The Society of Physics Students at UC Santa Cruz

This week’s meeting:

SPEAKER: Prof.Claire Gu, UCSC Electrical Engineering
TOPIC: Fiber Optics: From Communication Devices to Molecular Sensors

Remember total internal reflection? Remember critical angles and refractive indices? Remember fiber optics?

Professor Claire Gu does, and in fact she studies fiber optics and stuff like holographic data storage and fiber sensors using SERS (surface enhanced Raman scattering) in the Electrical Engineering department. Her talk at this week’s SPS meeting — which takes place on Thursday, March 15th, at 5:30 PM in ISB 231 — concerns, as it says above, the way the physics of fiber optics is utilized to create insanely useful things.

You owe it to yourself to come and hear about applications of the physics that made it possible to get THIS VERY PAGE to you.

And I *don’t* mean the physics of Rion’s web design skills (which do, indeed, rule).

Coffee, tea, soda, and some snack-type food are not made of fiber optics, but are delicious nonetheless.

Everyone is welcome.

And, yes, I’m perfectly aware that finals are next week. I can’t speak for *you*, but I plan on studying right up until the meeting, and then continuing right after. That toroidal solenoid is annoying.

Oh, don’t miss the HyperPhysics explanation of Raman scattering:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/raman.html

I shall see you on Thursday.

–James

In between teaching field theory or cosmology classes and writing books for the general public, Professor Joel Primack somehow finds time to do research, too. This week’s meeting, which will take place on Thursday, March 8th, at 5:30 PM in ISB 231, features Prof. Primack talking about his and his group’s recent work. He gave us an abstract:

Galaxies are made of spheroids and disks. We live in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy. But about 3/4 of the stars in the universe are in spheroids — elliptical galaxies and the central bulges of spiral galaxies. It appears that most of the spheroids are made in galaxy mergers. The spheroids also host supermassive black holes, and galaxy mergers can perhaps trigger these “active galactic nuclei” (AGN) to accrete a lot of gas and become quasars shining brighter than a hundred ordinary galaxies. In this talk I will summarize the large suites of high resolution hydrodynamic simulations of colliding galaxies that my group has been running and analyzing. We calculate what these mergers would look like in many observational bands including the key effects of dust, and we compare with Hubble Space Telescope images using new techniques. I will also discuss what the data are telling us about the sorts of galaxies that host AGN, and the implications for theoretical models that try to connect the evolution of AGN and their host galactic spheroids. The talk will include several videos based on our simulations.

I can add nothing of substance to such a thorough description.

Coffee, tea, soda, and some snack-ish stuff will also be present.

Everyone is welcome, as always.

–James

P.S. Oh yes, the SPS at UCSC visited SLAC. It was superb. Check back soon for photographic evidence.