Winter 2023

01/14/2023 | NASA Astronaut and Physicist Josh Cassada Live from the International Space Station -- Josh Cassada (NASA)

Josh Cassada will answer questions live from the International Space Station, and commentary will be provided by ​former NASA engineer John Foster, U-M Applied Physics Alumnus and Professor of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences and Professor of Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering.  

02/11/2023 | The Transition to Renewable Energy: Truth and Consequences -- Adam Simon (U-M Earth & Environmental Sciences Director, Michigan Research adn Discovery Scholars)

There is growing support for the transition from a global energy infrastructure dependent on coal, natural gas, and oil to one entirely reliant on a combination of battery electric vehicles, photovoltaic solar, wind turbines, and grid-scale battery storage. Manufacturing and deploying these renewable energy resources requires dozens of natural resources, including copper, lithium, nickel, tellurium, cobalt, indium, tin, chromium, and many, many others. Where do these resources come from? Is there enough? Will they be available on the timescale we need? What are the economic constraints on their availability? What are the environmental permitting constraints on the timeframe for production and delivery to market? What are the political constraints on their availability? Please join me for a presentation where I answer these questions and more.

03/11/2023 | Physics Goes BOOM: Energy in Action! -- Nicholas Arnold, Conor Heaney, and Monika Wood (U-M Physics Demonstration Lab)

Energy takes many forms: electrical, chemical, heat, sound, light… With selections from the famous University of Michigan Warren M. Smith Demolab and audience participation, we will explore how energy changes form to impact our lives every day.

03/18/2023 | UN/EARTH - Science and Art from a Mile Underground -- Gina Gibson (Black Hills State University) and Bjoern Penning (U-M Physics)

Located in the former Homestake gold mine in Lead, South Dakota, the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) houses experiments that give us a better understanding of the universe. The location—one mile underground—provides a near-perfect environment for experiments that need to escape the constant bombardment of cosmic radiation, which can interfere with the detection of rare physics events. Built in collaboration with University of Michigan Professor Bjoern Penning, LUX-Zeplin is the world’s most sensitive dark matter experiment. SURF also hosts experiments in biology, geology, and engineering. In 2019 Gina Gibson became the first artist in residence at SURF. In this special presentation, Bjoern Penning will introduce the LUX-Zeplin experiment, and Gina Gibson will describe her creations that celebrate research deep below the earth’s surface discovering beauty in the old and new, the light and dark, and the known and unknown.

03/25/2023 | The Van Loo Family Graduate Student Presentations -- Blake Hipsley (U-M Physics) and Larissa Markwardt (U-M Astronomy)

Graduate student presentations by two U-M PhD candidates.

04/01/2023 | Quantum Tools to Explore the Universe...and Help Life on Earth -- Ronald Walsworth (University of Maryland)

Scientists exploit the special properties of quantum physics to advance the state-of-the-art in measurement and imaging. These "quantum tools" can be used to probe the nature, history, and fate of the Universe–and can also be applied to down-to-Earth problems, ranging from health to security to navigation. I will describe some examples that have emerged from my laboratory and others over the last couple of decades.

04/15/2023 | The History of the Mystery of Spin: In Celebration of Homer A. Neal -- Aaron Pierce (U-M Physics)

Join us for a special lecture to learn about the key contributions of Homer A. Neal and Michigan physicists to the discovery and elucidation of spin physics in the quantum world. This lecture celebrates the Homer A. Neal Physics Research Laboratory.