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MIT Physics Lecture Series: a Science and Technology in Africa: What Path Forward?
Professor Sekazi Mtingwa
Wed Jan 6, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
This talk will present the state of science and technology in Africa, especially as regards their impact on African nations’ economies, environment and health. More specifically, there are many initiatives presently underway and we will describe two of them: the African Laser Centre and the newly proposed Julius K. Nyerere, University of Science, Technology and Innovation in the Mara Region of Tanzania. The speaker has been involved in both initiatives and will report on his activities and speculate on what the future holds for their success.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: b Quantitative Finance
David Brahm, Ph.D., CFA
Thu Jan 7, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
How does a physicist view the financial markets?
Securities are valued as discounted future cash flows, and stock prices are stochastic variables.
Derivatives can be priced using the no-arbitrage theorem, leading to the Black-Scholes partial differential equation.
Portfolio construction is a quadratic optimization problem with Lagrange multipliers.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: c Hot Quark Soup
Professor Krishna Rajagopal
Mon Jan 11, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
What was the universe like microseconds after the big bang? At very high temperatures, protons and neutrons fall apart - the quarks that are ordinarily confined within them are freed. Matter at these temperatures was thought to be a tenuous gas-like plasma. Then, experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven started recreating little droplets of big bang matter. And nature served up hot quark soup-the stuff of the big bang turns out to be a liquid. This realization has allowed, even driven, physicists trying to predict further properties of hot quark soup to use calculations done via string theory.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: d Magnetic Reconnection: a Celestial Phenomenon in the Laboratory
Professor Jan Egedal
Wed Jan 13, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
Plasmas, the ionized gas in lightning bolts, tube lights, and most of interstellar space, are generally an excellent conductor of electricity. An important consequence is that generally plasmas are “frozen” to magnetic field lines. Many plasmas, however, can occasionally and rapidly break free, in a process called magnetic reconnection. This process controls the evolution of solar flares, and it allows the solar wind to enter the Earth's magnetosphere. The process of magnetic reconnection is created and studied experimentally on the Versatile Toroidal Facility (VTF). Our analysis reveals that a new mechanism--particle trapping--efficiently facilitates explosive reconnection.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: e Attaining the Thermodynamic Limits to Solar Cell Efficiency
Dr. Bonna Newman
Thu Jan 14, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
Current single gap photovoltaic solar cells are fundamentally limited to efficiencies less that 31%. However, laboratory demonstrated cells using novel architectures and materials have achieved efficiencies as high at 41%. In this talk, we will explore the physical origins of fundamental efficiency limits and look at theoretical models and ideas for attaining higher solar cell efficiency. Finally, we will discuss experimental efforts to build an intermediate band solar cell, one specific high efficiency concepts.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: f The Magellanic Clouds: Milky Way Satellites or Just Passing By?
Dr. Nitya Kallivayalil
Tue Jan 19, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
Single session event
The Magellanic Clouds, two of the Milky Way's closest neighboring galaxies, have been studied for centuries and used for navigation by the world's earliest explorers. Current theories of their evolution involve intense interaction with the Milky Way in which gas is stripped (the 'Magellanic Stream') from them as they orbit through the Milky way disk plane. However, recent 3-D velocities of the Clouds, obtained with HST, indicate that they might not be satellites of the Milky Way at all, but are rather on their first pass. This requires a reassessment of our understanding of the Clouds and the Milky Way.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: g The Enormous Subatomic Paradox
Professor Steve Nahn
Thu Jan 21, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
Accompanying the start of the Large Hadron Collider has been speculation of discoveries treading the line between science and science fiction: mini-black holes, new particles, extra dimensions, mechanisms for how fundamental particles have any mass at all. Winnowing these subatomic hypotheses requires the largest accelerator and detectors ever built, and in 2010, with "luck", first results will percolate out.
Why are behemoths required to examine the smallest scales, and how do these experiments really work? We'll explore the LHC and one detector, the Compact Muon Solenoid, to add context to the adjudication of science or science fiction.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: h The LHC Won't Destroy the Planet (But Will Spark a Revolution)
Professor Jesse Thaler
Mon Jan 25, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
Single session event
The Large Hadron Collider will not destroy the world. It will, however, revolutionize fundamental physics by providing insights into the origin of mass, the nature of dark matter, the apparent weakness of gravity, and the symmetry structure of our universe. This lecture will explain the scientific basis for particle physicists' confidence, both in the discovery potential of the LHC and in its absolute safety.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: i Nanotechnology in a Pencil Trace
Professor Pablo Jarillo-Herrero
Wed Jan 27, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
A new revolution in science and technology is stemming from exploring materials and devices at ever smaller length scales. Among these materials, recently discovered carbon nanostructures are beginning to show just how different their properties are from standard materials. In this talk I will introduce you to the latest newcomer to the family of carbon nanomaterials: graphene. Graphene, a single sheet of graphite, is a one atom-thick material where electrons propagate in a very intriguing way: their behavior mimics that of ultrarelativistic particles. Along with fascinating science, I will discuss the enormous potential of graphene in the area of nanoelectronics.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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MIT Physics Lecture Series: j A New Way to Measure Quantum Energy Levels of Electrons Inside Solids
Professor Ray Ashoori
Thu Jan 28, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
A basic knowledge of the energy levels of electrons in solids was key in making the semiconductor revolution possible. While methods have long existed for measuring energy levels near the surface of a material, it has proven difficult to probe, with precision, such levels inside of a material. By measuring charge flow from quantum tunneling induced by millions of short electrical pulses, we can now make accurate measurements of energy levels within a solid. Moreover, the energy resolution of the method is thousands of times finer than the most commonly used method for studying levels at the surface. This talk will describe the method as well as some surprising new physics that it has uncovered.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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Mechanics ReView
Prof. Dave Pritchard
Mon-Fri, Jan 11-15, 19-22, 02-05:00pm, 26-152
Mon Jan 25, 02-05:00pm, 34-144
Tue Jan 26 thru Fri Jan 29, 02-05:00pm, 32-144
Enrollment limited: advance sign up required (see contact below)
Signup by: 07-Jan-2010
Limited to 50 participants.
Participants requested to attend all sessions (non-series)
Prereq: Contact Nancy Boyce at nboyce@mit.edu by 12:00 noon 1/7/09
Mechanics ReView– Prof. Dave Pritchard
Start: Jan 11, Monday
End: Jan 29, Friday
Building on Newtonian Mechanics at the 8.01 level, we will offer a unified view of how to solve real world mechanics problems that involve several concepts at once. We will emphasize several themes: modeling reality, making sense of the answer, approximations/estimation, how to approach problems and decompose them into simpler pieces, and a teacher-authored and student-modified WIKI on problem solving using models.
Limited enrollment – sign up by 12:00 noon Thursday Jan. 7
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, x3-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
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Nuclear Weapons: Physics, History, and Abolition?
Prof. Aron Bernstein, Professor David Kaiser, Professor Jim Walsh
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)
Prereq: None
This course will give an overview of the physics of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects. The history of their development will be covered as well as the discussions of their implications, including the debates of the atomic scientists who developed them and then tried vainly to control their use and spread.
Students are welcome to participate in any or all of these sessions. There will be time for questions and discussion.
Sponsors: Department of Physics, Lab for Nuclear Science, Program in Science, Technology and Society, Center for International Studies
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
Prof. Aron Bernstein
Overview: history, physics history, history of weapons numbers in the cold war, outlook for reduction and elimination.
Wed Jan 20, 03-04:30pm, Kolker Room 26-414
Professor David Kaiser
The cold war history of the weapons deployment will be covered as well as the treaties which limited their use such as the nuclear test ban, anti ballistic missile treaty.
Thu Jan 21, 03-04:30pm, Kolker Room 26-414
Professor Jim Walsh
The threat of nuclear proliferation and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty will be covered. The current discussion about abolition of nuclear weapons will also be discussed.
Mon Jan 25, 03-04:30pm, Kolker Room 26-414
Prof. Aron Bernstein
Outlook for Nuclear Weapons Policy, Obama Administration, world reaction; The linking of these issues to the original scientists debate and MIT discussions will be covered. Lecturer AM Bernstein
Wed Jan 27, 03-04:30pm, Kolker Room 26-414
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The Feynman Films
Andy Neely
No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)
Prereq: None
A series of films by Richard Feynman and open to the MIT community.
Contact: Nancy Boyce, 4-315, 253-4461, nboyce@mit.edu
The Law of Gravitation
Andy Neely
Wed Jan 6, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
The Best Mind Since Einstein
Andy Neely
Thu Jan 7, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
The Relation of Mathematics to Physics
Andy Neely
Mon Jan 11, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
The Great Conservation Principles
Andy Neely
Wed Jan 13, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
Symmetry in Physical Law
Andy Neely
Thu Jan 14, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
The Last Journey of a Genius
Andy Neely
Tue Jan 19, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
Take the World from Another Point of View
Andy Neely
Thu Jan 21, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
The Distinction of Past and Future
Andy Neely
Mon Jan 25, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
Probability and Uncertainty
Andy Neely
Wed Jan 27, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
Seeking New Laws
Andy Neely
Thu Jan 28, 12-01:30pm, 6-120
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