The Amazing Light: Visions for Discovery International Symposium honoring Prof. Charles H. Townes was held Ocotber 6-8, 2005 on the campus of UC Berkeley.

As part of the symposium a world-wide competition was held to identify promising young researchers, called the "Young Scholars Competition" (http://www.foundationalquestions.net/townes/ysc/youngscholcomp.asp)

18 scholars were selected based on a written technical description of their research in three areas:

• Topical Area 1: Research yielding powerful new insights and innovative concepts based primarily on quantum mechanics

• Topical Area 2: Research yielding profound new insights and perspectives toward answering “really big questions” in astrophysics, cosmology, and physics-related interdisciplinary research areas engaging with biophysics, physical chemistry, electronics, quantum computing, etc.

• Topical Area 3: Technological innovation linked with new deep physical insights generating powerful innovative new physics-related technologies and specific inventions

The 18 winning applicants were then invited to Berkeley for the symposium and to present their research to a panel of judges in a competition to win $35K in prize money divided among the three winning scholars in each topical section.

Judging my topical area were: Prof. Charles Townes (UCB), Dr. Arno Penzias (New Enterprise Associates), Prof. Donald York (University of Chicago), and Prof. Geoff Marcy (UCB).

I won the 1st prize in astronomy and the other two winners in my section were Prof. Douglas Finkbeiner and Dr. Adam Riess.

A book summarizing the research presented at the symposium, including my research on cosmology from Antarctica with BICEP, is planned for 2008.

Owen Gingerich awarding the certificate (below)    Photo credit: Metanexus Institute  (www.metanexus.net).