Robert Ehrlich (physicist)

Robert Ehrlich (born 1938) is an American physicist. He has a Bachelor of Science (ϕβκ)[1] from Brooklyn College (1959), and a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University (1964), where he participated in the Nobel prize-winning muon neutrino experiment.[2] From 1963 to 1966 he held a postdoctoral position at the University of Pennsylvania and from 1966 to 1970 he was assistant professor at Rutgers University. In 1970 he accepted a position as associate professor at SUNY New Paltz, where he served as acting chair of the department of physics. From 1977 until his retirement in 2013, he was professor of physics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, having served 15 years as department chair.[3]

This article is about the American physicist. For other people of the same name, see Robert Ehrlich (disambiguation).
Robert Ehrlich in 2020

Ehrlich was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1991, "for application of physics to aspects of the nuclear arms race and contributions to public education in physics."[4] Ehrlich's primary area of scholarship is particle physics. He is also well known for his contributions to science education, particularly with simple physics demonstrations and computer applications in physics education. Another area of his scholarship is energy and the environment, specifically nuclear arms control and renewable energy. His books have been translated into six languages,.[5]

Publications

Other scholars have cited Ehrlich's published books (12 authored, 10 edited) and over 100 articles approximately 800 times. These citations are available via his Google Scholar page (see below under External Links). The list of books and articles can be found here.[6] The books mainly deal with science for the general public, physics education, energy and the environment, and nuclear arms control, and most of them are listed below by category.

Physics education and science for the general public

Turning the World Inside Out and 174 Other Simple Physics Demonstrations. Princeton University Press, 1991. Reviewed by Stewart E. Brekke.[7] Also available in Japanese and Portuguese translations.

The cosmological milkshake: a semi-serious look at the size of things. New Brunswick, NJ : Rutgers University Press, 1994. Also available in Finnish and Japanese translations.

What if you could unscramble an egg?. Rutgers University Press, 1998. Reviewed by Brooke Ignatowski.American Scientist 84, 6, (1996): p. 588.[8]

What If?: Mind-Boggling Science Questions for Kids. John Wiley & Sons, 1998. Also available in a Japanese translation.

Nine Crazy Ideas in Science: A Few Might Even Be True. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2002. Reviewed by Andrzej Stasiak.[9] Also available in Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, and Portuguese translations.

Eight Preposterous Propositions: from The Genetics of Homosexuality to The Benefits of Global Warming. Princeton University Press, 2003. Reviewed by Andrzej Stasiak[10] and by Walter Gratzer.[11] Also available in a Japanese translation.

Why Toast Lands Jelly-side Down: Zen and the Art of Physics Demonstrations. Princeton University Press, 1977. Review by Jim Jardine.[12]

Physics and Computers: Problems, Simulation and Data Analysis. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1973. Reviewed by Harwood G. Kolsky.[13]

Computers in physics: the CUPS Project

Together with his Mason colleague Maria Dworzecka and William M. MacDonald[14] of the University of Maryland, Ehrlich was a director of the NSF-funded "Consortium for Upper-Level Physics Software (CUPS)"[15] The project involved an international team of 29 physicists. It generated nine books published by John Wiley & Sons and 27 simulations covering many of the areas of junior-senior courses for undergraduate physics majors. All nine of the books have been translated into Japanese, and one has been translated into Italian. Three of the simulations have won awards.[16][17][18] All the programs have now been placed on the Internet Archive Software Collection and can be run from that site.[19] At the invitation of UNESCO, workshops on the CUPS software were conducted in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.[20]

Environmental and energy scholarship

Renewable Energy: A First Course. Boca Raton: CRC Press: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. Reviewed by Cameron Reed.[21] Also available in a second edition (jointly with Harold Geller), 2018, and a third edition (with Harold Geller and J. Robert Cressman) 2022.

Perspectives on Nuclear War And Peace Education. New York : Greenwood Press, 1987.

Waging Nuclear Peace: The Technology and Politics of Nuclear Weapons. SUNY Press, 1985. Reviewed by Rick Sincere[22] Also reviewed by John D. Constable[23][24]

Tachyon research and education

Since the 1990's Ehrlich has investigated the possible existence of tachyons, that is, hypothetical subatomic particles that travel faster than the speed of light in vacuum, especially tachyonic or superluminal neutrinos, about which much has been written.[25] He has published extensively in this area,[26] including a 2022 review of all searches for evidence of tachyons.[27] Ehrlich is awaiting final results from the KATRIN experiment, whose 2019 and 2021 results agree with both the standard neutrino mass hierarchy having three nearly equal mass neutrinos and his exotic 3 + 3 model. That model, based on an analysis of supernova SN 1987A postulates three doublets of active and sterile neutrinos, having specific masses, one of which is tachyonic having m2 ~ -0.2 keV2[28][29][30] Ehrlich's model would also be proven right or wrong if a new supernova were to be observed in our galaxy, but these occur only two or three times per century. Supernovae have been observed in other galaxies, but they are so distant that no neutrinos have yet been detected from them. Nevertheless, Ehrlich's model has predicted a day-long emission of monochromatic 8 MeV neutrinos from extragalactic supernovae that might show up using the current generation of detectors. Ehrlich has written a book on tachyons intended for both the general reader and physicists: Hunting the Faster than Light Tachyon, and Finding Three Unicorns and a Herd of Elephants, published by CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group in 2022.[31] The book describes the half-century-long search by the author and others for evidence of the reality of tachyons, and more specifically the notion that some neutrinos are tachyons. Among all the known particles, only neutrinos might be tachyons, because neither their m2 nor their dv = c - v has ever been definitively observed to be positive. Ehrlich has also created educational videos about tachyons and time travel, which can be found on his web site “The Tachyon Nexus.”[32]

Personal life

Ehrlich has been married to his wife Elaine since 1961. They have two sons and two grandchildren. He is a founding member and Past President of George Mason University's Retired Faculty Association,[33] and currently serves as their Webmaster and Program Planning Chair.[34]

References
  1. "Officers & Faculty". Phi Beta Kappa. October 17, 2013.
  2. Danby, G.; Gaillard, J-M.; Goulianos, K.; Lederman, L. M.; Mistry, N.; Schwartz, M.; Steinberger, J. (1 July 1962). "Observation of High-Energy Neutrino Reactions and the Existence of Two Kinds of Neutrinos". Physical Review Letters. 9 (1): 36–44. Bibcode:1962PhRvL...9...36D. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.9.36.
  3. "Robert Ehrlich | GMU College of Science". science.gmu.edu.
  4. "APS Fellow Archive". www.aps.org.
  5. "64095526". viaf.org.
  6. "all publications – The Tachyon Nexus".
  7. Brekke, Stewart E. (1991). "Review of TURNING THE WORLD INSIDE OUT AND 174 OTHER SIMPLE PHYSICS DEMONSTRATIONS". The Science Teacher. 58 (3): 71–72. JSTOR 24145614.
  8. Ignatowski, Brooke (1 November 1996). "What If You Could Unscramble an Egg?". American Scientist. 84 (6): 588–589. Gale A537267005 ProQuest 215268761.
  9. Stasiak, Andrzej (November 2001). "Crazy ideas?". EMBO Reports. 2 (11): 978. doi:10.1093/embo-reports/kve241. PMC 1084140.
  10. Stasiak, Andrzej (March 2004). "Eight controversies". EMBO Reports. 5 (3): 239. doi:10.1038/sj.embor.7400102. PMC 1299013.
  11. "Let it snow". Nature. 426 (6968): 766. December 2003. Bibcode:2003Natur.426..766.. doi:10.1038/426766b. S2CID 205031576.
  12. Jardine, Jim (September 1997). "Why Toast Lands Jelly-side Down". Physics Education. 32 (5). doi:10.1088/0031-9120/32/5/025. S2CID 250815783.
  13. Ehrlich, Robert; Kolsky, Harwood G. (October 1973). "Physics and Computers: Problems, Simulation and Data Analysis". Physics Today. 26 (10): 59–61. Bibcode:1973PhT....26j..59E. doi:10.1063/1.3128284.
  14. "WMM Home Page".
  15. Ehrlich, Robert; Dworzecka, Maria; MacDonald, William M. (1992). "Software Consortium Develops Simulations for Nine Physics Courses". Computers in Physics. 6 (1): 90. Bibcode:1992ComPh...6...90E. doi:10.1063/1.4823049.
  16. Donnelly, Denis (1993). "CIP's Fourth Annual Software Contest". Computers in Physics. 7 (6): 647. Bibcode:1993ComPh...7..647D. doi:10.1063/1.4823240.
  17. Donnelly, Denis (1995). "CIP's Sixth Annual Software Contest: The Winners". Computers in Physics. 9 (6): 594. Bibcode:1995ComPh...9..594D. doi:10.1063/1.4823449.
  18. Donnelly, Denis (1996). "CIP's Seventh Annual Educational Software Contest: The Winners". Computers in Physics. 10 (6): 532. Bibcode:1996ComPh..10..532D. doi:10.1063/1.4822497.
  19. "Download & Streaming : The Internet Archive Software Collection : Internet Archive".
  20. Ehrlich, Robert; Dworzecka, Maria (1997). "On the Road to Damascus—Technology, Fear, and Fear of Technology". Journal of College Science Teaching. 27 (3): 179–182. JSTOR 42993513.
  21. Reed, Cameron (June 2014). "Renewable Energy: A First Course. Renewable Energy: A First Course.RobertEhrlich461 pp. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, 2013. Price $79.96 (paper) ISBN 978-1-4398-6115-8". American Journal of Physics. 82 (6): 625–626. doi:10.1119/1.4863493.
  22. Washington Times (May 2, 1985), with versions republished in the New York City Tribune (September 3, 1986) and in Strategic Review (spring 1985) http://rickreviewsbooks.blogspot.com/2010/01/waging-nuclear-peace-technology-and.html
  23. Constable, John D. (6 June 1985). "Book Review Waging Nuclear Peace: The technology and politics of nuclear weapons". New England Journal of Medicine. 312 (23): 1527. doi:10.1056/NEJM198506063122326.
  24. Orient, Jane M. (2 August 1985). "Waging Nuclear Peace: The Technology and Politics of Nuclear Weapons". JAMA. 254 (5): 682–683. doi:10.1001/jama.1985.03360050120041.
  25. "SuperLuminal Neutrino page (INFN)".
  26. "list of tachyon papers".
  27. Ehrlich, Robert (2022). "A Review of Searches for Evidence of Tachyons". Symmetry. 14 (6): 1198. arXiv:2204.12017. Bibcode:2022Symm...14.1198E. doi:10.3390/sym14061198.
  28. Ehrlich, Robert (31 December 2019). "First results of the KATRIN neutrino mass experiment and their consistency with an exotic 3+3 model". Letters in High Energy Physics. 2 (4): 139. arXiv:1910.06158. Bibcode:2019LHEP....2..139E. doi:10.31526/lhep.4.2019.139.
  29. Ehrlich, Robert (1 September 2021). "The KATRIN neutrino mass results: An alternative interpretation". arXiv:2106.00681. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  30. Ehrlich, Robert (2022). "A Review of Searches for Evidence of Tachyons". Symmetry. 14 (6): 1198. arXiv:2204.12017. Bibcode:2022Symm...14.1198E. doi:10.3390/sym14061198.
  31. Ehrlich, Robert (2022). Hunting the Faster Than Light Tachyon, and Finding Three Unicorns and a Herd of Elephants. CRC Press. OCLC 1286422704 – via Open WorldCat.
  32. "Home page". The Tachyon Nexus. August 21, 2022.
  33. "Home page". Retired Faculty Association. August 21, 2022.
  34. "Officers". Retired Faculty Association. August 21, 2022.
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