Fall 2005

10/01/2005 | 1905: Einstein and Bern, A Year to Remember -- Thomas Zurbuchen (U-M Engineering)

One hundred years ago in a small apartment building in Bern, Switzerland, a patent clerk wrote five short articles that changed our understanding of the world. It is this amazing story that will be told in a novel audio-visual science show.  

10/08/2005 | Origins -- Martinus J.G. Veltman (U-M Physics)

Normally a scientist will not engage in speculations about the world around us and in particular not about the origin thereof. He will stick to reproducible facts, and try to produce definite verifiable predictions. That does not mean that he never thinks or fantasizes about it, indoors. In this lecture we will talk about such things.  

10/15/2005 | Special Relativity: Where Do Stretched Time & Squeezed Length Come From? -- Sarah Yost (U-M Physics)

These talks will explain Special Relativity and its consequences for high-energy astronomy, including apparently superluminal jets and intense gamma-ray flashes.

10/22/2005 | Observing Special Relativistic Effects Directly in Astronomy -- Sarah Yost (U-M Physics)

These talks will explain Special Relativity and its consequences for high-energy astronomy, including apparently superluminal jets and intense gamma-ray flashes.  

10/29/2005 | Gamma-Ray Bursts: Special Relativity in the Brightest Explosions -- Sarah Yost (U-M Physics)

These talks will explain Special Relativity and its consequences for high-energy astronomy, including apparently superluminal jets and intense gamma-ray flashes.  

11/05/2005 | Gone in 140 Nanoseconds: The Measurement of a Lifetime -- Richard Vallery (U-M Physics)

When they meet, matter and antimatter annihilate in a manner that reveals not only basic science but also provides practical application. The reality of antimatter is as rich as that presented in science fiction.  

11/12/2005 | A Better Future through Annihilation: Positrons in Materials Science -- Richard Vallery (U-M Physics)

When they meet, matter and antimatter annihilate in a manner that reveals not only basic science but also provides practical application. The reality of antimatter is as rich as that presented in science fiction.  

11/19/2005 | Matter Condensed: Science, Technology & Society -- James Allen (U-M Physics)

Through semiconductor nano-technology, condensed matter science has had a profound impact on society. Equally profound, it also provides elegant paradigms of the cooperative emergent phenomena that govern behaviors at all levels of complexity from atoms to societies.  

12/03/2005 | Matter Condensed: Science, Emergence & Society -- James Allen (U-M Physics)

Through semiconductor nano-technology, condensed matter science has had a profound impact on society. Equally profound, it also provides elegant paradigms of the cooperative emergent phenomena that govern behaviors at all levels of complexity from atoms to societies.