Physics News from the AIP No 2, Term 1 2005 s6

Physics News from the AIP Term 4, No 5, 2009

Table of Contents

1. Unit 4 Exam: What do you think?

2. Medical Physics In-Service at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Saturday 5th Dec

3. Alice & Bob in Wonderland (from the Perimeter Institute)

4. Quantum to Cosmos Festival: Video on Demand (from the Perimeter Institute)

5. Forthcoming events for: Students and the General Public *

a) The Origins of Galaxies, 18th November, 6:30pm, Swinburne University.

b) Engineers without Borders: Appropriate Technology Expo, Friday 27th November, Melbourne University (Senior students who have finished school are welcome unaccompanied)

6. Forthcoming events for Teachers *

a) AIP Vic Branch Meeting: Parity and time reversal violation in atoms and nuclei and search for physics beyond the Standard Model, 6:30pm, Thursday, 19th November, University of Melbourne

b) Ecolinc VCE Physics/Environmental Science Professional Learning Day, Monday 7th December

7. Physics News from the Web

a) Special relativity passes key test

b) Dark-matter paper raises questions over data sharing. Is it unfair that NASA data is made immediately available to all?

c) Colliding Particles: Short films to get you ready for the switch-on of the Large Hadron Collider

* Events listed for the first time are in bold with details below. The details of the other events can be found on our website at www.vicphysics.org/forthcomingevents.html or in previous newsletters at www.vicphysics.org/news.html

This newsletter is compiled by the Australian Institute of Physics (Victorian Branch) Education Committee.

This year the AIP Education Committee meets at Camberwell High School normally on the second Tuesday of the month from 5pm – 7pm, the date of the next meeting is Tuesday, 1st December. All teachers are welcome to attend this or any other meeting, if you would like to attend, please contact the chair, Sue Grant at .

1. Unit 4 Exam: What do you think?

The Forum section of our website, www.vicphysics.org , has a section for you to express your thoughts on the Physics Exams. The AIP Education Committee considers these when it is preparing its detailed question by question review, which it forwards to VCAA.

To make a comment just go to the “Forum” section and select “Comments on VCE Exams” then the thread for “Nov 2009”. If you have never used the Forum before, you will need to register and nominate a password. An email will be very shortly sent to you confirming your registration.

2. Medical Physics In-Service at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Saturday 5th Dec

Participants will hear from practitioners in the field as well as see the medical technology. The in-service will run from 10:30am until 12:30. There is no cost, but you must register as there is a limit of 20 participants.

The program will feature a one hour talk on:

· the physics aspects of the effect of radiation on the human body and of the medical technology at Peter Mac,

· how the technology is used in diagnosis and treatment, as well as

· information on the training and career paths associated with medical physics.

The second hour will be an extensive tour of the facilities at Peter Mac.

Teachers can register by sending their name, school and phone/fax/email details to the Australian Institute of Physics (Victorian Branch) Education Committee at or PO Box 304, Glen Waverley, VIC 3150. If you are registering by email the subject of your email should read “Booking: Peter Mac In-Service”, otherwise your email may be missed.

In recent years at the end of the in-service, some participants have adjourned to the restaurant in the Fitzroy Gardens opposite Peter Mac for a light lunch. If you are interested in coming to lunch, please include this in your registration.

3. Alice & Bob in Wonderland (from the Perimeter Institute)

Sixty-second chalk cartoons pose some really big science questions that help spark discussion, imagination and inquiry. Questions include: Why doesn’t the moon fall down?, Is that star really there?, Can we travel through time?, How does a flashlight work?, Where does energy come from?, How can atoms exist?, Why is it dark at night?, What keeps us stuck to the earth?, What can’t we walk through walls?

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Outreach/Alice_and_Bob_in_Wonderland/Alice_and_Bob_in_Wonderland/

4. Quantum to Cosmos Festival Video on Demand (from the Perimeter Institute)

Full length talks and panel discussions from the recent Festival at the Perimeter Institute in Toronto.

http://www.q2cfestival.com/schedule

31 Videos are available including:

Quantum to Cosmos : 9 physicists discuss what lies ahead in physics, from the Quantum to the Cosmos.

Quantifying Goethe : Performers: Penderecki String Quartet, Roman Borys, cello, Dancetheatre David Earl Quantifying Goethe presents an evening of music examining the influence of Wolfgang von Goethe on literature, music, and science. The program features the world premiere of award-winning composer Kotoka Suzuki s Quantum Quartet for the Penderecki String Quartet, plus interactive video, dancers, and a quantum computer.

Everyday Uses for Quantum Processors: Quantum computers hold the promise to revolutionize the way we secure information, compute and understand the quantum world. Although general-purpose quantum computers appear to be a long way off, we do have good test-beds of small quantum processors. One of the most versatile quantum test-beds is nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR): a version of which is familiar to many in the guise of the medical imaging modality, MRI. In fact NMR has broad importance to society: it is used in drug discovery, in oil exploration and to monitor the processing of cheese and chocolate. We will introduce NMR, show how it helps us understand quantum computing and we will look at how concepts based on quantum computing can improve NMR applications.

9 Billion People + 1 Planet = ? This discussion explores the promise and perils of the next 50 years. Can humanity, heading toward a population of approximately 9 billion, advance economically without overheating the planet? Can food and water supplies be sustained without erasing what's left of wild nature?

The Physics of Innovation: Where does technology come from? Physics! Exploring basic mysteries such as "What is light?", "How can atoms exist?", and "What is space and time?" led to computers, wireless communication, mp3 players, lasers, medical imaging - indeed, virtually every "high tech" device on the planet. Join us in a celebration of the immense power of theoretical physics to transform our world for the betterment of humanity, and learn how current theoretical explorations may hold potential for even more fantastic innovations in the future.

Quantum Physics in Sixty Minutes: Along with neuroscience and rocket science, it has a reputation of being abstract, inpenetrable and horrendously complicated. Even Einstein himself struggled to get his head around it. But, there’s hope! Using references from movies, books and art, this presentation will guide you through the quantum world and give an overview of science’s best theory of the subatomic world to date. Prepare yourself for a mind-bending journey.

The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time One of the most obvious facts about the universe is that the past is different from the future. We can turn an egg into an omelet, but can't turn an omelet into an egg. Physicists have codified this difference into the Second Law of Thermodynamics: the entropy of a closed system always increases with time. But why? The ultimate explanation is to be found in cosmology: special conditions in the early universe are responsible for the arrow of time. This talk will be about the nature of time, the origin of entropy, and how what happened before the Big Bang may be responsible for the arrow of time we observe today.

5. Forthcoming events for Students and General Public

The details of these events can be found on our website at www.vicphysics.org/forthcomingevents.html

6. Forthcoming Events for Teachers

a) AIP Vic Branch Meeting: Parity and time reversal violation in atoms and nuclei and search for physics beyond the Standard Model, 6:30pm, Thursday, 19th November, University of Melbourne

Professor Victor V. Flambaum (School of Physics, The University of New South Wales) at Hercus Theatre, David Caro (Physics) Building , University of Melbourne

(Refreshments provided from 6:00 pm prior to the talk).

7. Physics News from the Web

Items selected from the bulletins of the IOP and the American Institute of Physics.

a) Special relativity passes key test

b) Dark-matter paper raises questions over data sharing. Is it unfair that NASA data is made immediately available to all?

c) Colliding Particles: Short films to get you ready for the switch-on of the Large Hadron Collider

a) Special relativity passes key test

Lorentz invariance holds at the Planck length

http://physicsworld.com/cws/m/1532/92939/article/news/40834

Scientists studying radiation from a distant gamma-ray burst have found that the speed of light does not vary with wavelength down to distance scales below that of the Planck length. They say that this disfavours certain theories of quantum gravity that postulate the violation of Lorentz invariance. The article has a link to an in-depth article on Lorentz symmetry.

b) Dark-matter paper raises questions over data sharing

Is it unfair that NASA data is made immediately available to all?

http://physicsworld.com/cws/m/1532/92939/article/news/40846

A preprint that uses NASA data to claim “possible evidence” for dark matter has led some researchers to question the US space agency’s data-sharing policies.

The preprint, which was uploaded to the ‘ArXiv’ internet server earlier this month by physicists Lisa Goodenough of New York University and Dan Hooper of Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois, makes the claim by matching a theoretical model of dark matter to freely available data from NASA’s Fermi gamma-ray telescope. But with an official analysis of the same data yet to be published, some scientists have pointed out that, depending on the validity of the evidence, the preprint will either cause confusion or steal glory from the Fermi team.

“If this turns out to be the first convincing discovery, it will become known as the Goodenough and Hooper discovery,” says Alex Murphy, a physicist at the University of Edinburgh who works on Europe’s ZEPLIN III dark matter experiment. “Publicity-wise, that’s a catastrophe.

c) Colliding Particles: Short films to get you ready for the switch-on of the Large Hadron Collider

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/40820

So what is the site about?

Colliding Particles is a series of short films chronicling what it is like to be a physicist at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Each instalment of the series focuses on a different aspect of life as a full-time Higgs-hunter, while also (loosely) following the progress of a single team of researchers. The first episode was filmed before the LHC's gala launch on 10 September 2008, and it introduces a few basic ideas about the collider and the Higgs boson. Later episodes explore the media hype on "Big Bang Day", scientific conferences, problems with the collider and why the LHC is worth its multibillion-Euro price tag.