The Society of Physics Students at UC Santa Cruz

Wow. Hectic quarter. That’s no reason to not come to today’s meeting, though:

Speaker: Professor Greg Laughlin
Topic: Extrasolar planets revisited
Prof. Laughlin will be covering all the stuff he didn’t get a chance to cover during last quarter’s talk about extrasolar planets. I hear that there will be lots of pictures and graphics and 200 trillion dollar, NASA-funded, animated simulations of stuff. Well, maybe not that last one.

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Speaker: Dr. Eugenio Rivera, UCSC
Topic: *systemic*, a public research collaboration aiming to better understand the galaxy’s planets
In an eleventh-hour switch, today’s presentation will be given by post-doctoral researcher Eugenio Rivera, who works with Prof. Laughlin. Eugenio will be talking about the *systemic* project they’ve been working on, which is a public research collaboration aiming to better understand the planets in the galaxy. And you thought seti@home or climateprediction.net were awesome.

Coffee and soda and snacks will also be available.

Now I just have to decide whether I prefer Laguerre or Chebyshev polynomials. Wish me luck.

–James

(P.S.- We keep you on the edge of your seats here folks. Enjoy the show. –Rion)

To all of you who missed the Feynman birthday party, I must say that it was your loss. We had a great time, with lots of good food! Not to mention the amazing cake our president decorated himself. Spectacular job James! Oh, and Demitri’s excellent guacamole. Your loss indeed.

So, as a courtesy to those who missed it, here are a few pictures. When I get the time and the web space, I will upload the rest.

Feynman! He was born on May 11th, 1918, so we’re going to eat a cake with a Feynman diagram on it and watch a video. Feynman! We haven’t decided exactly which video to watch, but it’ll either be a thing about him/his life or it’ll be one of his lectures. Either choice will be sublime! Feynman!

Coffee will be present, mostly for Laura, and for me, but also for everyone else. Soda, too.

(For you confused few, your embarrassment at not knowing who Richard Feynman is will be removed by a careful review of the information found at the following locations:

http://www.nobel-winners.com/Physics/richard_phillips_feynman.html
http://www.feynman.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman

See? Now you can come to the party and make up for lost Feynman-worshipping time.)

FEYNMAN!

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Additionally, last weekend’s Scavenger Hunt to End All Scavenger Hunts was a colossal and approximately infinite success. Mark won, using his formidable physical intuition and skill, and is now the proud owner of the Elusive and Mystical Final Copy of Mathematica. Congratulations Mark!

The hunt itself was really really awesome, by the way. Really. Expertly designed. We need to give huge credit and approbation to Veronica, Med, and Rob, who agonized over it for a couple of months. The result was well worth the work and the wait. Excellent.

–James

Stuff is happening this weekend. Observe:

SATURDAY, May 6th — TOMORROW!
— 7:00 PM — Thimann 1 –
***SPS Movie Night***
This time we’ll be watching “Origins”…

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/

…the PBS miniseries about the universe, the solar system, life on Earth, and the possibility of life on other planets — pretty much everything important (except for an explicit discussion of the spontaneous breaking of chiral symmetry by the QCD vacuum, but whatever).

Feel free to bring snacks and stuff. We’ll probably also order pizza after everybody arrives, so if that interests you, show up early, talk to our events coordinator Michael, and bring cash.

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SUNDAY, May 7th
— 10:30 AM — Baskin Eng 1 –
***The Scavenger Hunt to End All Scavenger Hunts***
On Sunday, May 7th at 11:00 AM, a miraculous thing will happen: SPS members from all different backgrounds and walks of life will gather outside Baskin Engineering 1 and will embark on a quest so daring, few — nay, none — will survive unscathed. Yes, these brave souls’ lives will change forever once they begin the hunt for the mythical Last Remaining Copy of Mathematica, also known as THE SCAVENGER HUNT TO END ALL SCAVENGER HUNTS. Participants will be forced to utilize every bit of their wit, combined with sheer physical ability to guess at clues and hunt for hints to solve the puzzle that will unlock the door to Mathematica Heaven.Breakfast-y snacks will be available at 10:30 AM, and, as mentioned, the official send-off will occur at 11 AM sharp. All pertinent information will be provided at the event. You need only bring your formidable intellectual and physical dexterity.

The adventure begins May 7th. Prepare yourselves.

(Courtesy of Veronica, Med and Rob, who deserve Extreme Credit and Extravagant Recognition for putting the whole thing together. *thunderous applause*)

Your presence is formally requested at both events, or at least one. Hey, I have homework, too, so that excuse is invalid. I’ll go if you go. Okay, cool; see you there.

–James

I know you’ve been skipping lectures because the weather is so nice, but I’m telling you, you must come to this Thursday’s SPS meeting. The reasons for doing so are as follows, and if you hook a function generator up to a black mystery box, the oscilloscope might display the following:

Speaker: Professor David Smith
Topic: Gamma-rays from lightning
Despite wide familiarity with the effects of lightning, the immediate cause — what triggers the discharge — is, surprisingly, still unknown. One hint may lie in short bursts of gamma-rays observed both from space and from the ground during thunderstorms. These events, called Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs), were first observed in the early ’90s with NASA’s Compton Gamma-ray Observatory satellite. Using new data from another NASA satellite called RHESSI, we are now finding out a lot more about these TGFs. Until the new data came along, it was widely assumed that the TGFs would turn out to be associated with exotic upper-atmospheric discharges called sprites; but now the association seems to be with ordinary lightning, which means TGFs may be a more fundamental process than was previously assumed. I will review the physics of atmospheric discharge, the history of TGF observations, and some of the newest results based on the RHESSI data and simultaneous observations of radio signals from lightning.

We will also feature coffee, soda and snacks.

Additionally, there actually will be some more announcements later this week, so check back frequently.

–James