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Assistant Professor of Physics Natalia Connolly was recently named the recipient of a $15,000 research grant from the Hubble Space Telescope Cycle E/PO Grant Program. Connolly’s grant is a companion grant to a research program on the phenomenon of strong-lensing, a program for which Connolly is co-investigator.

Ken Bart, Brian Collett and Phil Pearle (together with three coauthors from the University of Montana) published a paper in the American Journal of Physics in December (Vol. 78, pp. 1278-1289) titled "What Brown saw and you can too." In addition, they have launched a more detailed website. Bart is director of the Microscopy and Imaging Facility and Collett and Pearle are professors of physics.

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.