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Boston University Physics News
- Phebe Kou Wonmein Wenzler: Newborn physicist
June 11, 2008
Weighing in at 6 lbs 11oz at a height of 18in, Phebe Kou Wonmein Wenzler came into the world on May 31st at 5:08am. Congratulations to father Josef-Stefan Wenzler and mother Enia!
- Professor Polkovnikov Published in Nature Physics
June 05, 2008
In thermodynamics, it is generally believed that a system will behave adiabatically – that is, no heat will be produced – if the parameters of the system are changed sufficiently slowly. This is often justified using the adiabatic theorem of quantum mechanics, which states that the transitions between different energy levels in a quantum system are suppressed if the system changes sufficiently slowly. Though these two ideas have long been connected, their exact relationship has remained elusive.
In a recent paper published in Nature Physics, Professor Anatoli Polkovnikov and his colleague have elucidated this relationship. They have identified three response regimes for slowly changing thermodynamic systems, and as a result, have shown that adiabaticity can break down for low-dimensional, gapless systems.
- Female physicists change topic from labs to life
May 05, 2008
Women in Physics is proving the power of the personal narrative. Through a series of biographical seminars held this spring, WIP has made good on its promise to showcase the accomplishments of female scientists and educate the physics community on relevant issues. The talks are by women about women – yet have attracted and engaged both men and women. And in an environment where only 8 percent of faculty and 13 percent of graduate students are female, that means WIP has turned up the volume on a voice that has been relatively quiet.
Read the full story here.
- Slices of electromagnetism served up in class
May 01, 2008
As a delectable means to celebrate the end of the semester, students in Professor So-Young Pi’s Electromagnetic Field and Waves course brought in a special-edition cake, adorned with Maxwell’s Equations.
The creation, designed by Rosie’s Bakery, was filled with strawberries and cream. Professor Pi said she found it delicious.
. - Professor Redner ponders the effects of zealots and vacillators
March 31, 2008
What do air particles and voters have in common? According to Professor Sid Redner, they’re a lot more alike than you’d think.
As a statistical physicist, Redner applies the same physical principles used to study interacting particles to social situations, and in turn hopes to model large-scale social phenomena, such as voting behavior. “The human world provides such a rich laboratory that I can see statistical physics almost everywhere that I look.”
You can read more about Professor Redner’s research in his recent interview with physicsworld.com.
- Last Big Piece of ATLAS installed
March 21, 2008
The last big piece of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland was recently installed. Most of the detectors on the “A Side Small Wheel” were built by the Boston Muon Consortium under the direction of BU personnel. The BU contingent of ATLAS includes Steve Ahlen, John Butler, Rob Harrington, Eric Hazen, Ulrich Heintz, Marta Lewandowska, Jeremy Love, Nigel Nation, Jim Shank, Scott Whitaker, Saul Youssef, and Zhen Yan. See this Boston.com article for more.
- Professor Averitt receives DARPA Young Faculty Award
March 20, 2008
Professor Richard Averitt has received a DARPA Young Faculty Award for his proposal “Metamaterial Enhanced MEMS for Terahertz Technology”. The Young Faculty Award program is designed to seek out ideas from non-tenured faculty with an emphasis on ideas that are innovative, speculative, and high-risk. DARPA’s Microsystems Technology Office sponsors the program. Read more about this award here.
- Elementary education bolstered by green science
March 20, 2008
“The United States is losing its competitive edge in science and engineering, one bored kid at a time.”
A recent article in BU Today describes this dilemma, and the ways in which several BU professors are trying to change this. They are developing hands-on programs that will help elementary school teachers more effectively approach math and science in the classroom.
Professors Bennett Goldberg and Andrew Duffy, as well as other members of the Boston University community, are featured.
- Education Brought to You by Bruce Willis and Will Smith
March 17, 2008
In PY103, “Cinema Physica,” Hollywood is a teaching tool. Professor Andy Cohen points to action films to demonstrate the possibilities of physics, while bringing the excitement of science to students outside the field.
“When you do an experiment, you don’t know what the answer is going to be,” he says. “And because we don’t know whether the movies actually obey the laws of physics, they are our experiments. They are our laboratories.”
To find out more, and catch a video that takes you inside the classroom, click here.
- GIMS Travel Grant awarded to graduate student Utku Kemiktarak
March 14, 2008
Utku Kemiktarak, graduate student and recent author of a Nature-published paper, won a travel grant from the APS Topical Group on Instrument and Measurement Science.
GIMS awarded travel grants of up to $800 each to students as the first author of contributed papers in sessions sponsored by GIMS at the March Meeting. Applicants were chosen on the basis of the quality of their work as evidenced by the abstract of the paper, a letter of support from their thesis advisor and the travel distances.
