• Upcoming comps presentations

    Will Taft
    Wednesday, February 23 2022
    8:30 am in Olin 141

    A Survey of Nuclear Engineering:  (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Atomic Power)
    As the only current carbon-free energy source capable of meeting grid demand, nuclear power can play a pivotal role in the future of the energy sector. However, despite an increasing discourse around climate change, the US nuclear industry has been stagnant for the past 30 years, largely due to public concerns around safety. In this talk, I seek to explain just how nuclear reactors work and, in particular, why nuclear power is more than just “playing with fire”. Our journey will take us through the important features of a reactor, investigating their purposes and revealing the complex web of considerations that govern their designs. At each stage, we will also build models of reactor operation to understand how engineers carefully balance safety and effectiveness in these behemoths.

    Lucas Demetriades
    Wednesday, February 23 2022
    3:10 pm on Zoom

    Sustainable Energy at Carleton College
    Anthropogenic climate change poses perhaps the single greatest existential threat to human civilization. The carbon-rich greenhouse gases emitted by the exploitation of conventional energy sources appear to be the driving factor behind Earth’s warming climate, thus necessitating an urgent shift to more sustainable practices. In pursuit of its commitment to campus-wide carbon neutrality by 2050, Carleton College is transitioning to the utilization of carbon-free energy resources such as wind power and geothermal energy. The College’s interdependent utility-grade wind turbine and district-scale geothermal energy systems provide the framework through which I will describe the physics of such renewable resources in my talk.  We’ll conclude with a look at how the educational opportunities afforded by this infrastructure provide fertile ground for future research in sustainable energy at the local scale.

    Mehdi Shahid
    Friday, February 25 2022
    3:30 pm in Olin 141

    Spinning Pixels: The Physics of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
    Medical imaging is a huge and growing interdisciplinary field. The applications of the underlying physics concepts have developed into useful and powerful imaging tools for physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. One such powerful imaging technique or modality is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). MRI offers high spatial resolution and excellent soft tissue contrast unlike any other imaging modality. This talk will examine the key underlying principle of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), and its application to construct an MR image. I will consider classical and quantum mechanical approaches to spinning charges in a magnetic field. MR-specific concepts such as tissue relaxation, image acquisition via gradient magnetic fields and image contrast will also be explored. Finally, I will discuss the physical realization of MRI via its hardware systems and the impact of MRI in society.

    Xinyan Xiang
    Monday, February 14 2022
    8:30 am  in Olin 141

    The Physics of Spin Glasses
    One half of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Giorgio Parisi for his discovery of the theory of disordered materials and random processes. Specifically, Parisi’s work has made outstanding contributions to the theory of spin glasses. Spin glasses, a category of disordered materials, not only help us understand the rigidity of glasses (which is a very hard question), but they also provide mathematical tools to analyze some interesting real-world problems, such as the Traveling Salesman Problem and airline scheduling. In this talk, I will discuss general features of spin glasses and key experiments that demonstrate the bizarre behavior of spin glasses, such as memory effects. I will also explain the beautiful theoretical models for spin glasses and introduce the relevant mathematical tool called the replica method. Lastly, I will briefly describe how the concepts of spin glasses connect to other fields, including computer science and biology.

  • Want to work in the department during Spring Term?

    If you are interested, fill out the work interest survey ASAP!  Please do so by Tuesday, March 1st, so Trenne can put a schedule together before spring break.

  • Summer internships with Homeland Security

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary’s Honors Program (SHP) is offering summer paid internship opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students in cybersecurity.

  • PhD Scholarships – Statistics and Gravitational Wave Science 

    The NZ Astrostatistics and General Relativity Working Group (NZ Gravity) is coordinating applications for several PhD scholarships within an interdisciplinary team to work on gravitational wave astronomy and statistical data…

  • Talk at St. Olaf

    Wednesday, February 23
    Physics Seminar: Physics in Industry: Transitioning from academia into a successful career in semiconductor manufacturing.
    Dr. Mark Wilson, Engineering manager within the Yield Department and Intel Corp
    3:00 pm, RNS 210

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