IAP Independent Activities Period
overview participate organize offerings calendar  
for-credit subjects non-credit activities by category non-credit activities by sponsor non-credit activities by date

IAP 2012 Activities by Sponsor

Physics

MIT Physics Lecture Series:a

Quantum Money from Knots
Professor Edward Farhi
Fri Jan 13, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

Money, either in the form of bills or information on a computer, should be impossible to copy and also verifiable as good money when tendered to a merchant. Quantum mechanics may make this possible to achieve with far greater security than can be achieved without quantum mechanics. I will discuss Quantum Money generally and present our scheme which uses ideas from Knot Theory. Quantum Money may be the basis of E-commerce on a future quantum internet and would not require communication with a central server such as a credit card company or PayPal.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:b

Looking for the First Stars with a New Radio Telescope
Professor Jacqueline Hewitt
Fri Jan 20, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event
Prereq: None

The most distant structures astronomers observe are those encoded in the Cosmic Microwave Background, tracing primordial density fluctuations that later collapse to form the first stars and galaxies. Before the first stars formed, the universe consisted mainly of dark matter and hydrogen gas. Neutral hydrogen gas emits and absorbs radio waves at a characteristic frequency of 1.4 GHz, which in the first stars should be redshifted to a frequency of about 100 MHz. Radio astronomers, including some of us at MIT, are building a novel low-frequency radio telescope in Western Australia to search for hydrogen signals from the first stars.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:c

Blasts from the Past: Dissecting Supernovae in the Nearby Universe
Dr. Laura A. Lopez, Postdoctoral Fellow
Mon Jan 23, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

Supernovae are the explosive ends of the lives of massive stars. They are the most energetic events in the Universe, outshining even their host galaxies and producing almost all the elements in the periodic table. Each year, several hundreds of supernovae are found by dedicated robotic telescopes, and studies of these explosions reveal insights about everything from how stars evolve to the expansion history and fate of the Universe. In this talk, I will highlight recent discoveries on the nature of supernova explosions, and I will discuss some of the outstanding questions which physicists will be investigating in the next few years.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:d

Technology Through the Eyes of a Combat Reconnaissance Pilot
Captain William Koch
Tue Jan 24, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event

I am a Captain in the US Army and am currently enrolled in the graduate Physics program, preparing to return to the United States Military Academy to teach core physics to the cadets. From June 2004 through this past summer, I flew the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior Scout/Reconnaissance helicopter through two unit train-ups and two deployments to Operation Iraqi Freedom, spending almost two and a half years in the combat environment. This seminar will be a discussion of the current fielded technology of U.S. Army Scout/Cavalry Aviation, including a discussion of the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior reconnaissance helicopter and a light overview of other Army Aviation assets. This seminar will offer a personal view of current advantages and limitations as a result of the technology installed on U.S. Army helicopters.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:e

What Topology Teaches Us About the Electronic Properties of Solids
Dr. David Hsieh, Pappalardo Fellow
Wed Jan 25, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

The electronic properties of solids are usually determined by their band structure, the energy-momentum dispersion relation of electrons in a periodic atomic lattice. However there exists a special class of materials whose properties are strongly influenced by the wave function composition of their band structure, and whose description is deeply connected to the topology of shapes and objects. The past few years have witnessed a rapid rise in the number of such "topological materials" and we will find out why they have attracted such fundamental and technological interest.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:f

A 9 Billion Dollar Venture to Shake Up the Laws of Nature
Professor Iain Stewart
Fri Jan 27, 01:30pm-02:30am, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event

Physics as we know it can be described at a fundamental level by four forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force of radioactive decays, and the strong force that binds quarks into a proton. They drive an enormously rich variety of interesting physical phenomena, whose study populates the subfields of physics in our department. An interesting question is whether nature stopped at just four. Indeed the standard model of particle physics hypothesizes a fifth "force" caused by Higgs bosons, and a main purpose of the Large Hadron Collider experiment at CERN is to shake up the known laws of nature by discovering new forces. In this lecture I will describe how we make predictions for what the experiment will see based on known physics, which are crucial input to finding new forces. I'll explain why a fundamental tool is careful and imaginative organization of Taylor series, as well as why these series are somewhat trickier than the ones you've met so far in 8.0X.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:g

Higgs Boson Hunt at the LHC
Professor Markus Klute
Mon Jan 30, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

After decades of preparation, the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are taking first steps toward resolving many long-standing puzzles in particle physics. The expectations for an early discovery of new physics were high. In the first 1/fb no evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model was found. This talk summarizes the current experimental status of and strategies used by the CMS Collaboration in the search for new physics, with an emphasis on the search for a Higgs boson.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:h

Creating the Hottest Matter in the Universe with the Large Hadron Collider
Professor Bolek Wyslouch
Tue Jan 31, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event

Each year, for about four weeks at a time, the Large Hadron Collider is configured to collide heavy nuclei. The extremely hot matter created in these collisions exhibits unusual properties. The high density plasma of quarks and gluons behaves like a strongly interacting liquid and it absorbs fast moving partons. We use large particle detectors and clever experimental techniques to understand its properties. In this talk I will introduce the overall research program and present the latest results.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:i

Gravitational Lensing is Fantastic!
Dr. Simona Vegetti, Pappalardo Fellow
Wed Feb 1, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Single session event

Light does not always travel in a straight line. The gravitational pull of massive objects as galaxies and galaxy clusters deflect passing light rays and produce a detectable distortion and magnification of the background source. If the alignment between the source and the gravitational lens is good enough, multiple images are formed. The images that are so created, are very beautiful and intriguing, but most importantly they can be used to learn something about the Universe. During this talk, I will present some of the most interesting astrophysical applications of gravitational lensing and show that lensing is a very powerful tool to study galaxy formation but also to constrain the properties of dark matter and dark energy.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


MIT Physics Lecture Series:j

The Biophysical Borderline: Exploring the Boundary Between Inanimate and Living Matter
Professor Jeremy England

Fri Feb 3, 01:30-02:30pm, 6-120

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up
Participants welcome at individual sessions (series)

Living things are good at collecting information about their surroundings, and at putting that information to use through the ways they interact with their environment so as to survive and replicate themselves. Thus, talking about biology inevitably leads to talking about decision, purpose, and function. At the same time, living things are also made of atoms that, in and of themselves, have no particular function. Rather, molecules and the atoms from which they are built exhibit well-defined physical properties having to do with how they bounce off of, stick to, and combine with each other across space and over time. Making sense of life at the molecular level is all about building a bridge between these two different ways of looking at the world. In this lecture we will discuss the ways in which a deep understanding of statistical physics can help to illuminate the inner workings of biological systems.
Contact: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu


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: Denise Wahkor, 4-315, 253-4855, denisew@mit.edu

The Law of Gravitation
Andy Neely
Fri Jan 13, 12-01:30pm, 6-120

The Best Mind Since Einstein
Andy Neely
Fri Jan 20, 12-01:30pm, 6-120

The Relation of Mathematics to Physics
Andy Neely
Mon Jan 23, 12-01:30pm, 6-120

The Great Conservation Principles
Andy Neely
Tue Jan 24, 12-01:30pm, 6-120

Symmetry in Physical Law
Andy Neely
Wed Jan 25, 12-01:30pm, 6-120

The Last Journey of a Genius
Andy Neely
Fri Jan 27, 12:30-01:30pm, 6-120

Take the World from Another Point of View
Andy Neely
Mon Jan 30, 12-01:30pm, 6-120

The Distinction of Past and Future
Andy Neely
Tue Jan 31, 12-01:30pm, 6-120

Probability and Uncertainty
Andy Neely
Wed Feb 1, 12-01:30pm, 6-120

Seeking New Laws
Andy Neely
Fri Feb 3, 12-01:30pm, 6-120


MIT  
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Home | Overview | Participate | Organize | Offerings | Calendar | Search
Comments and questions to: iap-www@mit.edu Academic Resource Center, Room 7-104, 617-253-1668
Last update: 7 Sept. 2011