Tag: Physics

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The Most Famous Equation: What is E=mc2

E = mc^2

with Tucker Hiatt of Wonderfest, Bay Area Beacon of Science

Wednesday, January 31st, 2024 7:30 – 8:30 pm at Terra Linda High School’s Innovation Hub

Around the world, people recognize that E=mc^2 oozes cosmic insight. But what does this “most famous equation” really say? What are energy and mass? And what makes the speed of light, c, so important? [Hint: mass, moving at speed c, doesn’t turn into energy!] Using little more than common experience and middle-school math, Einstein’s “special relativity” gem can come to life — with surprising insights into the nature of reality.

This event is co-produced by Wonderfest and Marin Science Seminar. Our speaker is long-time physics teacher Tucker Hiatt, founding director of Wonderfest. Tucker has been a Visiting Scholar in the Stanford Chemistry Department, and is a recipient of the Amgen Award for Science Teaching Excellence.

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The Higgs Boson: 10 years after the discovery

with Miha Muškinja Ph.D. of Lawrence Berkeley Labs

Wednesday, March 1, 2023 7:30 – 8:30pm at Terra Linda High School’s Innovation Lab

July 4th is arguably America’s favorite holiday, but this year the date was also celebrated world-wide by the physics community because it marks the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Higgs boson. Miha Muškinja of Lawrence Berkeley Lab (and CERN) will explain what the Higgs boson is and how it was discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Switzerland. The LHC is the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, firing beams of protons around a 27 kilometers (17 miles) loop 100 meters (300 feet) underground. He will present how they measure the properties of the smallest particles with large and complex experiments and why it was important to start this scientific endeavor with over 10,000 physicists around the globe. Join us and learn!

The ATLAS experiment at CERN

Miha Muskinja is a postdoctoral researcher in physics at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. He has been working on the ATLAS experiment at the LHC since 2014. Until 2019 he lived near Geneva in Switzerland where the LHC is located at CERN, and later he moved to Berkeley, California. He specializes in analyzing the properties of the Higgs boson and also works on computing algorithms and infrastructure needed for processing the vast amount of data generated by the LHC. Miha is originally from Slovenia, where he obtained his PhD at University of Ljubljana. He is one of the main organizers of the ATLAS masterclass at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, where every year high school students attend a day-long program to experience the life at the forefront of basic research.

Miha Muškinja Ph.D. of Lawrence Berkeley Labs

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How Dangerous are Microwaves? with Warren Wiscombe PhD of NASA Goddard

Title: “How Dangerous are Microwaves? The physics behind non-ionizing radiation and a tale of two books titled Zapped” with Warren Wiscombe Ph.D. of NASA Goddard

Date: Wed. October 16th, 2019; 7:30 – 8:30 pm at Terra Linda HS in San Rafael, Room 207

Warren Wiscombe

Two books titled “Zapped” tell remarkably different stories, although both are about electromagnetic (em) radiation. One book, by a science journalist, tells a story based on 160 years of physics research on em radiation beginning with Faraday and Maxwell. The other cheerily recommends fear and loathing of em radiation based on cherrypicked factoids. In this talk, I wish to present the most basic facts in em radiation: what it is, how the energy of em radiation varies with wavelength, how em radiation interacts with matter, and the one over r-squared law. I also wish to discuss the real nature of science and how the same tactics that have been used to attack global warming science are used to attack a range of topics including nuclear power and em radiation. I will offer facts not fear, and will recommend, as the Greeks did, moderation in all things.

Bio: Warren Wiscombe got a BS in Physics from MIT and a PhD in Applied Math from Caltech. Starting in 1971, he spent his career working on radiative transfer aspects of climate, notably the interaction of sunlight with clouds and aerosols. From 1983 till retiring in 2013, he worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. His core background is in e.m. radiation spanning wavelengths from UV to radio.

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Facebook event: RSVP here

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AI, VR, & 3D: Amazing Applications for Understanding Physics – with David Levitt (9/25/19)

VR from Pantomime Corp.

Title: “AI, VR, & 3D: Amazing Applications for Understanding Physics” (plus learn about Swift mobile software development) with David Levitt of Pantomime Corp.

Date: Wed. September 25th, 2019; 7:30 – 8:30 pm at Terra Linda HS in San Rafael, Room 207

Dr. Levitt will present on augmented/virtual reality and Artifical Intelligence, and will show how 3D animation helps us visualize Einstein’s theory of gravity. He will also give a pep talk about becoming a self-taught Swift mobile software developer.

Dr. David Levitt

Dr. David Levitt is a cognitive scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, virtual and augmented reality innovator, mobile software developer, entrepreneur, physicist and writer. He was on the founding team of the MIT Media Laboratory, on the team at VPL Research that created the first commercial virtual reality systems, and he was a co-founder of Atari research laboratories. Levitt’s doctoral thesis ‘A Representation for Musical Dialects’ includes algorithms for classical and jazz composition and improvisation, such as piano arrangements in Fats Waller’s style. Levitt holds patents for inventions in virtual and augmented reality, and intelligent media processing software. He earned his doctorate in Artificial Intelligence at MIT and his BS in Engineering and Applied Science at Yale. Prof. Levitt has taught at MIT, NYU and SRJC.

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