An expert on climate change, astronomers who study galaxies, and a key figure in promoting energy efficiency in California are among the speakers scheduled in Sonoma State University's free public lecture series, "What Physicists Do," this spring.
Lectures will be on Mondays at 4 p.m. in room 103 Darwin Hall on the SSU campus. Coffee and cookies will be available in the Darwin lobby at 3:30 p.m.
The series will open Feb. 4 with University of California, Davis astronomer David Wittman describing "Massive Sky Surveys of the Next Decade."
The following Monday Donald K. Yeomans of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will speak on "The Tunguska Event 100 Years Later: Finding Near Earth Objects before They Find Us." Yeomans is the manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office.
Columbia University astronomer Jacqueline van Gorkom will describe the evolution of galaxies in various environments February 25.
March 3 will see a talk on philosophical attempts to define a boundary between the scientific and its pretenders when physics professor Raymond Hall of California State University, Fresno speaks on "Demarcation: Is There a Sharp Line Between Science and Pseudoscience?"
"The Role of Energy Efficiency in California's Efforts to Curb Global Warming" will be the topic of Devra Wang of the Natural Resources Defense Council on March 10.
Tom Sanger of SRI International will describe "Studies of the Terrestrial Upper Atmosphere with Astronomical Instruments" on March 17.
University of California, Berkeley atmospheric scientist Inez Fung will speak April 7 on global warming. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of several national and international awards, Fung is an expert on climate and biogeochemical cycles, geophysical fluid dynamics, and atmosphere-biosphere interactions.
SSU engineering science professor Shailendhar Saraf will speak April 14 on "LIGO: Lasers, Optics, and Interferometry in the Search for Gravitational Waves."
He will be followed April 21 by SSU physics grad James Aroyan of JRJ Simulation & Design, describing his work on a number of projects from dolphins to touchscreens.
"Fabrication and Studies of Magnetic Nanostructures" will be the topic of SSU physicist Hongtao Shi April 28.
The series will conclude May 5 with Stanford University cosmologist Risa Wechsler describing her use of galaxies as probes of the dark matter believed to make up much of the Universe.
This will be the 75th semester for the series of public lectures. The series organizer, SSU professor Joe Tenn, is grateful to the donors who make it possible.
For a free poster describing all eleven lectures, visit http://phys-astro.sonoma.edu/wpd/, send e-mail to phys.astro@sonoma.edu, or call (707) 664-2119.
