via etsy.com
You can get people to buy nearly anything with the right picture on it (for an example, see “lighthouse collectibles”). So we planet-liking folk should have our own slightly crazy stuff too, and here it is.
Edible planets
Monthly Archives: September 2012
Terry Fox Run
Thank you to all who participated and supported our department team in the Terry Fox Run! It means a lot to me and others around the department whose lives have been affected by cancer. This year our department raised $260 towards cancer research!!!
Thank you!!!
(free) online scientific writing course
This may be of interest to some of you: A free online course on “Writing in the Sciences” is offered by Coursera and is taught by Prof. Kristin Sainani (Stanford University). Starting date: Sept. 24, 2012. For more info, see https://www.coursera.org/course/sciwrite
Elizabeth Laird Memorial Lecture – THURS. 4th Oct. @ 5 p.m. – DR. ROCKY KOLB, U Chicago
Poster & Speaker Bio: http://www.physics.uwo.ca/colloquia/Colloquia%20Notices/2012_2013/LAIRD%20Lecture%20-%20Rocky%20KOLB.pdf
Alternate poster attached.
Western University
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY
ELIZABETH LAIRD MEMORIAL LECTURE
Thursday, 4th October 2012
5:00 p.m. (doors open @ 4:30) in Conron Hall (UCC 224)
Dr. Edward W. “Rocky” Kolb
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics
The University of Chicago
“Mysteries of the Dark Universe”
Ninety-five percent of the universe is missing!
Astronomical observations suggest that most of the mass of the universe is in a mysterious form called dark matter and most of the energy in the universe is in an even more mysterious form called dark energy. Unlocking the secrets of dark matter and dark energy will illuminate the nature of space and time and connect the quantum with the cosmos.
Brief Bio: Edward W. Kolb, known to most as Rocky, is the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics and the Chair of the Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, as well as a member of the Enrico Fermi Institute and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. In 1983, he was the founding head of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group and, in 2004, the founding Director of the Particle Astrophysics Center at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. His field of research is the application of elementary-particle physics to the very early Universe. In addition to over 200 scientific papers, he is a co-author of The Early Universe, the standard textbook on particle physics and cosmology.
colloquium Thursday
I just wanted to encourage folks to attend the colloquium by John Bush from MIT tomorrow. John is an excellent speaker, and he does beautiful (both aesthetically and scientifically) work. His talk is about experiments on a fluid dynamical system for which the equation of motion is the same as Schroedinger’s equation – so he is doing quantum mechanics via a table-top laboratory fluid dyanmics experiment.
lookin’ at some o’ th’ weeest stuff
Cool images be common in astronomy, an’ ’tis quite likely that ye an’ yer astronome heartys be havin’ an impressive collection o’ pretty pictures o’ th’ heavens — some bein’ th’ largest objects a scallywag can be seein’ wi’ his very own one good eye!
At th’ other end o’ th’ size chart be th’ stuff that makes up th’world around us. An’ thar`s another field ‘ere jaw droppin’ images can be made. Jus’ recently, a crew from IBM managed t’ obtain mighty detailed imageso’ a wee molecules — showin’ amongst others a visualization o’ th’ bonds between th’ atoms in carbonaceous molecules (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons fer instance) at a level ‘ere distortions be now measurable. Such images be an absolute breakthrough, an’ be important tests fer our knowledge o’ th’ physics o’ chemistry! As an astrophysicist wi’ an interest in chemistry, I’ave t’ pick up me jaw from th’ floor now….!
An’ I wish ye all a happy Talk like a gentleman o’ fortune tide!
What does a scientist look like?
Grade 7 students living near Chicago drew pictures of how they imagined scientists looked. There were a lot of lab coats! Crazy hair! And glasses! And not too many women, either. Then they visited the US Department of Energy’s Fermilab and met some actual scientists. The before and after drawings are definitely worth checking out, as well as the explanations of what a scientist does.
Left: before visiting Fermilab; Right: after visiting Fermilab. Image credit: Rachel
Here are some more photos of scientists from around the world.
New HD “interpolated” video of #MarsCuriosity’s descent to Mars
Bard Canning took the original 4 frames/second NASA video of the descent and applied some ninja editing moves to create an “interpolated” HD video of the descent posted on YouTube.
Read more on the process of making the video.
REMINDER: PhD Public Lecture – MONDAY @ 10 a.m. – ERIC BARBAGIOVANNI
REMINDER – Monday @ 10 a.m.
Department of Physics and Astronomy
PhD Public Lecture
Eric Barbagiovanni
Supervisors: Dr. Lyudmila Goncharova and Dr. Peter Simpson
“Influence of Quantum Dot Structure on the Optical Properties of Group IV Materials Fabricated by Ion-Implantation”
DATE: MONDAY, 17th September 2012
TIME: 10:00 a.m.
PLACE: P&A New Seminar Room PAB 100
All are welcome to attend.
Are you certain about uncertainty in the uncertainty principle?
Very interesting article in Nature. I never liked the explanation of the uncertainty principle that relied on disturbing the system. So here it is, someone has tested that interpretation and found it lacking.
http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-uncertainty-not-all-in-the-measurement-1.1…