch struck in 2008 the foundation’s assets

lost nearly one-fifth and since then has only slightly recovered. “We have

sailed the storm, but have taken on some water,” said Michael Sohlman,

executive director of the Nobel Foundation, at a press conference.

So as this year’s Nobel prize winners — including US president Barack Obama

who won the Nobel Peace Prize — attend the awards ceremony in Stockholm

on Thursday, future winners may have to do with less.

By Michael Banks

http://physicsworld.com/

6

BERITA IFM, Sept./Dis 2009

SOUTH EAST ASIA ASTRONOMY

NETWORK (SEAAN)

The working group on radio astronomy for the South East Asia Astronomy

Network (SEAAN) has been set up 2 years ago, in 2007 at the same time as the

formation of SEAAN. The University of Malaya's Radio Cosmology Research

Laboratory, based in the Physics Department, Universiti Malaya, under the

leadership of Dr Zamri Zainal Abidin joined this working group at the 2nd meeting

of this working group on the 2nd-3rd June 2009 in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

With 12 active members, mostly from Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, the

group's first short-term project is the establishment of the Small Radio Telescope Interferometer (SRTI) between Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. The group will

use the experience from this short-term project's network to eventually join the

Global Very Long Baseline Interferometer (VLBI) and finally aim to become the

research hub for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project. The SKA project will

be the biggest single project in the history of radio astronomy. It is modeled after

the highly successful global particle physics project in Geneva, where the project is

owned by each and everyone of its research hubs, not by a single owner or country.

The key sciences will include solving current issues in physics such as dark

energy, dark matter, origin of cosmic magnetism and testing the general relativity

theory through observation of double pulsars and black holes.

Below are the Vision and Mission Statement of the working group:

Vision of WG1 SEAAN:

To put South East Asia on the map of the global radio astronomy community.

Mission Statements of WG1 SEAAN:

• Develop research in radio astronomical key sciences.

• Demonstrate the importance of radio astronomy for our understanding of

the Universe.

• Promote radio astronomy frequency protection.

• Develop radio astronomy infrastructure in the region.

3

BERITA IFM, Sept./Dis 2009

IFM Annual General Meeting and

Election Results for 2009/2010 The Malaysian Institute of Physics Annual General Meeting was held at Rumah Universiti, Universiti Malaya on the 11th of September 2009. New council members and other portfolios were elected during this AGM.

1. President: Chia Swee Ping

2. Vice-President: Muhamad Rasat Muhamad

3. Hon. Secretary: Bernardine Wong Cheng Kiat

4. Asst. Hon. Sec: Woon Kai Ling

5. Hon. Treasurer: Mohd Zahurin Mohd Kamali

6. Asst. Hon. Treasurer: Rozalina Zakaria

7. Council Member: Wong Chiow San

8. Council Member: Tan Chik Heok 9. Council Member: Roslan Abdul Shukor

10. Council Member: Ng Kwan Hoong

11. Council Member: Hishamuddin Zainuddin

12. Council Member: Chia Song Choy

13. Council Member: Susan Sipaun

14. Council Member: Sua Sin Zang

Subgroup Chairs

Education: Chia Song Choy

Solid State Physics: Muhamad Rasat Muhamad

Space Physics: Mohd Zambri Zainuddin

Plasma Physics: Wong Chiow San

Radiation & Medical Physics: Ng Kwan Hoong Theoretical Physics: B. R. Wong Cheng Kiat

Laser Physics: Kwek Kuan Hiang

Editors

Jurnal Fizik Malaysia: Wong Chiow San

Berita IFM: Roslan Abdul Shukor

IFM Representatives to external organizations

APCTP: Chia Swee Ping

AAPPS: Chia Swee Ping

ACFA: Chia Swee Ping

AOFSRR: Chia Swee Ping

COSTAM: Kurunathan Ratnavelu / Wong Chiow San K.I.S.M: Chia Swee Ping (Dir.)/Tan Chik Heok (Alt.)

IFM Representative

Southern Region: Ahmad Termizi

4

BERITA IFM, Sept./Dis 2009

Ancient Mars wetter than we thought

Early Martian history may have involved more water on the planet's surface than was

previously thought. That is according to researchers in the UK who have identified a

series of geological features on the planet's surface, which they claim could only

have been formed by running liquid. One tantalizing consequence is that primitive

life could have had greater opportunity to evolve before the planet became a frozen wasteland.

Since the 1970s when NASA's Viking mission returned detailed images from the

Martian surface, scientists have been in broad agreement that water was present on

Mars at the very beginning of its history. Most believe, however, that once the planet

entered its "Hesparian Epoch" approximately 3.5 billion years ago, the temperatures

at the Martian surface plummeted and any remaining water turned to ice. If life had

begun to emerge on the early Mars then it would have become very difficult to

sustain in these cold conditions.

In this latest research, a team led by Nicholas Warner of Imperial College London

suggests that this is not necessarily the case. By studying images captured by a

camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance mission, the researchers focused on a series of depressions around parts of the planet's equator. The formation of these

features was dated at no more than 3 billion years ago by counting the number of

crater impacts – a method originally developed by NASA scientists to determine the

age of geological features on the Moon.

Previously, it had been assumed that these features were formed by ice converting

directly to water vapour in the process of sublimation. However, the high resolution

of the new images enabled Warner and his colleagues to spot a number of narrow

channels connecting individual depressions, and this has led them to a different

conclusion about the formation. They attribute these landscapes to the same

processes responsible for the "thermokarst" landscapes common in Siberia and

Alaska, in which areas of melting permafrost cause water to trickle to lower

elevations under gravity. "Scientists had largely overlooked the Hesperian epoch because it was thought

that Mars was then a frozen wasteland," says Warner. "Excitingly, our study now

shows that this middle period in Mars' history was much more dynamic than we

previously thought."

Richard Soare, a physical geographer at Dawson College in Canada agrees that

the images do bear a strong resemblance to terrestrial thermokarst regions. He told

physicsworld.com that very little has been written about permafrost degradation on

Mars during this early period of Mars history. "This work provides a substantial first

step in this direction," he says.

5