The Society of Physics Students at UC Santa Cruz http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps Meetings: Thursdays at 6:00pm in ISB 231 Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:07:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 en hourly 1 General Meeting November, 19th 2009 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=227 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=227#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:42:57 +0000 cdom http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=227


The Society of Physics Students at UCSC PRESENTS:

A General Meeting: Fermi at 17 Months

Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009

Time: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Place: ISB 231

Thanks to those who made it to the APS meeting last weekend. There were some great undergraduate and graduate student talks, so kudos to them!

This week, SPS will host a talk by new faculty member Steven Ritz. Steven is the Deputy Principal Investigator for Fermi’s Large Area Telescope (LAT), and he is a fellow of the American Physical Society and was a Sloan Foundation Fellow in Physics from 1993 to 1997. He also won the Bertman Prize in Physics from Wesleyan University in 1981.

This week he will talk about:


The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly called GLAST, measures the cosmic gamma-ray flux in the energy range 20 MeV to >300 GeV, with supporting measurements for gamma-ray bursts from 8 keV to 30 MeV. In addition to breakthrough capabilities in energy coverage and localization, the very large field of view enables observations of 20% of the sky at any instant, and the entire sky on a timescale of a few hours.  With its launch on 11 June 2008, Fermi now opens a new and important window on a wide variety of phenomena, including pulsars, black holes and active galactic nuclei, gamma-ray bursts, the origin of cosmic rays and supernova remnants, and searches for hypothetical new phenomena such as particle dark matter annihilations.  In addition to a summary of results and the science opportunities, this talk includes a description of the instruments and the mission status and plans.  Activities at UCSC will be highlighted.

]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=227 General Meeting Nov. 5th 2009 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=225 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=225#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:26:53 +0000 cdom http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=225 The Society of Physics Students at UCSC PRESENTS:

A General Meeting: “Divide and conquer” and “United we stand” in physics.

Date: Thursday, November 5, 2009 

Time: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Place: ISB 231

This week, SPS will host a talk by Professor Gey-Hong Gweon, of the Physics Dept. In his own words he will talk about:

“Divide and conquer” is a very useful mathematical strategy in many physics problems.  One may also interpret this maxim as a generally useful approach to science, in the long tradition of the reductionist ideal of the ancient Greeks.  However, in Nature we observe many collective emergent behaviors that are not captured well by this reductionist thinking.  We may call these emergent behaviors as Nature’s “united we stand” way of existence.  In this talk, I will discuss various examples of such behaviors in condensed matter systems, e.g. the superconductivity, and how studies of these behaviors have been shaping our views of fundamental physics.

]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=225 Colliding Galaxies and the Human Retina http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=220 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=220#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:41:58 +0000 cdom http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=220 The Society of Physics Students at UCSC PRESENTS:

A General Meeting: “A Sharper Image: Adaptive Optics and Laser Guide Stars for Astronomy and Human Vision Applications“

Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009

Time: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Place: ISB 231

SPS is pleased to present professor Claire E. Max of the the Astronomy and Astrophysics Dept. http://www.ucolick.org/~max/max-web/Max.v2.html

This week she will talk about Adaptive Optics and Laser Guide Stars for Astronomy and Human Vision Applications, in her own words:

Adaptive Optics is a technology that detects and corrects changing distortions in optical systems..  It has been applied to great effect during the past decade for correcting astronomical telescopes for blurring due to turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere, and for imaging the living human retina.  This talk will describe the history of Adaptive Optics (AO) and laser guide stars, give a status report on their current technology, and describe some scientific highlights: close-up views of black holes in colliding galaxies, and imaging of three dimensional structures in the living human retina.

]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=220 Movie Night http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=218 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=218#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:17:10 +0000 cdom http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=218 SPS Movie Night

12 Monkeys will be shown at Thimann 3 on November 6th 2009.

Show will start at 7:00 o’clock post meridiem.

popcorn included

]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=218 Next General Meeting is Oct. 22nd 2009 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=207 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=207#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:47:05 +0000 cdom http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=207 The Society of Physics Students at UCSC PRESENTS:

A General Meeting: “The Bare Essentials of Particle Physics”

Date: Thursday, October 22, 2009

Time: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Place: ISB 231

Be there or be quadrilateral!

This week Prof. Jason Nielsen (Department of Physics and Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics) will offer tips and tricks to solve those particle physics problems at relativistic speeds!

In his own words:

Even if you haven’t managed to take a particle physics course yet, don’t worry!  You will still be able to catch the excitement of the Large Hadron Collider experiments and kill those particle physics exam questions after this lecture by Prof. Nielsen.  We’ll go through the fundamental particles and forces, and we’ll also brush up on relativistic kinematics with a few tips to make calculations easier.  With our new-found particle skills, we’ll look ahead to the startup of the LHC scheduled for November.

]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=207 General Meeting of the Society of Physics Students http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=200 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=200#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:45:42 +0000 cdom http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=200 The Society of Physics Students at UCSC

General Meeting: “From classical to Quantum Phase Transitions”and Graduate School Info about Rice University Thursday, October 15, 2009

Time: 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Place: ISB 231

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This week SPS is proud to present Alumnus Jed Pixley and graduate student of the Physics dept. at Rice University. He will be talking about (in his own words):

This talk will focus on a brief introduction to quantum criticality.  This describes matter undergoing a second order phase transition at zero temperature.  We will focus onquantum phase transitions where order parameter fluctuations fail to capture all of the quantum effects.  The metal-insulator transition will be discussed in order to motivate the main topic on quantum criticality in heavy-fermion metals.

Everyone is welcome.

Coffee, tea and snacks will be provided!
]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=200 Richard Feynman’s Birthday Party! IV http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=186 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=186#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 22:35:49 +0000 Jessica http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=186 Today Monday May 11, 2009 is Richard Feynman’s 91st birthday.
In honor this Thusday, May 14, 2009 at 6 P.M. in ISB 231 SPS will celebrate this juggling, painting, bongo playing  physicist’s birthday.
We will be scientifically birthday partying, cupcake decorating with our favorite Feynman diagrams, watching videos of the man himself and coloring Richard Feynman coloring books!! 

So grab your bongos and come on over to party with your favorite physicists at SPS.

]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=186 Open Acess Links http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=182 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=182#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 21:56:11 +0000 Jessica http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=182 Here are some links as promised by our speaker Brandon Allgood cofounder of Numerate Inc.

Association of Research Libraries
http://www.arl.org/

SPARC
http://www.arl.org/sparc/

Librarians, Research Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of
Scientific Publishing
http://www.arl.org/resources/pubs/mmproceedings/138guedon.shtml

The ArXiv
http://arxiv.org/

Budapest Open Access Initiative
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/

Directory of Open Access Journals
http://www.doaj.org/

Eprints
http://www.eprints.org/

Registry of Open Access Repository Material Archiving Policies
http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/

Open Access at UCSC
http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/text.asp?pid=1970

PRISM
http://www.prismcoalition.org/index.htm

NIH open access policy
http://publicaccess.nih.gov/

Current threat against NIH open policy
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:H.R.801:

Open Access Directory
http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Main_Page

Science Commons
http://sciencecommons.org/

freeculture.org
http://freeculture.org

PLoS
http://www.plos.org/

MIT portal for staff publications
http://dspace.mit.edu/

wikipedia article with great links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access_(publishing)

]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=182 Undergraduate Symposium: Part II http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=179 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=179#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 21:50:06 +0000 Jessica http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=179 Last week’s Undergraduate Symposium was definitely a success, full of tensors, Tesla Coil’s and Exosolar Planets. There really is no way we could possibly do better.

Except for maybe this week.

This week the Society of Physics Students is proud to present the second half of our Undergraduate Symposium! The SPS meeting will be held on Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 6 P.M. in ISB 231. This will be a conference style event. In that fashion the speakers will have 12 minutes to present and 3 minutes for questions. It will  be moderated by Professor Peter Young of the Physics Dept.

This week’s speakers are:

  • Assia Tolpygo: “Understanding Brain Function Through Large-Scale Retinal Output Activity”
  • Kyle Kaplan: “Dust Absorption in Metal Strong Damped Lyman Alpha Systems”
  • Megan Shabram: “Transiting Extrasolar Planet Transmission Spectra”

Your attendendace, as always, is kindly requested.

]]> http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?feed=rss2&p=179 Undergraduate Symposium: Part I http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=177 http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=177#comments Mon, 11 May 2009 21:48:10 +0000 Jessica http://sirius.ucsc.edu/sps/?p=177 This week SPS is proud to present an Undergraduate Symposium on Thursday, April 30, 2009 at 6:00 PM in Isb 231! This week we have three speakers:

Josh Vinson: Tesla Coil Science
Nick Ernst: An Introduction to Tensors
Ben Nelson: Exosolar Planets and finding Terrestrial Planets

Moderated by Professor Haber.

Each speaker will present for 10-12 minutes, and afterward answer a few questions.

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