Radiations

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Carleton College

OCTOBER 2-8, 2005

October 5 (Wednesday) Ben Diehl, 3:10-3:40, Olin 02

Ben will talk about his summer research. The title of Ben’s talk is

“Western Boundary Current Separation Studies: Modeling at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab at the University of Rhode Island”.

October 6 (Thursday) Physics Table, 12:00-1:00 pm, LDC 113

Plan to have lunch with Physics students and staff at the LDC at noon. We can meet on 3^rd Olin at 11:55 for the short walk to the dining hall or you can meet us there. All are welcome.

October 7 (Friday) Carl Tape, 1:10-2:10, Mudd 66

Carl graduated from Carleton in 2001 with a dual major in physics and geology.

He is currently working at the Seismology Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. The title of his talk is

“Global Seismology, from the Great Sumatra Earthquake to the Mantle”

Seismology is the most powerful tool for imaging the three-dimensional

(3-D) structure of the Earth's interior. Seismic waves from earthquakes are recorded at stations on the Earth's surface, and this information is then used to determine the variations in the structure through which the waves propagated. The success of this process, known as seismic tomography, relies upon the quality of the numerical model for computing the seismic wavefield. We use the spectral element method in a parallelized code to simulate seismic wave propagation to unprecedented accuracy. I will show how this method was instrumental in modeling the M=9.2 Sumatra earthquake, and how it will ultimately be used in imaging the finer scale structure within the Earth's interior.

October 7 (Friday) Physics Department Picnic, 4:00-8:00pm, Hill of Three Oaks. This promises to be an excellent time in good company. The picnic will be rescheduled if it rains.

October 7 (Friday) Goodsell Observatory Open House, 8pm-10pm.

The Open House will be held if skies are clear. View stars, nebulas, and planets. Dress warmly! Cancelled if cloudy.

FYI:

All Science and Math Sigma Xi Poster Session is scheduled for Friday, October 21 from 3:30-4:30 in Hulings Atrium. Students who did summer research at Carleton or elsewhere will be presenting their results in poster format. Please come support them! You are welcome to come and go over the hour. Everyone is strongly encouraged to attend and talk with some of the presenters about their projects. You'll learn a lot of new and interesting science and math.

If you did research somewhere last summer (at Carleton or elsewhere), please consider presenting a poster. In many cases, students use a poster that that is already prepared. If you did summer research at Carleton last summer, please talk to your summer research advisor if you need advice about (or funds for) making your poster. If you do present, please show up 10-15 minutes early and find a place to mount your poster. Your poster can be up to 42" tall and 4-5' wide. Supplies for attaching your poster to easels will be provided in Hulings.

Co-sponsored by Sigma Xi and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant to Carleton.

Personal tutors are needed for introductory and intermediate physics classes. If you would like to be a tutor, contact Arjendu Pattanayak at apattana@carleton.edu or stop by his office, Olin 337.

The American Association of Physics Teachers has created a great resource for graduating seniors interested in a teaching position or other careers in physics. Visit the AAPT Online Career Center at www.aapt.org/careers.

Roger Johnston, a Physics Alum from 20 years ago who works at Los Alamos Labs in New Mexico sent the following message:

Got any good students interested in working on physical security R&D for a term, summer, or year (including before grad school or a permanent job)? I should have an opening or two. Experience/interest in electronics would be useful. If you're interested or would like more information, contact Roger at 2GHZ@comcast.net.

Ray Bunkofske a Carleton alum who works for Intel also contacted us about two positions that he has open for one intern and one permanent job. The FDC intern position is located in Hillsboro, OR (a Portland suburb) at Intel’s microprocessor manufacturing facility.  Here bare silicon wafers are taken and processed to transform them into state of the art microprocessors to power some of the world’s most innovative computer systems.  Manufacturing semiconductor microprocessors is a very complicated and data intensive task requiring a high degree of sophistication in both the manufacturing methods and analysis of the data generated during the many process steps involved.  This internship will involve developing a basic understanding of the processes involved, taking data collecting during those processes and comparing it to product performance results to determine the best ways to detect any process excursions and build mathematical models to detect these excursions as well as determine what effect they have on the ultimate quality of the product.  The basic requirements for this work would be a background in chemistry, chemical engineering, material science or physics as well as a working familiarity with statistical methods and comparison techniques.  Having experience with projection methods such as PCA / PLS or machine learning techniques (CART, gradient boosting trees) would be a definite advantage. The career center has the information as well. Ray is targeting the week of 10/24 to be at Carleton on a Midwest recruiting trip.

If you are interested in this sort of work and believe you match these qualifications please send your résumé to Ray Bunkofske at Intel Corporation through the campus career center.  If you have any questions Ray can be contacted at: 971-214-1113.

The deadline for materials to be included in Radiations is noon Thursday prior to the week you would like the information to appear. Contact mdrew@carleton.edu if you want to be added or removed from this mailing list.