Fall 2020

10/03/2020 | Exploring Titan with Dragonfly! -- Ann Parson (NASA)

NASA has recently selected the Dragonfly Mission to study the surface chemistry of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan! Dragonfly will land on Titan and then fly to dozens of different locations over its surface to study its prebiotic chemistry and to look for potential biosignatures.

10/10/2020 | The Degree of Fine-Tuning in our Universe and Others -- Fred Adams (U-M Physics)

The fundamental constants of nature must fall within a range of values in order for the universe to develop structure and ultimately support life. The relevant parameters include the strengths of the fundamental forces, particle masses, cosmic energy densities, abundances of ordinary matter and dark matter, and the amplitude of primordial density fluctuations. This talk considers current constraints on these quantities and assesses the degree of tuning required for the universe to be viable.

10/17/2020 | Propulsion and Energy Harvesting Concepts -- Julie Young (U-M Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering)

Some of the topics covered in this talk include, how can we design smart marine propulsion and energy harvesting devices to keep our oceans blue? What are the interesting physics fundamentals that govern how bodies move in water? How can we take advantage of advances in materials, manufacturing, sensing, and control?

11/14/2020 | The Light Fantastic -- Alec Thomas (U-M Physics and NERS)

Since the invention of Chirped Pulse Amplification (Strickland and Mourou, Physics Nobel 2018), lasers have become increasingly powerful by squeezing energy into inconceivably short pulses. The pulses of intense light produced by these lasers, such as the new ZEUS facility being constructed at U-M, can generate precision beams of high energy particles for new technologies, produce the conditions of extreme astrophysical environments in the laboratory and create matter from (almost) nothing.