ANN ARBOR—Saturday Morning Physics, the University of Michigan series of multimedia science lectures for general audiences, opens its fall season on Oct. 19. Every week for nine weeks, more than 300 people, from middle school students to retirees, will come to Ann Arbor to listen to U-M scientists describe their cutting edge research in easy-to-understand, non-technical terms. Each talk is illustrated with multimedia technology and live demonstrations. All lectures will be held Saturdays, 10:30-11:30 a.m., at 170 Dennison Building, 501 East University, on the U-M’s Central Campus. The lectures are free and open to the public. Coffee and refreshments will be available. “These lectures, delivered by some of U-M’s brightest young scientists, will bring frontier physics alive to a multigenerational audience of the passionately curious,’” said David Gerdes, physics professor and the series organizer. This fall’s lectures will describe computers based on the strange laws of quantum mechanics, the recent Nobel-prizewinning discovery of a new state of matter, the future of our galaxy in a universe that looks like it will expand forever, and the physics processes that govern the Earth’s interior. The series is sponsored by the physics department and M. Lois Tiffany of Ann Arbor, who received her U-M master’s degree in physics in 1946 and a doctorate in biophysics in 1971. It also is supported in part by donations from the public. Talks scheduled for the fall series are: · Oct. 19, “Curiouser and Curiouser: It’s a Quantum World!” Chitra Rangan, research fellow, FOCUS Center and physics department. As computer chips shrink, they will soon approach the limiting size of an atom. At these microscopic sizes, everything behaves differently—matter obeys the laws of quantum mechanics. Scientists are trying to harness this quantum mechanical behavior to develop computing machines that are faster, better, and yet fundamentally different from the computers of today. · Oct. 26, “The Pied Piper of Hamilton: Making Atoms Dance,” Chitra Rangan, research fellow, FOCUS Center and physics department. How can we get tiny, microscopic, quantum particles to perform computations? With light! Using super intense light from ultrafast lasers, we can make atoms and molecules dance to our tune. This precise “quantum control” is necessary for transforming a bunch of atoms or molecules into a quantum computer. · Nov. 2, “On Our Way to the Emerald City: The Quantum Computer of the Future,” Chitra Rangan, research fellow, FOCUS Center and physics department. What will the quantum computer of the future look like? We don’t quite know, but we expect it to revolutionize cryptography and communications. It will perform difficult computing tasks that simply cannot be solved by the biggest and fastest computers of today. Imagine – a machine that packs the power of a Pentium on a pinhead! · Nov. 9, “Fingerprints of Quantum Mechanics,” Jeffrey Guest, research fellow, physics department. At the turn of the last century, physicists were struggling to understand the iridescent ‘fingerprints’ of light emitted by gases of atoms. Investigations into this puzzle and others led to the discovery of the quantum world, revealing the wave-particle nature of both light and matter and laying the foundation for the control of light and matter in unimagined ways. · Nov. 16, “The Coldest Place in the Universe,” Jeffrey Guest, research fellow, physics department. It might not be obvious when you step outside on a sunny day, but light packs a punch. It knocks around massive particles as dramatically demonstrated in the tails of comets. Using lasers and magnetic fields, physicists are now using that punch to slow down, trap, and ultimately cool atoms to temperatures closer to absolute zero than anywhere else in the known universe. · Nov. 23, “Making Waves, Slowing Light, and Keeping Time,” Jeffrey Guest, research fellow, physics department. Slower, colder atoms have led to higher-precision measurements, atom ‘lasers’, and (as turnabout is fair play) slow light. Already, the world sets its watch to the internal clock of laser-cooled Cesium atoms; only time will tell what technical and scientific surprises cold atoms and quantum mechanics have in store. · Dec. 7, “A Galaxy Timeline in an Accelerating Universe,” Risa Wechsler, research fellow, physics department. Recent observations have revolutionized our understanding of the basic contents of the Universe. In addition to stars, gas, and still poorly understood dark matter, “empty” space itself seems to contain an even more mysterious “dark energy” that is accelerating its expansion. We will discuss the birth and evolution of a galaxy like the Milky Way in such a universe, from shortly after the Big Bang to what our future may hold. · Dec. 14, “Planet Earth: Physics on a Global Scale,” Wendy Panero, research fellow, geological sciences department. How can we use physics to understand how the Earth works? From mountains and oceans to earthquakes and volcanoes, our planet is in constant motion. What we observe as plate tectonics is only the surface of a global heat engine, churning material from the Earth’s interior to the surface and back again as the greatest recycling program in the solar system. · Dec. 21, “Peering into the Earth: From Earthquakes to Diamonds,” Wendy Panero, research fellow, geological sciences department. The Earth’s interior is as hot as the surface of the sun and under pressures millions of times that of atmospheric pressure. How do we know the state of the Earth’s interior? Using earthquakes, meteorites, computer models and laboratory experiments we can determine both the state of the interior of the planet and why we have plate tectonics on Earth, but not on other planets. Selected telecasts of these lectures will be available on UMTV, which is Comcast cable channel 22 in the Ann Arbor area. The fall 2001 and spring 2002 Saturday Morning Physics series continue to be telecast on the city of Ann Arbor Community Television Network’s (CTN) CitiTV cable channel 19. For more information, visit http://www.physics.lsa.umich.edu/nea/smp/.

Contact: Judy Steeh

http://www.physics.lsa.umich.edu/nea/smp/