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Physics TheoryNet Meeting, June 8, 2019 Room 218 Dana Building, Northeastern University MINUTES ——————— Attending: Brent Nelson — Northeastern University Scott Goelzer — Coe-Brown Northwood Academy Mike Wadness — Medford HS Ken Olum — Tufts University Russell Sears — Cohasset HS Regrets: Michael Hirsh — Needham HS Nancy Najmi — Reading Memorial HS Chris Siren — Groton-Dunstable Regional HS John Samperisi — Monadnock Regional HS Matthew Headrick — Brandeis University Elaine Picard — Concord-Carlisle HS Nivedi Das — Sharon HS George Odell — North Andover HS Richard Levergood — Londonderry HS Jesse Thaler — MIT Phiala Shanahan — MIT James Halverson — Northeastern University Liam Fitzpatrick — Boston University Jiji Fan — Brown University Per Berglund — University of New Hampshire Tomasz Taylor — Northeastern University Daniel Jafferis — Harvard University Matt Reece — Harvard University A. School Visits Mike Wadness (Medford). While not reporting on a class visit, we learned that a former student at Medford HS got to participate on the Event Horizon telescope collaboration, and was even made an author on a research paper. The
former student, now at UMass Boston, was a guest speaker who returned to describe the experience. He credited his interest in astronomy to programs like TheoryNet that bring in guest speakers. He also noted the importance of coding skills, in particular writing
code to analyze images Michael Hirsch (Needham). Jim Halverson came in May and met with an AP Physics class. He spoke about this background and research. Then — at student request — he lead a freewheeling discussion and Q & A session on string theory,
particles, black holes, and time travel. It was described by at least one student as “his best day in high school”. Russell Sears (Cohasset). Tom Taylor came to two classes of 30 each in November. Ken Olum (Tufts). Went to ReadingHS
to meet with Nancy Najmi’s classes. She had moved the 7:30am class to come join at a later time! The primary topic was gravitational waves — in fact an event was detected at LIGO just 12 hours after the presentation! Students seemed
to appreciate the “real time” nature of gravitational astronomy and event reporting by LIGO (and other observational experiments). Rick Dower (emeritus) gave us a cameo visit. He has an invitation to give a talk on x-ray astro/deliver workshops on particle physics in Cape Town. Rick extended a standing offer to come and talk to high schools about his involvement
in x-ray astronomy. ***************** B. Equipment: Scott Goelzer continues to be a Godsend for TheoryNet in terms of housing for our experimental equipment. The housing for the microwave experiment is now finished. In addition, the box for the bulky (and heavy!) Cavendish experiment
is complete and beautiful! Note that the replacement torsion ribbons for this experiment have been ordered and are now in our possession. For the Helmholtz oils, it turns out that the fuses were not the problem. A new power supply was purchased, and we hope to learn that this apparatus is back “on line:. The electron diffraction experiment is easy to use (I — a theorist — have used it often in my classes!) and the experiments associated with the apparatus are generally reliable and easy to perform. It was suggested that we purchase
another instance of this experiment, and we will look into this in the 19-20 academic year. ************************* C. Other Business: Discussion was had to consider strategies to deal with the overall declining attendance at meetings. There are many contributing issues, but Northeastern pledged to consider the opportunities to allow for virtual attendance at
meetings generally, and how we might even make certain meetings (such as the mid-year meeting in the snowy mid-Winter) fully virtual. It was decided to discuss this in greater length when more members are present, such as the next kick-off fall meeting. ********************** D. Next Meeting: The suggestion was to aim for 9/21 as the next TheoryNet meeting. Brent Nelson Northeastern University |