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Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connolly gave an invited talk at the fall meeting of the Astronomical Society of New York (ASNY) on Oct. 23, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

"Shape in an atom of space," a paper by Associate Professor of Physics Seth Major, was published in Classical and Quantum Gravity on Oct. 20. This paper, completed while visiting the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada, develops a model of how the discrete microstructure of space ( if one exists!) might leave its imprint in data from high energy particle scattering experiments.

The annual James S. Plant Lecture series continued on Sept. 20 with Dr. Steven H. Strogatz,  the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. His talk at Hamilton, titled “Getting in Sync,” focused on the nature of synchronization and what it means for our bodies, our politics, and our solar system.

In researching and experimenting with magnetic properties, scientists use beams of neutrons with all the same spin. They ensure that the neutrons are all polarized the same way with the help of an apparatus called a helium-3 polarizer. Jake Zappala ’12 is engineering a helium-3 polarizer test system for researching the diagnostic tools used in the polarization process.

Four main forces govern the behavior of all matter in the world around us: gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear. Physicists believe that, at large enough energies, these four forces can be described by a single theory rather than four separate theories. Working for his second summer under Professor of Physics Brian Collett and Professor of Physics Gordon Jones, Edward Lamere ’11 is working on a project to increase the accuracy of an experiment that links the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces called aCORN.

Sitting in front of a computer screen, scientists spend hours staring at satellite images of outer space, searching for exploding supernovae. But surprisingly, visual identification is the main way that astronomical laboratories identify supernovae. Led by Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connolly, Ileana Becerra ’11, Anne Vilsoet ’11 and Will Eagan ’11 are creating a smarter computer program that will more reliably detect supernovae in satellite images.

To the average person, chaos is a concept that lacks any form of organization or order. In everyday language, chaos can mean disaster, tumult or lawlessness. But to a physicist, chaos is just another form of complex behavior. This summer, Leonard Teng ’12 is working to perfect an apparatus developed by Litchfield Professor of Physics Peter Millet and Director of Laboratories/Head Technician Jim Schreve that allows the user to better calculate and demonstrate the properties of chaotic motion.

Standing in the dark lab, Sarah Fobes ’12 and Zane Glauber ’12 flip the switch to turn on their laser. In the blink of an eye, the tiny glass sample that they had labored over glows a radioactive green—with any luck, a brighter green than the last one they illuminated. Working with Professor of Physics Ann Silversmith, Fobes and Glauber are spending the summer experimenting with different aspects of glass formation to make it fluoresce (or glow) more brightly, with the indirect consequence of being able to make a better laser.

Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connolly has been granted observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) during its “Cycle 18,” which runs from Sept. 1, 2010, through Aug. 31, 2011. HST cycles are time periods during which research projects, selected in a highly competitive peer review process, are executed. Fewer than one-third of all research proposals are accepted. Cycle 18 will have about 3,000 HST orbits available to researchers.

A group of four Hamilton faculty members has been awarded a grant of $177,950 through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program to fund a shared-use state of the art computing cluster. The project, titled "MRI-R2: Acquisition of a High Performance Computing cluster with a fast interconnect to enable shared-use, college-wide computational investigations at Hamilton College” is led by Assistant Professor of Chemistry Adam Van Wynsberghe as principal investigator with Assistant Professor of Biology Wei-Jen Chang, Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connolly, and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Nathan Goodale contributing as co-principal investigators.