revised 9/5/08

PHYSICS COLLOQUIA: FALL 2008/SPRING 2009

Past Colloquia

Series Directors: Cristian Armendariz-Picon and Britton Plourde
Administrative Questions : Ms. Penny Davis
Time : 4:00pm (Reception at 3:45pm)

Place: 202 Physics Building

Spring 2009

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Fall 2008

- August 28	Dept. Welcoming Reception
- September 4	Prof. Avi Loeb (Harvard, CfA) Exploring New Physics in the Early Universe and Around Black Holes
	The Universe offers environments with extreme physical conditions that cannot be realized in laboratories on Earth. These environments provide unprecedented tests for extensions of the Standard Model. I will describe two such "astrophysical laboratories", which are likely to represent new frontiers in observational astrophysics over the next decade. One provides a novel probe of the initial conditions from inflation and the nature of the dark matter, based on 3D mapping of the distribution of cosmic hydrogen through its resonant 21cm line. The second allows to constrain the metric around supermassive black holes based on direct imaging or the detection of gravitational waves. I will describe past and future observations of these environments and some related theoretical work. related links: http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/un.pdf http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/sciam.pdf http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Photos/s.pdf
- September 11	Prof. Savdeep Sethi (University of Chicago) Time and String Theory
	The origins of space and time are one of the enduring mysteries of nature. Did space and time emerge in some kind of Big Bang? Will the universe end in a Big Crunch? Can we sensibly describe these singular highly quantum states of nature? I will describe recent ideas in string theory that provide a new perspective on these questions, taking us a step closer to understanding space and time.
- September 18	Prof. Anatoly Kolomeisky (Rice) How Proteins Find Their Targets on DNA: Mechanism of Facilitated Diffusion	Movileanu
	Proteins cannot start working until they find special target sites on DNA molecules. We analyze physical-chemical principles that govern these fundamental processes. http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jpcbfk/2008/112/i15/abs/jp076432e.html
- September 25*	Inaugural Kameshwar C. Wali Lecture in Science & Humanities Prof. Lynn Margulis (University of Massachusetts)) Evolution and Symbiosis - Memoirs of Planet Earth	Wali
	4 PM, BIRD LIBRARY (1ST FLOOR)
- October 2	Prof. Mark Glauser (Syracuse University) Controlling Turbulent Flows
	Given our limited knowledge of turbulent flow physics, is it feasible to control turbulent flows? In this presentation we will show for at least laboratory scale turbulent flows of some practical importance, that we are able to do so using closed-loop flow control.
- October 9	Prof. G. Baskaran (IMSc, Chennai) Time and String Theory	Balachandran
	The origins of space and time are one of the enduring mysteries of nature. Did space and time emerge in some kind of Big Bang? Will the universe end in a Big Crunch? Can we sensibly describe these singular highly quantum states of nature? I will describe recent ideas in string theory that provide a new perspective on these questions, taking us a step closer to understanding space and time.
- October 16	Prof. Aharon Kapitulnik (Stanford University) TBA	Marchetti
- October 23
- October 30	Prof. Edward Redish (University of Maryland) Thoughts on teaching physics while listening to Ravel's “Bolero”; Implications of research on learning and knowing	Armendariz-Picon
	When we teach courses in physics, we tend to focus on the “melody” – the content we want our students to learn.  But research on teaching and learning combined with research on how students work suggests that how we “orchestrate” that melody in our classrooms is equally important.  Professor Redish will discuss how modern research in a variety of fields from neuroscience to pedagogy is helping us to understand students' difficulties better and to reach more students more effectively .
- November 6	Prof. Mark Chen (Queens University) TBA	Schnee
- November 13	Prof. Sarah Keller (Washington University) TBA	Middleton
- November 20	Prof. Jens Gundlach (University of Washington) TBA	Saulson
- November 27	Thanksgiving Break
- December 4
	SPRING 2008
- April 9	Prof. Steve Nahn (MIT) TBA
- April 16	Prof. John Clarke (UC Berkeley) TBA