Swarthmore College Department of Physics and Astronomy

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News and Events

News

• Our department has an annual holiday party in December to celebrate the winter holidays and the end of the semester; all prospective and current physics and astro majors are invited. Here are some photos from the December 2007 holiday party. We also have a picnic each May. You can view photos from the most recent end-of-year picnic. And there are also photos from the department's graduation party in May, 2008.
• Prof. Michael Brown has been awarded the American Physical Society's Prize for a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution, "[f]or his outstanding contributions to plasma physics made possible by his development of a world-class spheromak laboratory at Swarthmore College, and for his energetic mentoring of undergraduate students." Congratulations Michael!
• John Mather (Swarthmore '68 physics major) shares the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. His prizewinning work involved measurement of the cosmic microwave background - radiation which dates from the big bang. Read more about his research at the Nobel website, and see his essay on his experience at Swarthmore.
• Emeritus Professor of Astronomy Wulff Heintz passed away on June 10, 2006. Several nice obituaries are available.
• NPR's Morning Edition did a piece on our home: the Science Center and, specifically, on efforts to minimize bird deaths from collisions with our large windows.
• The Sproul telescope has been repaired by our colleague in the Engineering Department, Prof. Fred Orthlieb.
  
• Prof. Peter Collings, as a member of a research team at U. Penn led by Ahmed Alsayed and Prof. Arjun Yodh, have explained an important component of the process by which materials melt. Their work appears in the August 19 issue of Science, in an article titled "Premelting at Defects within Bulk Colloidal Crystals." You can also read about it in this press release from the University of Pennsylvania.
• Prof. Michael Brown has been named to the National Research Council's Plasma Science Committee.
• The department is now completely moved into its new home in the Science Center.

Events

• Open house at Sproul Observatory is held the second Tuesday of each month (now, including during the summer and school vacations), beginning at 8 PM or 9 PM, depending on the time of sunset. Further information is available.
• We have a research colloquium in the department about once every two weeks. Talks are generally at 4:30, with refreshments at 4:00. All members of the College community are welcome to attend. Students are encouraged to join our visiting speakers for a free lunch in the Tarble alcove at noon the day of a colloquium.

• There are also colloquia and seminars series at other institutions in the area.