Biophysics, geophysics, and astrophysics are among the subjects to be described in the spring "What Physicists Do" public lecture series at Sonoma State University.
Lectures will be on Mondays at 4 p.m., from Feb. 10 to May 12 (excluding Feb. 17, Mar. 31 and Apr. 7), in room 108 Darwin Hall on the SSU campus.
Greg Madejski of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center will open the series Feb. 10 with "Astrophysics from Space." The Polish-born physicist will describe observations of great explosions, dark matter, and black holes made from present and future space-based observatories.
University of Nevada, Reno physicist Katherine McCall will speak on "Rocks in the Physics Laboratory" Feb. 24. On March 3, Chad Trujillo will fly up from Caltech to discuss Quaoar, a solar system object half the size of Pluto, which he and a colleague discovered in June.
Helene Grossman of Berkeley will discuss biophysical applications of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) March 10.
Renowned Berkeley biophysicist Carlos Bustamante will describe his studies of the packaging of DNA by a virus using optical tweezers March 17. Bustamante was awarded the American Physical Society Biological Physics Prize in 2002 for his pioneering work in single molecule biophysics.
On March 24 Mark Halpern of the University of British Columbia will present the long-awaited results of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite, which has been observing the radiation left over from the Big Bang in order to measure the fundamental cosmological parameters.
Stanford University physicist Dean Wilkening will discuss recent technical developments regarding ballistic missile defense April 14.
Quantum logic will be the topic of the April 21 lecture by Steve Selenick, retired from the University of Missouri, St. Louis and author of a book on the subject.
There will be two physicists from industry, William Risk from IBM in San Jose and Daniel Roitman of Agilent Labs in Palo Alto. They will speak on quantum cryptography and nanoparticle-based biomolecular sensors, respectively.
The series will conclude May 12 with its second speaker from the University of Iowa, John Goree, who will describe "Making a Plasma Act Like a Crystal."
SSU professor Joe Tenn, who is directing the series, expresses his gratitude to the donors who have made it possible to bring such distinguished speakers to SSU for the privately-funded series.
For a free poster describing all twelve lectures, see http://www.phys-astro.sonoma.edu/wpd/, send e-mail to gayle.walker@sonoma.edu, or call (707) 664-2119.
