Fall 2023 Physics Colloquium
Thursday, August 31st
Welcome Back Picnic
Join us to learn about being a Physics major, get to know everyone in the department, ask questions!
Noon
Tome 115 & Tome outdoor classroom area
Lunch providied
Thursday, September 21st
Student Presentations
George Carson ’24 - “Exploring DLITE as a Solar Radio Burst Detector”
Solar radio bursts are brief periods of enhanced radio emission that can provide critical information concerning space weather events. We report using a four-element interferometer to detect solar radio bursts from the Sun.
Noah Lape ’26 - “All Things Physics: My Work on a Physics Edutainment YouTube Channel”
I'll discuss everything that goes into creating a physics edutainment YouTube channel: lighting, filming, piecing together the scenes, and what it takes to capture some very interesting physics phenomena! Along the way, I'll discuss the all-important physics of some of our experiments too, including wave propagation, schlieren optics, and how a multi-ton granite ball can be made to float on water.
Emma Lothrop ’25 - “Ocean turbulence, the carbon cycle, and interdisciplinary science”
When individual cells in the ocean collide and stick together, they form larger particles that sink faster through the water and can trap carbon at the bottom of the ocean. This project uses a coagulation model for phytoplankton particles, focusing on how infecting cells with viruses and subjecting them to turbulence causes them to stick together and form larger particles over time.
Carys Chase-Mayoral ’26 - “Flat bands in Electronic Lattices”
Lattices that produce flat bands are repeated geometric configurations of oscillating components. In our case, these oscillating components were capacitors and inductors in a circuit board, where they produced flat bands through their destructive interference as a result of the lattice's special geometry.
Noon
Tome 115
Pizza provided
Thursday, November 16th
Technologies for a Sustainable Future
Ethan Lebo '26 - "Harnessing the Power of a Star"
Nolan Meincke '25 - "Optimizing Inertial Confinement Fusion"
Emma Lothrop '25 - "Lensing for Solar Energy"
Noah Lape '26 - "Mechanisms for High-Temperature Superconductors"
Noon
Tome 117
Pizza provided
Thursday, November 30th
Planetarium TA's will present a Planetarium Show - "From the Solar System to the Galaxy"
Noon
Tome Planetarium
Pizza provided (beforehand in Tome 105)