Students research selected topics in Physics using the library and internet resources in order to prepare one class period length oral presentation to the class. The style of the talk is intended to simulate presentations at Physics departmental Colloquia, corporate seminars and professional meetings. A short written abstract (summary) of the talk is required. The abstract should include a complete bibliography using the "Physical Review" style. The text portion of the abstract should be no longer than two full pages.
Each student will prepare and give one long (40 to 45 minute) talk. This talk must not duplicate the topic chosen by another student.
Students are expected to practice critical listening skills by being attentive audience members for both fellow student presentations and departmental invited speakers at the Thursday Colloquium. They complete evaluation forms for each speech.
Scheduled Meetings |
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| Tuesday & Thursday |
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| Thursday |
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Actual class meetings depend on speaker schedules. The first meeting was Tuesday, March 7, 2000.
Speaker Schedule |
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| Thursday, Mar 9 | Richard Brown, MTU Chemistry Dept | "Electronic Structure & Stabilities of Symmetric Gas Phase Anion Clusters of HF" |
| Thursday, Mar 16 | Jeffrey Skolnick, Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, MO | "Prediction of Protein Structure & Function on a Genomic Scale" |
| Thursday, Mar 23 | Michael Wertheim, MTU Physics Dept | "Fluids of Hard Convex Molecules" |
| Thursday, Mar 30 | A. Miner | "Magnetic Relaxation in High-Temp. Superconductors" |
| Thursday, Mar 30 | William H. Cooke, MTU BioMed Engr Dept | "Frequency Domain Analyses Explore Human Cardiovascular Responses to Microgravity" |
| Tuesday, Apr 4 | C. Rohde | "A Monte Carlo Approch to 3D-Radative Transfer of Comlex Terrain" |
| Thursday, Apr 6 | M. Wyman | "Physics and Clouds" |
| Thursday, Apr 6 | Shura A. Hayryan, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan | "The Helix-Coil Transition in Biopolymers. The Microscopical View" |
| Tuesday, Apr 11 | K. Moss | "Survey of Neural Network Simulation of Physical Systems" |
| Thursday, Apr 13 | J. Karpus | "Vortices in Bose-Einstein Condensates" |
| Thursday, Apr 13 | Christodoulos A. Floudas, Princeton U | "Structure Prediction in Computational Chemistry & Molecular Biology" |
| Tuesday, Apr 18 | D. Oros | "Quantum Mechanics Applied To Astrophysics" |
| Thursday, Apr 20 | No 11am class meeting | |
| Thursday, Apr 20 | Constantino Tsallis, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | "When Is Boltzmann-Gibbs Statistical Mechanics Valid?" |
| Tuesday, Apr 25 | K. Landmark | "Exploration of Roughening, Phase Transitions, & Monte Carlo" |
| Thursday, Apr 27 | P. Schury | "Search for Higgs Boson" |
| Thursday, Apr 27 | John A. J. Matthews, U of New Mexico | "The Dark Side of Cosmic Rays" |
| Tuesday, May 2 | J. Holmlund | "Spiral Structure in Galaxies" |
| Thursday, May 4 | M. Stanich | "The physics of skiing" |
| Thursday, May 4 | Robert Swendsen, Carnegie-Mellon U | "Transition Matrix Monte Carlo Simulations" |
| Thursday, May 11 | Christ Ftaclas, MTU Physics Dept | |