Western University
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY COLLOQUIUM

Date:           Thursday, 18^th October 2012
Time:          1:30 p.m.
Location:    Physics & Astronomy Seminar Room 100

Dr. M. Howard Lee
Department of Physics and Astronomy

University of Georgia

“Defining chaos the physics way”

ABSTRACT

Much of what has been shown in numerical studies on chaos may be termed “symptoms” of chaos. There must be a cause or causes of chaos. A definition for chaos could emerge if these causes could be unearthed. Doing so—that is, finding definitions that follow from proofs—is the physics approach. It differs from the math approach of giving definitions that precede proofs. The field of chaos is a meeting place of two cultures.

In this talk I will discuss how one can arrive at a definition of chaos through a fixed-point spectrum of the logistic map—the Ising model of chaos. This spectrum is obtained by a process similar to taking the thermodynamic limit in statistical mechanics. Put simply, the spectrum looks like an unbroken string of irrational points. It can explain the symptoms of chaos that have been observed.

Cookies will be available.

Colloquium or presentation, Physics and Astronomy at Western What's Happening

REMINDER: Laird Memorial Lecture – TODAY (4 Oct.) @ 5 p.m. – DR. ROCKY KOLB, U Chicago

October 4, 2012 Jodi Guthrie

TODAY

Western University
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

ELIZABETH LAIRD MEMORIAL LECTURE

Thursday, 4^th October 2012
5:00 p.m. (doors open @ 4:30) in Conron Hall (University College rm. 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.

Physics and Astronomy at Western Blog, Physics and Astronomy at Western What's Happening

Solving tomorrows problems today

October 3, 2012 catschroedinger

There were a couple of times as a child when I would have died without modern medicine. I am not alone. Most people used to die young and it was only the genetically tough and/or lucky that won the crapshoot and got to the point where they could reproduce. This has to have consequences. I am passing on a lousy immune system to my kids; someone else may be passing on a more serious genetic disease. Well, the human race is actually moving towards dealing with this for the first time, as has been seen by a recent debate on medical ethics in the UK.

Mitochondria, small energy powerhouses that in the beginning of life were separate organisms before some bacteria took them over and made them work for a living, have their own DNA that has nothing to do with our 26 chromosomes. Basically the idea is to use the mitochondrial DNA from a third parent for test tube babies whose parents have genetic conditions passed on via the mitochondrial DNA.

It is not quite yet the genetic engineering of human beings, but it is very close. This technique is not what is needed for dealing with the vast array of genetic ailments that plague modern society, but it certainly opens the door.

Many people seem to be outraged by the idea of it happening, but for me the question is not really whether it should happen, but rather how.

Physics and Astronomy at Western What's Happening