 |
|
Department of Physics
|
|
|
Department News
|
|
2005 News |
December 13, 2006
UT ARLINGTON
TODAY
KTVT CBS-11
aired a story on the decision of the NBA
to drop the new microfiber composite ball and
bring back the leather one beginning Jan. 1. The
story mentioned a research study conducted by
The
University of Texas at Arlington's physics
department this Fall on the
differences between the synthetic and leather
basketballs.
[CBS-11
Story]
|
November 27, 2006
UT ARLINGTON TODAY
Dr. James L. Horwitz, chair of the Physics Department, presented an invited colloquium at Rice University titled “Dynamic Fluid-Kinetic Simulations of High-Latitude Ionospheric Outflow.” Dr. Horwitz also gave a separate presentation on the Physics Department project “MavBalls: The Physics of NBA Basketballs.”
|
|
|
|
October
27, 2006
UTA involved in NBA ball
test
The Physics
Department was given
charge of an experiment
comparing synthetic and
leather basketballs.
Story by: Anthony
Williams
Contributor to The
Shorthorn
It’s the
NBA vs. its players, and
now the university is
playing the role of
moderator.
Physics professors and
students are intensely
experimenting with the
NBA’s new official
basketball made by
Spalding, released this
summer. The changes are
the first since 1970,
when the ball went from
four panels to eight,
and are only the second
in 60 seasons.
James Horwitz, physics
professor and chair,
received a call Oct. 11
from Terdema Ussery,
president and CEO of the
Dallas Mavericks. Ussery
said the organization
was interested in having
the department compare
the new and old balls.
They began that Saturday
with various tests.
“We dropped balls from
consistent heights and
noted how high they
bounced — the
coefficient of
restitution,” Horwitz
said. “We also poured
water on them and
observed the
absorbency.”
[Read More]
|
|
October 3, 2006
UT ARLINGTON HOST OF
2006 JOINT MEETING FOR PHYSICS EDUCATORS AND STUDENTS
UT Arlington is hosting
the Fall 2006 Major Joint Meeting of the Texas Sections
of the American Physical Society, American Association
of Physics Teachers, Zone-13 of the Society of Physics
Students, Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics,
National Society of Hispanic Physicists, and National
Society of Black Physicists, from Oct. 5 through 7. The
program includes presentations by speakers and authors
of contributed papers in research including
astrophysics, nanomaterials, semiconductors, space
physics and more. UT Arlington President James D.
Spaniolo will welcome the participants Friday, followed
by remarks by Dean of the College of Science Paul Paulus
and Physics Chair James Horwitz. Provost Dana Dunn
will be the keynote speaker at the banquet on Friday
evening. Other events scheduled will include planetarium
shows, a barbeque for the Society of Physics
Students and more. For more information, call Suresh
Sharma,
sharma@uta.edu, Amy Osborn,
osborn@uta.edu, or visit
http://www.uta.edu/physics/meetings/jointfall06meeting.
|
|
September 1, 2006
Wet Introductions
Picnic lets faculty and students mingle and soak one
another
Story by: Emily Aberg
The
Shorthorn staff
Students and professors connected Thursday at the
Physics Department picnic. They bonded with water
balloons aimed at each others’ faces.
Senior secretary Margie Jackymack and administrative
assistant Amy Osborn organized the picnic. It was the
first of what the department hopes to be an annual
celebration to welcome staff and students for the fall
semester.
Jackymack said that Osborn came up with the idea about
three weeks ago.
“We wanted to do it so the department could socialize,
and for the new and returning professors,” she said.
“It’s something different for us.”
[Read more]
|
|
|
August 1, 2006
PLANETARIUM ATTENDANCE HIGH
With success comes plans to add shows and include other
schools.
Story by:
A.J. Eaton
The
Shorthorn staff
The planetarium recently tore the ticket of its 27,000th
customer, bringing its total revenue to around $80,000.
The planetarium, which opened in March, is bringing in
more customers than initially expected. However,
planetarium director Robert Bonadurer said the new
facility is still in its honeymoon phase.
“We have been doing well in the number of people we’re
bringing into the planetarium, and I think it’s mainly
due to the great staff, great facility and great shows
we have,” he said. “The students here have also been
really good to the planetarium. About 16 percent of
total attendance is UTA students, which is much more
than we initially thought.”
Bonadurer said he hopes to continue bringing in
spectators by opening a new show about every three
months.
The idea of using the planetarium for more than just
inspiring awe in school children is another topic
physics chair James Horwitz hopes to bring to fruition.
He said using the planetarium as a teaching tool for
many different fields is the future of the planetarium
and the university.
“We would definitely like to get other disciplines aside
from astronomy involved,” he said. “Bringing in the
theater and film departments as well as other
departments to not only develop new shows but also
develop topics outside of astronomy is going to be a big
push for us.”
The initial idea and plan for bringing the planetarium
to the new Chemistry and Physics Building belonged to
physics professor John Fry. He said a new planetarium
was greatly needed, and he’s thrilled it’s doing so
well.
“We wanted this planetarium because the old one we had
was too old and way too small. When we designed the new
one, we wanted it to serve as a teaching tool for
classes and a great public relations tool,” he said.
“When we first started in with the idea for the
planetarium in the new building, there was some
opposition to using the precious space for something
other than research, but I think it’s proven to be a
great success.”
Fry said the planetarium’s potential uses are limitless
and that every department on campus can use the digital
system.
Science dean Paul Paulus said he has nothing but hope
for the future of the facility and science at the
university.
“We’ve had very positive results. We weren’t sure what
to expect in the beginning,” he said. “It’s often hard
in Arlington to compete for the entertainment dollar,
and this is educational entertainment, so we think it’s
great. It’s also been a great way to get people on
campus to check out what UTA has to offer.”
|
|
July
11, 2006
PHYSIC PROFESSOR PRESENTS GROUND-BREAKING RESEARCH TO
SCIENTISTS FROM 18 COUNTRIES
Associate Chair of the Department of Physics Alex Weiss
presented an invited talk titled "Dissecting cascade
Auger transitions in solids using Auger-Auger
coincidence spectroscopy" at the International
Conference on Many Particle Spectroscopy of Atoms,
Molecules, and Surfaces held at the Universita' Roma Tre,
Rome, Italy. The conference was sponsored by the
Consiglio Nazionale della Ricerche, Italy and was
attended by scientists from more than 18 countries,
including Italy, Germany, Holland, France, the United
Kingdom, Canada, Japan and Australia. Professor Weiss
presented ground-breaking research involving the first
direct measurement of the energy spectra of electrons
emitted from atoms in a solid during the later stages of
a multiple auto-ionization process termed an
Auger-cascade. This research was carried out at the
National Synchrotron Light Source of Brookhaven National
Laboratory in Upton New York, in collaboration with UT
Arlington physics doctoral candidate Rajalakshmi
Sundaramoorthy, Dr. Steven Hulbert of Brookhaven
National Lab and Professor Robert Bartynski of Rutgers
University. Professor Weiss is currently visiting
Brookhaven National Laboratory where he is extending
this research to the study of highly charged nano-particles
in collaboration another of his students, Saurabh
Mukherjee, UT Arlington Physics Professor Wei Chen, Dr.
Hulbert of Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Professor
Bartynski.
Source: UTA Today |
|
July 7, 2006
ALCON EXPO 2006 TO BE HELD AT PLANETARIUM
The Texas Astronomical Society (TAS) and the University
of Texas at Arlington’s College of Science will host the
Astronomical League’s annual conference Aug. 4/5, on the
campus of the University of Texas at Arlington. As
usual, the conference will be packed with great speakers
including Scott Roberts from Meade Instruments Corp.,
David J. Eicher from Astronomy Magazine, and Jason Ware,
astrophotographer from the Texas Astronomical Society,
plus many others. The annual Star-B-Que will take place
Friday, Aug. 4, including planetarium shows in UT
Arlington’s new Digistar – 3, 60-foot-dome planetarium.
The Awards Banquet will be held Saturday, Aug. 5. For a
detailed itinerary, registration form or more
information visit the website at www.alconexpo.com.
Event chairs are Dr. Linda McCalla and Jeff Barton of
TAS.Source: UTA Today
|
June 27, 2006
PHYSICS PROFESSOR/DOCTORAL STUDENT PUBLISH IN INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE
The lead story in the May/June issue of "Mercury,"
the magazine of the international organization Astronomical Society
of the Pacific was written by Assistant Professor of Physics Manfred
Cuntz and physics doctoral student Peter E. Williams. The story,
"Life Without Carbon?" is a beautifully illustrated 10-page treatise
on the fact that life on earth is exclusively carbon-based, but that
does not preclude the possibility that there may be other forms of
life that are not based on carbon. The authors submit that
although carbon is well suited to its role as a biochemical building
block, even as far back as the early 20th century, scientists
hypothesized which other elements could act a a replacement. This
article discusses three definitions of life and analyzes
the probability of silicon-based life. The Astronomical Society of
the Pacific is composed of educators and public outreach
professions, including teachers, those doing astronomy and space
science programs for the public, science museum staff and staff from
NASA centers and mission, as well as research astronomers. For more
information, visit
www.astrosociety.org or contact Dr. Cuntz at (817) 272-2467 or
cuntz@uta.edu.
Source: UTA Today
|
|
|
June 23, 2006
PROFESSOR NAMED TO U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AND THE NATIONAL
SCIENCE FOUNDATION PANEL
Physics Professor Andrew White has been selected as a
member of a national panel, which is a part of the High Energy
Physics Advisory Panel, for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and
the National Science Foundation (NSF). The panel's scientists will
evaluate and make recommendations for the DOE and NSF high energy
particle physics university grants program. Research in experimental
and theoretical particle physics at universities is supported at a
level of about $150 million a year, by the DOE and NSF, with
significant additional support from the universities themselves.
While the two governmental agencies have different approaches and
missions, the goal of the review is to focus on the whole of the
U.S. high energy physics university grant program and how the
agencies and universities can best achieve the unified goal and
objectives of the field. The panel's preliminary draft is due in
December.Source: UTA Today |
April 6, 2006
NASA AWARDS GRANT FOR UT ARLINGTON PROFESSOR TO DEVELOP 'STARLIGHT
AND LIFE IN THE COSMOS'
On the heels of opening its state-of-the art
planetarium, one of the largest in the nation, The University of
Texas at Arlington has received a $14,000 grant from NASA to develop
a new planetarium show. The show, titled "Starlight and Life in the
Cosmos," will be based on the observations secured with the Far
Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE). Assistant Professor
Manfred Cuntz, who was part of the NASA/FUSE program, said it was
aimed at studying far-UV radiation from K-type main-sequence stars
of different stellar age. FUSE is a NASA-supported astrophysics
mission that was launched June 24, 1999, to explore the universe,
using the technique of high-resolution spectroscopy. K-type
main-sequence stars are somewhat cooler and less massive than the
sun, but are much more numerous. Therefore, these stars are expected
to be highly relevant to astrobiology.
Read more.
Source: UTA Today
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
February 21, 2006
PUBLIC GETS FIRST LOOK AT FACILITY THAT BLENDS CHEMISTRY, PHYSICS ,
CUTTING -EDGE PLANETARIUM
ARLINGTON—Science at UT Arlington has
entered a new world and the public gets its first look
at a grand opening Saturday, March 4. The 128,000
square-foot Chemistry and Physics Building, 700
Planetarium Place, boasts state-of-the-art teaching and
research labs for chemistry, biochemistry and physics,
as well as the state's newest planetarium.
College of Science Dean Paul B. Paulus said the public
opening of the new building and its planetarium is
designed for the entire family. Events are scheduled
from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. with hourly planetarium shows,
building tours, telescope viewing, a walk-through solar
system, door prizes and lots of interactive
demonstrations.
Space Shuttle astronaut and UT Arlington alumnus Robert
Stewart will be on hand for the planetarium's first show
at 11 a. m. Sunday shows, the following day, will be at
1, 2 and 3 p.m. Planetarium admission is $5 for adults;
$4 for students, children and senior citizens. All other
opening day activities are free. For more information,
visit
www.uta.edu/cos or
www.uta.edu/planetarium. |
February 9, 2006
NEW UT ARLINGTON PLANETARIUM WILL TRANSPORT
PATRONS OUT OF THIS WORLD
ARLINGTON—The Planetarium at UT Arlington will open
at The University of Texas at Arlington Saturday,
March 4. The 60-foot domed theater seats 170
stargazers and boasts a state-of-the art digital
projection system.
“Digistar 3 was designed to preserve all the classic
planetarium functions while adding a wealth of new
capabilities and features,” said E&S Digital Theater
Vice President and General Manager Kirk Johnson. “It
provides full-dome video playback, real-time 3-D
computer graphics and a sophisticated real-time 3-D
digital astronomy package. Users have access to all
of these features simultaneously, so that real-time
graphics can be seamlessly combined with full-dome
video playback.”
The technology-rich system—fewer than two dozen
exist nationwide—not only simulates stars and
planets as seen from Earth, but it enables virtual
trips through the galaxy. The planetarium’s first
show, “The Stars at Night are Big and Bright,” which
runs through Sept. 1, includes a virtual journey
into space. The original show was produced by
Planetarium Director Robert Bonadurer, who is
nationally known for his inventive shows geared to
specific audiences.
Space Shuttle astronaut and UT Arlington alumnus
Robert Stewart will be on hand for the planetarium's
first show at 11 a. m. and shows will run hourly
until 4 p. m. In addition, there will be door
prizes, entertaining chemistry and physics
demonstrations, and tours of the Chemistry and
Physics Building, 700 Planetarium Place, which
houses the planetarium. Sunday shows, the following
day, will be at 1, 2 and 3 p.m. Admission is $5 for
adults; $4 for students, children and senior
citizens. For more information on the planetarium,
call (817) 272-1183 or visit
www.uta.edu/planetarium.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
