An internationally renowned artist and four cosmologists are among the speakers scheduled in Sonoma State University's free public lecture series, "What Physicists Do," this spring.
Lectures are on Mondays at 4 p.m., from Feb. 5 through May 7, in Darwin 103. Coffee and cookies are served in the Darwin lobby at 3:30 p.m. Lectures include a description of using the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center to x-ray an ancient parchment to uncovering writings by the ancient Greek scientist Archimedes and talks on ultrafast lasers, spintronics, and dilute quantum gases.
Other visiting scientists will describe energy efficiency in appliances, an extremely efficient new type of particle accelerator, and the behavior of small dust particles in space.
The artist is MacArthur Fellow Ned Kahn of Sebastopol, whose sculptures include interactive science projects on display on several continents. He speaks on "Turbulent Fields" on April 30.
The cosmologists are UC Davis astronomer Adam Stanford, University of San Francisco astronomer Aparna Venkatesan, Stanford University astrophysicist Sarah Church, and University of Chicago physicist Andrey Kravtsov.
They will discuss obervations of the earliest stars and galaxies from the earth and space, observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation from the South Pole, and computer simulations of the formation of large-scale structures in the early Universe.
The series opens Feb. 5 with University of Colorado physicist Chris Greene describing "How Atoms Dance and Join Together in the Ultracold."
This will be the 73rd semester for the series of public lectures. The series organizer is SSU professor Joe Tenn.
For a free poster describing all twelve lectures, visit http://phys-astro.sonoma.edu/wpd/, send e-mail to
