However, when Paul Wiegert and collaborating astronomers Martin Connors, and Christian Veillet looked more carefully at the orbital path taken Asteroid 2015 BZ509, nicknamed “BZ”, they were taken aback.
Paul Wiegert jokingly likens this asteroid’s behaviour to a clown car playing chicken with oncoming traffic at a circus.
What the team discovered was an asteroid that not only has retrograde (against the flow!) motion, but more interestingly the tiny asteroid inhabits the same orbital path as Jupiter itself. To find out more about how this little David survives against mighty Jupiter, read further on Paul Wiegert’s web pages, “http://www.astro.uwo.ca/~wiegert/2015BZ509/“.
The story appears in the March 30, 2017 issue of Nature.
Dick Holt’s talk of 23 March 2017, titled, “Some Random Thoughts on Quantum Mechanics”, is now available on the Western Physics and Astronomy Youtube channel.
On Thursday, March 23, 2017, Professor Emeritus Richard (Dick) Holt gave a wonderful colloquium titled, “Some Random Thoughts on Quantum Mechanics”. Dick’s PhD thesis at Harvard University included a calculation that showed Quantum Mechanics could violate the CHSH Inequality, an experimental test using entangled pairs of photons.
Thus, Dick’s presentation was filled with deep insight into the enigma that is quantum mechanics.
Proceedings began with a very witty introduction by John de Bruyn.
This paper was deemed worthy of making the cover of the Wiley journal Brain and Behavior (Vol.7, #3). Group members cited in the paper are Demetrius Ribeiro de Paula, Pubuditha Abeyasinghe, Tushar Das, and Andrea Soddu.
The beautiful cover artwork was designed by Demetrius Ribeiro de Paula.
Physics and Astronomy alumnus Zen Mariani, who just recently came to Western to speak at March Break Open House along with his wife alumna Simone Chaudhury, does a great interview on CTV regarding what it is like to be on the CSA astronaut selection short list.
The Physics Undergraduate Conference (PhUnC) 2017 edition was a great success, this year having contributions from Windsor and McMaster Universities.
The morning of Thursday, March 9, 2017 began with registration, poster setup, and breakfast.
Student talks began at 11:00am.
First to speak was Ahmad Mahmood of McMaster, giving a talk titled, “MITOCHONDRIA – Organelle with a License to Kill”.
Next to speak was Jonathon Riddell of Western, speaking on, “The Eigenstate Thermization Hypothesis in the XX Model”.
The third morning talk was given by Western’s Toluwa Fayemi, with a talk titled, “3D Printing of Surgical Instruments for Long-Duration Space Missions”.
After a short break in the atrium, the final student talk was given by Diego Felipe Martinez of McMaster. Diego’s presentation was titled, “Improvement of Image Registration in Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer”.
Lunch was followed by viewing and judging of posters in the atrium. A dedicated group of Physics and Astronomy faculty member judges did some serious deliberation before award winners were decided.
Next came the keynote talk, given by Dr. Nigel Smith of SNOLAB. His captivating presentation was titled , “The SNOLAB Science Programme: Cutting-edge science from a deep hole in the ground”. After the talk, audience members got to take photos (selfies!) with a replica of Dr. Art MacDonald’s 2015 Nobel Physics Prize gold medal. This was a big hit.
At the awards ceremony, Nigel Smith was thanked with some Western/PhUnC bling.
Student awards were as follows:
1st place: Diego Felipe Martinez (McMaster, talk).
2nd place: Sergio Dempsey (Western, poster).
3rd place (tie): Ahmad Mahmoud (McMaster, talk) & Sachi Elkerson (Western, poster).
The day ended with a catered dinner in the atrium, complete with live music.
The organizers should be very proud of the successful event. The organizing committee consisted of Adrian Majhour, Claire Park, Colin Metrow, Danielle McFadden, Dario Crisci, Dylan Del Papa, Jef Judes, Mark Krammer, Matt Shubat, Mauli Bhatt, Michael Molliconi, Nastaran Ghafouriansahraei, Nicole Barucha, Patrick Hatch, Sean Huggins, Stella Liu, Tim Hallatt.
Astronomer Els Peeters (right) speaks with aspiring astronomer Jose.
Due in part to the massive effort by numerous volunteers, March Break Open House 2017 was a great success. The Physics and Astronomy Atrium was abuzz with activity for the entire day, Saturday, March 11, 2017.
At 2:30pm students and families attended a small Physics and Astronomy reception at which alumni Zen Mariani and Simone Chaudhury spoke about their paths to success via Western Physics and Astronomy. Simone is now interning in Radiation Oncology, while Zen is a research scientist with Environment Canada.
Our student volunteers for the day were Nicole Barucha, Patrick Hatch, Sean Huggins, Colin Metrow, Claire Park, Sean Pentinga, Mark Wheatley;
Faculty member volunteers were Alex Buchel, Jan Cami, John de Bruyn, Sarah Gallagher, Wayne Hocking, Kanthi Kaluarachchi, Els Peeters, Bob Sica, Mahi Singh, and Eugene Wong, and Rob Cockcroft. Staff volunteers were Sabastine Ezugwu, Jen Tilston, Phin Perquin, Shailesh Nene, and Henry Leparskas. We barely survived without the presence of Peter Frank!
Thanks to Kanthi, Shailesh Nene, and graduate students Sham Gamage, Achini Abayakoon, and Daniel Hatfield for a full day welcoming all the visitors to the first-year labs.
Just three of the many Physics and Astronomy volunteers (shown above) at the Science intent to register information fair that was held in the P&A atrium on March 8, 2017.
