News & Events

Basic Meeting Information

Who: Anyone in the Minnesota area interested in physics education at all levels

When: April 22nd 8:00 registration 9-12:30 meeting, optional lunch

Where: Augsburg University in person, option of outstate pods and individual zoom link

Cost: Suggested membership dues of $10, Optional lunch $10 payable in cash/check/paypal at meeting

Abstract Call

5 min tips/tricks/chalk talk shareouts

15 min longer talks related to physics education

Student posters

Other physics and physics education posters

Longer description located on website

Abstract submission due April 6th 5 pm

Meeting registration due April 19th 5 pm

Abstract:  The Juno spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter carries a camera on its payload, JunoCam, used for both science and outreach.  Juno’s unique polar orbit yields polar perspectives unavailable to earth-based observers or previous spacecraft.  In a highly elliptical orbit Juno’s closest approach comes within 3500 km of Jupiter’s cloudtops.  Evolution of the orbit has allowed the spacecraft to pass close to Ganymede and Europa, with close Io passes in the near future.  Members of the public have been invited to process JunoCam images.    Contributions by artists yield products suitable for framing and help us all to appreciate the beauty of the largest planet in our solar system. 

The School of Physics and Astronomy will host a reception for people attending the APS meeting who currently are or have ever been affiliated with the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities and Duluth campuses).

 Please use this form at the following link to register for the event: https://forms.gle/yebtnLEzvKhpsprm9

This colloquium will mark the official dedication of the Roger and Helga Stuewer Library. There will be brief remarks in regards to this at the beginning of the colloquium.

Abstract:  The talk discusses the long-term evolution of physical knowledge, taking into account three dimensions of knowledge, its cognitive and social structures, as well as its material or symbolic representations. After a brief review of the roots of mechanical knowledge in antiquity, it focuses on the period of the early modern Scientific Revolution, in particular on the work of Galileo and his contemporaries, and on the emergence of modern physics, in particular on the work of Einstein and his peers. The aim is to understand the conceptual transformations occurring within a millenary transmission of knowledge that also includes globalization processes. The claim is that these conceptual transformations are not paradigm shifts but the result of reorganizations of shared knowledge, typically occurring not as isolated breakthroughs but as communal efforts involving the reinterpretation of existing representations.

Abstract:  Spontaneous symmetry breaking was first used in the late 1950’s to explain the phenomena of superconductivity. Applying the same idea to relativistic gauge theories eventually lead to the observation in 2012 of the Higgs boson at the LHC. In my talk I will briefly describe some of the steps taken going from an obscure idea to this observation. My talk will focus on the experimental challenges that were faced to find the Higgs boson and how a massive global effort to build the Large Hadron Collider to produce the Higgs boson and to construct the detectors to observe it, all came together to make the initial observation. I will outline how, since 2012, we have learnt much about the properties of the Higgs boson in the highly detailed studies conducted by the CMS and ATLAS Collaborations.

Abstract: Quantum field theory is a common language of many areas of physics. By bringing together aspects of the traditional and formal approaches, modern scattering theory is an important probe of fundamental interactions. After reviewing some of the remarkable properties of scattering amplitudes, we will discuss examples where they played a critical role. They include applications to the general relativistic two-body dynamics and gravitational-wave physics, where they establish the state of the art in weak-field fully relativistic calculations, and the probe of high energy properties of maximally supersymmetric supergravity theory.

Abstract:  The recent consumer revolutions in digital imaging, computing and data storage have opened up a new frontier in optical astronomy: the ability to generate vast datasets to detect rapidly changing events in the sky. However, almost all telescopes are currently limited to looking at small patches of the sky. This limitation makes it very difficult to quickly find rare rapid events, such as the super flares that can destroy the habitability of exoplanets, or the electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves. In this talk I will introduce the Argus Array, the first large telescope able to observe the entire sky simultaneously. The 55 GPix telescope array, which we are currently prototyping, is designed to build the first million-epoch movie of the sky, at depths exceeding current sky surveys and cadences thousands of times faster. I will discuss the Array's science plans, how we will analyze its exabyte-scale dataset for interesting events in realtime, the status of our Argus Pathfinder prototype system, and prospects for the near-future construction of the full Argus Array.

Join us every Friday night between February 3rd and the end of the semester (saving March 10 which is Spring Break) for rooftop observing through our historic telescope in the dome of the John T. Tate Hall. There will be a presentation followed by outdoor observing (weather-permitting). You will have the chance to observe some of the same celestial objects that have inspired sky-gazers throughout history!

Afterwards, if weather allows, attendees have the opportunity to view the sky through multiple 8-inch reflecting telescopes, operated by the staff and provided by the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics. Additionally, we provide free star maps (e.g. www.skymaps.com) and are happy to show visitors how to use them. Throughout the evening, we encourage questions from the audience and enjoy discussing topics ranging from backyard astronomy to the latest scientific discoveries.

The presentation begins at 8:00 pm in the Tate Laboratory of Physics, room B50. Telescope observing usually begins around 8:25-8:30 pm upstairs in Tate 510.

The presentation and outdoor observing are free for all to attend!