Physics and Astronomy
Radiations

January 19-25, 1998

* MARK YOUR CALENDAR *

Tuesday, January 20

noon-1:30 p.m.
Commercial Tea Room

Physics Table: We have reserved the CTR for an hour and a half on Tuesdays this term, so that people can come for lunch as their schedules allow. Hope you can make it!

Friday, January 23

3:30-4:30 p.m.
Olin 101

Guest Physics Speaker: Guest speaker Bryan Suits will give a talk entitled "NQR Detection of Explosives: Fighting Terrorism with the Harmonic Oscillator" at 3:30 in Olin 02. See below for details.

* FYI *

And the winner is...John Weiss for his entry "Radiations" which was chosen by the faculty in a tight race during Wednesday's department meeting. Thanks to all who entered the contest, and I hope our jazzy new name and color (what do you think of it?) will entice a greater number of you to look this over before recycling!

Guest Physics Speaker: Bryan Suits (Carleton Physics `77), of the Michigan Technological University, will give a talk entitled, "NQR Detection of Explosives: Fighting Terrorism with the Harmonic Oscillator" on Friday afternoon at 3:30 in Olin 02. Here's the abstract of the talk: "Unfortunately, terrorism is a fact of life. The development of more effective explosive detection systems is one way to help deter its practice. One new detection system being developed is based on the use of Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR), a close relative of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). For the quantities of materials of interest, the signals detected using NQR can be relatively weak compared to thermal noise, and techniques need to be developed to enhance detectability. This talk will describe one way to do this based on an adaptation of the physics of highly sensitive resonant acoustic sensors, developed to detect gravity waves, to Faraday detection of weak radio-frequency magnetic fields."

WhIMS (Women in Math and Science) is an organization of women and men who are interested in issues concerning women in math and science fields. We meet every Monday over dinner in the CTR in Burton Dining hall at 5:30, anyone is welcome to join us. We also do service projects like

BROWNIE SCIENCE DAY!!!!

On the order of 150 girl scouts from 3rd to 6th grade are coming to Carleton on Saturday, January 24th. That's a WHOLE LOT of girls, whom we are going to teach about Physics, Chemistry and Biology. We need your help! We need helpers for labs, snack time, and for helping the girl scouts get where they need to be. It'll be a fun and rewarding experience. There are 2 time slots, 11:30-2 and 2:30 -5. And we'd love it if you could help with either or (especially) both times.

If you want to help with Biology, please email Azra Babar at Babara.

If you want to help with Chemistry and Physics, please email Kristina Visscher at Visschek.

If you aren't sure which you'd like to help with, or want to do snack time or help get the girl scouts from activity to activity, please email Visschek.

* SUMMER INTERNSHIPS *

Summer Research in Experimental, and Theoretical Atomic Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, and High Energy Physics at Kansas State University. For juniors and exceptional sophomores. Deadline is March 16. For more info, see the bulletin board or check out the web site: http://www.phys.ksu.edu/reu/

Undergraduate Research in Physics and Engineering, Summer 1998, Hope College. Open to all students. Deadline is March 2. For more info, see the bulletin board or check out the web site: http://www.hope.edu/academics/physics.

National Undergraduate Summer Research in Plasma Physics and Fusion Engineering at the Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory. Open to juniors and exceptional sophomores. Deadline is February 6. For more info, see the bulletin board and green filing cabinet.

Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Lasers and Optics at CREOL (The Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers, University of Central Florida). Students background needed: two semesters of physics and calculus. Deadline is March 7. For more info, see the bulletin board or check out the web page: http://www.creol.ucf.edu.

Summer Research in Astronomy at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff Arizona. No restriction. Deadline is February 1. For more info, see the bulletin board or check out the web page at http://nuro.phy.nau.edu/proj/reu.html.

Remember, all of these internships and more are listed with pertinent information on our website at http://physics.carleton.edu/