Physics Newsblog

Category: News

Alum Matt Davenport Turns Science Writer

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Matt DavenportMatthew Davenport ’06 is a PhD physicist turned science writer. If you are interested in such a career, view some of Matt’s writing and visualization samples on his website.

Matt also co-authored an article for Nature Nanotechnology in 2010. It is entitled “Graphene opens up to DNA,” published online 06 October 2010. doi:10.1038/nnano.2010.198 The work concerns the threading of pores in 2D graphene sheets by DNA strands.

While a student at Michigan Tech, Matt received the Ian W. Shepherd Award for most outstanding senior.

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News About Time Travel

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A paper by Professor Robert Nemiroff (Physics) and graduate student Teresa Wilson on their study designed to find time travelers on the Internet has garnered plenty of media attention. Hits include the following and many more:

The Huffington Post

The Telegraph

NBCNews

Slate

Popular Science

From Tech Today.

See also:

ABC News

Guardian Liberty Voice

CNN Tech

In the News

Professor Robert Nemiroff’s (Physics) paper describing his team’s unsuccessful search for time travelers attracted the attention of columnist Scott McLemee. The article, “In Search of Chrononauts,” appears in Inside Higher Ed.

From Tech Today.

In the News

An article by Tom Siegfried, “Google Search Fails to Find Any Sign of Time Travelers,” features Professor Robert Nemiroff and Teresa Wilson’s (Physics) recent paper on the topic and throws Stephen Hawking, Edgar Allen Poe and a few other luminaries into the mix.

From Tech Today.

Google search fails to find any sign of time travelers

On the other hand, perhaps time travelers just want to keep their existence a secret. But even highly trained supersecret time travel agents might slip up occasionally and accidentally reveal their future origins. Like for instance, by typing Comet ISON into Google before that comet had even been discovered. But even if they did, who would ever know?

Well, Robert Nemiroff and Teresa Wilson of the Michigan Technological University physics department might. Comet ISON was discovered in 2012, so it is very unlikely that anyone from the present would have searched online for it, or tweeted about it, before then. Nemiroff and Wilson reasoned that searching the Internet for pre-2012 mentions of Comet ISON might turn up evidence of a time traveler.

Read more at Science News, by Tom Siegfried.

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News About Snow

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Professor Raymond Shaw’s (Physics) efforts to explain why so much snow falls in the Arctic, despite the paucity of nuclei for ice crystals, was described in the NBCNews.com story “Let it Snow: How White Stuff Comes Down Days on End.”

From Tech Today.

Let it snow: How the white stuff comes down for days on end in the Arctic

Researchers at Michigan Technological University in Houghton set out to investigate the mystery of where snow in the Arctic comes from, and how it can fall so persistently in the region.

“Within a few hours, you basically purge the atmosphere of all those particles,” Raymond Shaw, a physicist at Michigan Technological University, said in a statement. “So how can it snow for days on end?”

Read more at NBC News Science, by Denise Chow.

In the News

CBS Detroit ran a news story about the origin of snowflakes, based on Professor Raymond Shaw’s (Physics) research. See CBS Detroit.

From Tech Today.

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Nemiroff to Lecture for Amateur Astronomers

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APODRobert Nemiroff has been invited to speak in New York City at the American Museum of Natural History on Friday, 2014 January 3 at 6:15 pm at the invitation of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York. Lectures are held in the Kaufmann Theater on Central Park West.

This year he will be primarily presenting and describing the best astronomy videos featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day during the past two years: 2012 and 2013.

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Blended Learning Grant for Wil Slough

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Jackson Blended Learning Winners

In early November, the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning invited faculty to submit proposals to support blended learning course innovations. Proposals were accepted at three levels ($1,000, $5,000 and $10,000), and a total of $50,000 was originally planned to be awarded during this cycle.

In the Department of Physics, Wil Slough received $1,000 for “Development of Blended Learning Materials for Uncertainty Analysis.”

Read more at Tech Today.

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2013 Outstanding SPS Chapter

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SPSThe Michigan Tech chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS) has been selected again as one of the Outstanding SPS Chapters. The recognition is based on chapter interaction with SPS national programs, the professional physics community, the campus community, and the public. The Michigan Tech chapter is part of Zone 09. SPS Chapter Awards are selected by Zone Councilors and Associate Zone Councilors of the SPS National Council.

Fewer than 10% of all SPS chapters are recognized as outstanding.

Michigan Tech’s SPS chapter was also recognized in the SPS National Council’s publication “Effective Practice” which provides tips and hints for SPS groups to be effective.

Society of Physics Student Chapter Honored

“This is the 4th consecutive year that the chapter has been named an outstanding, chapter,” said Associate Professor and SPS Advisor Will Cantrell (Physics). “Michigan Tech’s SPS chapter being named as an Outstanding Chapter is a testament to the work and enthusiasm of its members—not just now, but for the past several years.”

Read more at Tech Today, by Erika Vichcales.

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