October 21 - October 27, 2001
      THE BOSTON AREA PHYSICS CALENDAR
The Boston Area Physics Calendar is published weekly during the academic year by the Department
of Physics at Northeastern University.  You may send your announcement by e-mail (bapc@neu.edu)
or FAX (617-373-2943).  We cannot accept announcements by telephone.  Entries should reach us
no later than 11:00 a.m. the Monday of the week proceeding the week of the event.  ENTRIES

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Laboratory for Nuclear Science
 Colloquium
 Monday, October 22nd
 4:15 PM
 Kolker Room, 26-414
 Michael Murray
 Texas A&M
"The Phase Space Density of Strangeness in Relativistic Heavy Ion 
Collisions"

Refreshments will be served at 4:00 PM

Monday, October 22, 2001, 2:00pm
(CANCELLED - DUE TO TRAVEL PROBLEMS)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Particle Theory Research Seminar
Center for Theoretical Physics, Building 6,
3rd Fl Seminar Room
"Quantum Phase Transitions and the Breakdown of Classical General Relativity"
Robert Laughlin
Stanford University
Refreshments served following the seminar
 
Monday, October 22, 2001, 2:30pm
(Note Special Date & Time)
Brown University
Condensed Matter Seminar
Barus & Holley 190
"Production of Phase transitions and topological defects by energetic particles in superfluid
3-He"
Professor Tony Leggett
University of Illinois
Host: Prof. Humphrey Maris
 
Monday, October 22, 2001, 4:15pm
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Nuclear and Particle Physics Colloquium
Kolker Room, 26-414
"The Phase Space Density of Strangeness in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions"
Michael Murray
Texas A&M
Refreshments will be served at 4:00pm
 
 
Monday, October 22, 2001, 4:30pm
Brown University
Barus & Holley 168
"What is Kelvin's Problem"
Professor Randall D. Kamien
University of Pennsylvania
Physics Department
Host: Professor Pelcovits
Refreshments served at 4:00pm
 
Monday, October 22, 2001, 4:30
Harvard University
Department of Physics Colloquium
Jefferson 250
"Micromanipulation Study of Physical Properties of DNA and Chromosomes"
Professor John Marko
University of Illinois
Tea will be served in Jefferson 450 at 4:00pm
 
 Monday, Oct 22nd, 3:00pm
Boston University
Particle and Fields Seminar
Physics Research Building 593
Measurement of Bottom Quark Production in Two-Photon Collisions
Sepehr Saremi
Louisiana State University

 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001 
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001 12 noon
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
String Lunch Club
Center for Theoretical Physics
Building 6, 3rd Floor Seminar Room
"Gravity Duals of Gauge Theories at Finite Temperature"
Carlos Nunez
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 12:00noon
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Seminar on Modern Optics and Spectroscopy
Grier Room (34-401)
"Tailoring Exciton Behavior in Organic Optoelectronic Devices"
Vladimir Boulovic
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Refreshments served following the seminar
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 2:30pm
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joint Tufts/CFA/MIT Cosmology Seminar
Center for Theoretical Phsics
Building 6, 3rd Floor Seminar Room
"Gravitational Radiation and the Fate of Small Scale Structure on Cosmic Strings"
Xavier Siemens
Tufts University
Refreshments served at 2:00pm
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001 2:45 pm
Harvard University
Experimental High Energy Physics Seminars
HEPL (42 Oxford St.) - 3rd Floor Conf. Room
"Recent CP violation results from BaBar"
Gabriella Sciolla - MIT
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 3:45pm
Boston University
Physic department colloquium
Metcalf Science Center, Room SCI 107
590 Commonwealth Avenue
"Unexpected Dynamical Complexity in Biomolecular Chemistry"
Professor Evan Evans
Biomedical Engineering, Boston University
& Physics and Pathology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Host:  Shyamsunder Erramilli (shyam@bu.edu)
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 4:00pm
Northeastern University
CIRCS Seminar, 114 DA
"Turning DNA  "Strings":  Controlling the Speed (and Direction) of Molecular Engines that
Replicate DNA"
Anita Goel
Harvard University and MIT and 
Harvard Medical School
Department of Physics, Division of Health, and Technology (HST)
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 4:00pm
Brandeis University
Martin Weiner Lecture Series, Physics Colloquium
Physics Building, Abelson 131
"First Physics Results from RHIC"
Michael Tannenbaum
Brookhaven National Lab.
Refreshments in room 333 at 3:30pm
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 4:00pm
Harvard University
CUA seminar
Jefferson 356
"Assorted Problems in the Theory of BEC"
Anthony Leggett
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
10 minute talk: 
"Contrast Interferometry With Bose-Einstein Condensates"
Subhadeep Gupta
 
Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 4:30pm
Boston University
School of Management Building, Room 414
595 Commonwealth Ave.
BU-Harvard-MIT Mathematical Physics Seminar
"QCD at Asymptotic Densities"
Frank Wilczek
MIT
 
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
 
Wednesday October 24, 3:00pm
Boston University
Particle and Fields Seminar
Physics Research Building 593
"New Neutrino Physics at Gran Sasso"
S. Bettini
INFN Gran Sasso
 
Wednesday, October 24, 2001, 4:00pm
Boston University
Special Joint ECE-Physics Colloquium
Photonics Center, 8 Saint Mary's Street
Room 206 
"Atom Optics with Coherent deBroglie Waves"
William D. Phillips
1997 Nobel Prize Laureate
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD
Refreshments will be offered in front of 
Room 206 at 3:30pm
 
Wednesday, October 24, 2001, 12 noon
Brandeis University
Condensed Matter Seminar
Physics Building, Room 333
"So Many Choices, So Little Time"
Professor Chen Zeng
George Washington University

Abstract: The energy landscape for disordered systems such as
fluxlines in dirty superconductors, spin glasses and proteins is
subtle due to many local minima. Searching for the ground-state
configurations over a huge phase space can be very time consuming.
For many models with complex landscapes, however, fast
combinatorial optimization algorithms can be used to find exact
ground states, to study the energetics of topological defects
(excitations), and even to design new Monte Carlo methods
without glassy slowing down at finite temperatures. Several
typical algorithms and their applications will be discussed.
 
 
 
Wednesday, October 24, 2001 4:15pm       
Boston College
Department of Physics Colloquium
Higgins Hall, Room 310
"Why is the high Tc problem so difficult? And some of the things that have been done about it."
Professor Andre-Marie Tremblay
U. Sherbrooke
Coffee served prior to colloquium in Higgins 230L
 
Wednesday, October 24, 2001, 4:30pm
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joint Theory Seminar
10-250 (note different room for seminar)
"Model Building with G_2"
Edward Witten
Institute for Advanced Study
Refreshments at 4pm in CTP seminar room
building 6, 3rd floor


Wednesday, October 24, 2001, 2:00PM
Massachusetts Instiutute of Technology
String Seminar
Center for Theoretical Physics
Building 6, Third Floor Seminar Room
``Supersymmetric Brane and Antibrace Configurations"
Andreas Karch
Harvard

 
Wednesday, October 24, 2001, 7:00pm
Museum of Science
The Wright Lectures on Cosmic Evolution
Cahners Theater
"The Onset of Civilization and Prospects for the Future"
Brian Fagan
Anthropologist
University of California, Santa Barbara
Mary Evelyn Tucker
Theologian and Ecologist
Bucknell University
 
Thursday, October 25, 2001
 
Thursday, October 25, 2001, 12:00noon
Harvard University
Condensed Matter Theory Seminar
Lyman 424
"Dynamical Mean Field Theory of Electronic structure calculations: applications to actinides,
and transition metals"
Professor Gabi Kotliar
Rutgers University
 
Harvard University
Duality Seminar
Thursday, October 25, 2001  4:15 PM
"Toric Duality = Seiberg Duality, An Etude on D-branes and Quivers"
Yang-Hui He (MIT)

Thursday, October 25, 2001, 4:00pm
Northeastern University
Physics Colloquium, 114 Dana
"Quantum Adiabatic Evolution and Other Algorithms"
Professor Sam Gutmann
Mathematics Department
Northeastern University
 
Thursday, October 25, 2001, 4:00pm
Brown University
Brown University Barus & Holley 190
"Measuring DNA Diffusion Through a Nanopore One Molecule at a Time"
Dr. Amit Meller
Rowland Institute for Science
Host:  Sean Ling
 
Thursday, October 25, 2001, 4:15pm
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT Colloquium Series
Room 10-250
"The Cosmic Infrared Background and SIRTF"
Ned Wright
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
University of California - Los Angeles
Refreshments available in room 4-339 from 3:00 - 4:00pm
 
Thursday, October 25, 2001, 7:30
New England Section, Optical Society of America (www.nesosa.org)
Shearaton Lexington Hotel, Route 2A at 128/95
"Quantum Holography"
Professor Bahaa Saleh
Boston University
Social Hour at 5:45, Dinner at 6:30
 
Friday, October 26, 2001
 
Friday, October 26, 2001, 3:00pm
Harvard University
Department of the History of Science
Joint Seminar for the History 
of 20th Century Science
Science Center 226
"What is the history of science?: A personal assessment"
Professor I. Bernard Cohen
Harvard University
 
Friday, October 26, 2001, 4:00pm
Harvard University
Condensed Matter Seminar
Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Pierce Hall, Room 209
"Heat Transfer and Convection Onset in a Compressible Fluid:  3He Near the Critical Point"
Professor Horst Meyer
Department of Physics, Duke University
Refreshments will be served following the seminar