physics tagged posts

MAS August Meeting

Astronomy With the Highest Energy Light in the Universe

August MAS Monthly Meeting 2024

Major breakthroughs have been made in astronomy by expanding observations to far longer and far shorter wavelengths than we can see with our eyes. The shortest-wavelength photons are gamma rays, the highest energy photons in the Universe. Some of these photons are trillions of times more energetic than the human eye can detect. There is a surprising variety of astronomical sources glowing or flashing in these very-high-energy gamma rays. They are powered by some of the most extreme objects in the Universe: exploding stars, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes...

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MAS June Meeting

Launching the future astronomer: Innovation in physics education

June MAS Speaker: Dr. Duncan Carlsmith

Dr. Carlsmith will describe innovations in an introductory physics course providing modern research skills through immersion in big and small, arcane and applied science. Astrophysical topics include asteroids, exoplanets, black holes. Fun topics include computer vision, dappled light, the world’s simplest digital microscope, and mobile phone astrometry.

Professor Carlsmith is a faculty member of the Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison...

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MAS August Monthly Meeting

A Brief History of Time(keeping): Optical atomic clocks and their applications

Image of an optical atomic clock

At the August MAS meeting, our guest speaker will be Shimon Kolkowitz of the UW-Madison physics department (assistant professor). Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this meeting will again be held via Zoom.

Optical atomic clocks are now the most stable and accurate timekeepers in the world, with fractional accuracies equivalent to neither losing nor gaining a second over the entire age of the universe. This unprecedented level of metrological precision offers sensitivity to new physics phenomena, opening the door to exciting and unusual applications...

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