Category: News

Spacetime Brew in Michigan Tech Research Magazine 2013

Space Time BrewSpacetime: A Smoother Brew Than We Knew

Spacetime may be less like beer and more like cognac. Or so an intergalactic photo finish would suggest. Michigan Tech physicist Robert Nemiroff reached this heady conclusion after studying the tracings of three photons of differing wavelengths recorded by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in May 2009.

Read more in Michigan Tech Research Magazine, by Marcia Goodrich.

Kantamneni, Gurganus, Beals, Yapici, Hao and Savailkar at GRC 2013

Graduate students in Physics will be giving poster and oral presentations at the Graduate Research Colloquium 2013. Their presentations will take place on the second day of the colloquium, February 22, 2013, in the MUB Ballrooms A & B. Presenters, abstracts, and schedules are posted on the Graduate Student Government website.

Day 2 Feb 22 Poster Presentations 10am-12pm
Abhilash Kantamneni

Day 2 Feb 22 Oral Presentations 1:00pm to 3:00 pm
Colin Gurganus
Matthew Beals
Tolga Yapici
Boyi Hao
Madhusudan Savaikar

GRC Awards Banquet 2013

A night of food and festivity to celebrate the best of Michigan Tech in research, scholarship and service.

View the gallery on the GSG Facebook page.

Nemiroff on the Not-There Universe

Dark MatterThe Discover blog “Out There” features Professor Robert Nemiroff’s (Physics) research on the nature of spacetime. In “Dispatches from AAS: The Not-There Universe,” editor Corey Powell writes about three discoveries that are remarkable for what they did not find and quotes Nemiroff as saying “perhaps the golden age of cosmology is not over just yet. There may be more discoveries out there.”

Special for classic rock fans: Powell draws a parallel with the 1960s Zombies hit “She’s Not There.”

From Tech Today.

Dispatches from AAS: The Not-There Universe

Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity implies that space should be smooth at very small distances, just as it is smooth at the distances we experience. Some newer theories, which attempt to go beyond relativity, suggest otherwise: They predict that sub-subatomic space is a froth of unseen particles and energy. Nemiroff figured out a way to see who is right. He tracked gamma rays—radiation that is like light but much more energetic—from an exploding star roughly 7 billion light years from Earth, and looked for signs that they had scattered off any frothy space along the way. He found none. For the umpteenth time, a challenge to Einstein has failed.

Read more at Discover Magazine, by Corey S. Powell.

First-principles Study of Bio-conjugated Ultra-thin Silicon Nanowires: Interaction with a PNA-RNA Double Helix

Physics Colloquium
Michigan Technological University
Thursday, January 31, 2013
4:00 pm
Room 139 Fisher Hall
First-principles Study of Bio-conjugated Ultra-thin Silicon Nanowires:
Interaction with a PNA-RNA Double Helix
Xiaoliang Zhong
PhD Physics Graduate Student
Advisor: Ravindra Pandey
Physics Department
Michigan Tech University

View the PDF Document