Physics Colloquium Schedule: 2009-2010

The physics department invites speakers from the scientific community to present new and relevant work in the field to an undergraduate and public audience. All colloquia are held in Frazier Jelke A lecture hall at 4:00pm, unless otherwise noted. Refreshments are served at 3:30 in Rhodes Tower 226. All are welcome!

 

Fall 2009

Date	Speaker	Title/Topic
Thursday, September 3	Dr. Christoph Geiss Trinity College	Reconstructing Past Continental Climate Using the Magnetic Properties of Buried Soil
Thursday, September 17	Elizabeth Hook Nick Badger David Yarbrough Stan Badger	"What I Did Last Summer"- Physics Student Research Presentations
Tuesday, September 29	Dr. Marco Cavaglia The University of Mississippi	LIGO, and opening of exhibit in Rhodes Tower
Thursday, October 15	Dr. Jeremy Webster National Center for Physical Acoustics	Wind Noise
RESCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY 12 NOVEMBER	Dr. Dwight E. Neuenschwander Southern Nazarene University RESCHEDULED FOR 12 NOVEMBER	Taking Einstein′s Ethics into the Twenty-First Century RESCHEDULED FOR 12 NOVEMBER
Thursday, November 12 CANCELLED	Dr. Lam Yu The University of Memphis CANCELLED	Nanotechnology CANCELLED
Thursday, December 3	Mr. Bill Maguire, M.S. Methodist University Hospital	Radiological Emergency Preparedness

 

Abstracts

Reconstructing Past Continental Climate Using the Magnetic Properties of Buried Soil, Dr. Christoph Geiss, Trinity College, Hartford CT
While we have a fair understanding of climate change over the oceans and polar regions, our knowledge of past mid-continental climates is much less detailed. The reason for this discrepancy lies in the lack of suitable climate recorders in most continental settings. Buried soils (paleosols) provide an archive of continental climate change which allows for the reconstruction of spatial climatic variability, albeit at poor temporal resolution. I study the magnetic properties of modern and buried soils. As soils develop they can become more magnetic, and the mineralogy and size distribution of the magnetic component changes in surprisingly predictable ways. These changes depend, at least in part, on the climatic conditions during soil formation and can be used for quantitative climate reconstructions. In this talk I will introduce some of the magnetic parameters used for the characterization of soils, present data from a set of modern mid-continental soils used to develop a transfer function between magnetic properties and climate, and finally apply these results to a series of paleosols from the early Holocene, approximately 10-8,000 years ago.

Taking Einstein′s Ethics into the Twenty-First Century, Dr. Dwight E. Neuenschwander, Southern Nazarene University, Bethany, OK
In 1919, with the confirmation of his prediction of starlight deflection by the Sun’s gravity, Albert Einstein found himself an international celebrity.  Einstein used his fame well, to speak out forcefully and thoughtfully on matters of war and peace, international relations, pacifism, moral trends, economics, racial equality, education, arms control, authority, and religion—always as an unwavering advocate of justice and human dignity. Einstein was a committed pacifist who asked President Roosevelt to support nuclear weapons research on the eve of WWII; although German was his first language he twice renounced his German citizenship on matters of principle; as a Jewish Zionist Einstein urged amity with the Arabs; as a victim of anti-Semitism, he became a vocal civil rights activist when he saw racial injustice in his adopted country.  Albert Einstein was a man who wanted to be left alone to think, but unwillingly found himself thrust upon the world stage.  His ethics and his physics shared common principles.  A study of Einstein’s ethics is appropriate today, given the ethical dilemmas that face society in the twenty-first century. 

 

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