The Big Reach of JMU Physics...

With blogs, Facebook, twitter, etc, and even teaching, we can sometimes forget just how far and wide the discussion reaches and just how small our planet becomes. Three recent examples demonstrates clearly just how large the reach is of JMU's Department of Physics & Astronomy.

1. Dr. Giovanna Scarel on WMRA's The Spark!

WMRA, the Valley's local NPR affiliate hosts a weekly show called "The Spark". This show is WMRA's look into "creativity", they "dig into whatever people are passionate about in the WMRA region: sculpture, model railroading, costume-making, poetry, whatever". On Friday, May 11, Dr. Giovanna Scarel was profiled on "The Spark". What is a photon?  Solid state physicist Dr. Giovanna Scarel explains photons and why such tiny things are intriguing. If you missed the interview, you can find the audiocast of it here.

2. Saturday Morning Physics Student Discovers a Pulsar!

For the past two years, Dr. Adriana Banu has organized a 6-week winter enrichment program for area high school students. The idea is to get them exposed to "cutting edge" physics, and to bring some of the excitement of the lab into the classroom for students to witness firsthand. 

Cecilia McGough, a senior at nearby Strasburg High School, participated in the 2nd Saturday Morning Physics program at JMU. After her SMP experience, Cecilia spent the summer working at the Green Bank Radio Telescope in West Virginia where she became just the 6th high school student to discover a pulsar! A pulsar is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation as the star rotates extremely quickly, just as a lighthouse sweeps out a bright patch of light as it rotates. McGough's pulsar has a period of 185.549 milliseconds and is about the size of Washington D.C.!

3. John C. Wells Planetarium's 2012 End-of-the-World Debunking Reaches South Africa!

At the start of the year, much nonsense was spread on the internet about the Mayan calendar coming to an end, and how that portends the end of the world! Recently, JMU invited Dr. Phil Plait (the "Bad Astronomer") to debunk claims like these and others found online that the end-of-the-world is coming this December (more on this soon!). However, prior to his visit, Planetarium Director Shanil Virani wrote his own article for the Planetarium's website. While this was featured in a local newspaper article,  we very surprised to get the email below from a teacher in SOUTH AFRICA that were studying some of these doomsday claims! One of the students in the class actually referred to the Planetarium's 2012 debunking in their discussion and showed the website to her teacher! The email below was sent to Shanil Virani this past summer and is reprinted with permission from the author. 

From: Pauline Smith 

Subject: Excellent Article on JMU Website

Date: July 26, 2012 

To: Shanil Virani

 

I have just had the pleasure of reading your online article on Debunking the 2012 Doomsday Prophecies, and may I say – Bravo!

 

One of my learners brought up the subject of the end of the world in December 2012, and another mentioned your article in refuting her classmate’s assertion that “we’re all going to die before Christmas anyway!”

 

I found the blend of hard science and popular culture an unusual but effective tool to calm the hysteria and ‘talk them out of the trees’.

 

I especially liked your suggestion that the Planetarium be made the beneficiary if an individual is that certain of his or her imminent destruction!

 

Thank you for a well written article, and an unexpected laugh for an otherwise cold and wet Thursday.

 

 

Kind Regards,

 

Pauline Smith CLINICAL TRAINER HR: Learning and Development Tel: +27 (0)21 427 4516 61 St Georges Mall Cape Town E-mail:  Website: www.mhg.co.za

 

The moral of the story? JMU Physics has an enormous reach! From the Valley, to South Africa, to the distant reaches of the Cosmos! 

Fall Picnic 2012

On September 16 the department picnic was held in Purcel Park out by the pond. There was a great turnout and good food all around.

Although it was cloudy and a bit cooler that we hoped, there was a warm fire and good friends. And lots of fun.

The rest of the photos are found here.

The 2012-2013 Academic Year Begins

So, here we are again.

Beginning of the school year and there are once again a few new faces in the crowd. For those of you who haven't visited us lately (and why aren't you stopping by?!), here's the key in order from left to right...

Front row:
Adriana Banu, Harold Butner, Sean Scully, Keigo Fukumura, Anca Constantin, Steve Whisnant

Second row:
Kim Emerson, Costel Constantin, Klebert Feitosa, Elizabeth Jeffery, Ioana Niculescu, Gabriel Niculescu

Third row:
Art Fovargue, Shanil Virani, Jarrett Lancaster, Kevin Giovanetti, Herb Slade, Chris Hughes

and hiding in the back;
Giovanna Scarel and Mark Mattson

Missing here are Brian Utter who is on sabbatical in Germany this year and Scott Paulson who is taking his Research Semester this fall and is working at UVa.

And so, with smiling faces (most of us any way), we greet the new year and prepare to excite our record entering class of 36 new physics majors!

7 Minutes of Terror: Mars Curiosity Lands TONIGHT!

On Saturday, November 26 at approximately 10:02AM (EST), Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) lifted off from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 41 en route to Mars. After more than 8 months in flight, MSL arrives very LATE tonight! The SUV-sized rover it is carrying, called Curiosity, is expected to touchdown on the surface of the Red Planet at 1:31AM (i.e., early Monday morning). After traveling 566 million kilometers, imagine a remote-controlled Cadillac Escalade landing in a dust storm.

This will be no easy feat. In fact, arriving and surviving touchdown would be an enormous scientific and engineering accomplishment. The landing sequence is incredibly risky (see image and 7 Minutes of Terror) and of Mankind's 39 missions to Mars, we've been successful only 15 times. I fully expect very late tonight to be the 16th time we've been successful in landing on Mars but it is important to be aware of the risk of failure and to recognize the extraordinary accomplishment if successful.

Despite the poor odds, we continue to go. Why? Mars Curiosity will open a new opportunity to study the habitable environment of the Red Planet. If you have come to the John C. Wells Planetarium recently, you will have heard me say during my star talk that in my opinion, the greatest discovery in science would be the discovery of life outside of Earth. While NASA's Kepler mission has done an extraordinary job discovering exoplanets, some even in the so-called "habitable zone" where water (should it exist) would be in its liquid form, the best evidence of life outside of Earth may come from within our Solar System, Mars in particular.

Previous missions to Mars has confirmed the hypothesis that Mars had liquid water in its past. But does Mars host life currently? Did it in the past? The answers to these questions have been inconclusive so far. This is where Mars Curiosity comes in. It is landing in Gale Crater, a carefully-chosen landing site after 5 years of analysis. This ~93 mile-wide-crater is an ancient impact basin for which there is very good evidence to suggest an ancient river once flowed through it. It is also a site with mineral-rich terrains and a mountain right in the middle where Curiosity will spend most of its time working to learn if it had an environment where microbes may have thrived.

This story begins tonight! Join me on twitter tonight where I will provide updates and commentary. You can watch NASA TV's feed online if your cable tv carrier does not carry it. Note that once Curiosity lands, it will be 14 minutes for us to receive telemetry that touchdown was successful and another 14 hours to get the first high resolution images that Curiosity will snap from its landing site.

My 2-year old son and I watched the launch on that Saturday morning after Thanksgiving Day and I am going to try to keep him up tonight for this historic landing!

The 2012--2013 Academic year

This year's incoming class is a new department record: 34 freshmen and 2 transfers for a total of 36. In addition, one of the freshmen is our first ever Dingledine scholar,  Devin Buenemeyer. This is a real honor for the department. We are extremely proud of her and delighted that she has chosen physics and our department. The graduating class this year was small (13) but next year's promises to be sizable (20 or more). With the addition of Shanil Virani as our recruiter, we have great expectations. Shanil has many excellent idea and a tremendous amount of energy. Jon Staib has passed the baton with a clear lead for the department and Shanil is ready to run (forgive the Olympics metaphor). Don't be surprised if remarkable things happen.

We have a strong incoming class this year. We have some very excellent students as upperclassmen. We are growing and getting better.

This year we add Keigo Fukumura and Jarrett Lancaster. Elizabeth Jeffery is staying with us for another year or two and searches to fill open positions are going to commence in a month or two. Costel Constantin is moving into a tenure track position. Brian Utter is going on sabbatical in Germany and Scott Paulson is taking the Research Semester in the fall to spend time in Charlottesville. Both are moving their research interests towards biological systems.

The department reached a new high this year in external funding with a total of over $4.77 million. The only tenure track faculty without external funding in the department are the new folks, Costel and Keigo, and they will be funded soon at the rate things are going. Such vigorous research is rare in undergraduate departments and actually not all that common in research institutions We are a young department with only three faculty (Kevin Giovanneti, Chris Hughes and Mark Mattson) hired before 2001.

We are still pushing to open the Madison Radiation Laboratory asap. and proposals are being written to obtain money for experiments there. Discussions with the university administration is continuing.

Every year is better that the last and this year is no exception.

Come visit.

Be part of the amazing PandA@JMU.

Washington Post says there are no science jobs, but...

The Washington Post has an article today about job prospects for scientists. The article, U.S. pushes for more scientists, but the jobs aren’t there, tries to paint a doom and gloom picture of the job prospects for scientists. It points to neuroscience and pharmaceuticals as places that are no longer hiring PhD's and that

it’s questionable whether those youths will be able to find work when they get a PhD. Although jobs in some high-tech areas, especially computer and petroleum engineering, seem to be booming, the market is much tighter for lab-bound scientists — those seeking new discoveries in biology, chemistry and medicine.

Sounds pretty nasty out there, doesn't it? Buried on page two is, however, the key point:

Two groups seem to be doing better than other scientists: physicists and physicians. The unemployment rate among those two groups hovers around 1 to 2 percent, according to surveys from NSF and other groups. Physicists end up working in many technical fields — and some go to Wall Street — while the demand for doctors continues to climb as the U.S. population grows and ages.

Catch that? 1 -2% unemployment for physicists and physicians.  In an economic downturn with overall unemployment of 8.2%? This would be great news in any kind of economy.

So in case you were wondering why an undergraduate degree in physics is the place to start your medical career, this is the reason. Not only is physics a great career choice, it is an ideal "plan B" for charting a path to medical school. What happens if you don't get into medical school? Only good things if you have a physics degree. An undergraduate degree in physics puts you in a place to get a good paying technical job or pursue graduate work for an even higher paying job. And it looks like your chances of finding that good paying job are 98-99%.

Physics. Still the best deal in town.

Don Chodrow Memorial Scholarship Endowment

On behalf of the friends, current and former students and colleagues of Dr. Chodrow, a scholarship in his honor has been created. The Don Chodrow Memorial Scholarship Endowment will provide resources annually for one or more outstanding undergraduates in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

To be eligible for this scholarship, a student must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or higher and at least four semesters of study. By selecting from among our very best junior and senior physics majors, we honor the tradition of excellence for which Don was such a strong advocate both in and out of the classroom.

To create an endowed fund so that this scholarship is permanent, we must raise at least $25,000 by 2017. You may support this scholarship either by check or by giving on-line. Complete information is found on the web here.

Recognize the difference that Dr. Chodrow made in your life by considering a contribution to this fund. By "paying it forward" you can help us carry on his tradition of student centered education of the highest quality.

Don Chodrow

Physics and Astronomy has lost Don Chodrow to an automobile accident.  On Monday June 18th, Don was involved in a single car accident on I-81.  He was on his way to teach Phys 150 in summer session. He was flown to UVA Medical Center, but never regained consciousness. After organ donation, he was removed from life support on June 20th. One of the bright lights in our department has gone out.

Don was such a big part of our department for the past 32 years that it is impossible to understand what we will be without him. He was always a strong voice for high quality education for all of our students. As the long-time instructor of advanced mechanics (Phys 340), he guided our majors toward understanding physics deeply and broadly. His dedication to teaching is without parallel. He eagerly taught any and every course offered to him.  Don was routinely in front of classes that spanned the spectrum in our department, from GSCI 101 to second-semester quantum mechanics. He was a leader in curriculum development, chairing the Curriculum and Instruction Committee for more than a decade. He guided many students to graduation, successful careers, and graduate school in his role as an academic advisor. Our majors revered him.

His presence also filled the department in a dozen small ways. He was always quick with a laugh or a joke so bad you had to laugh in response.

Don always had a hand on the rudder of the ship that is Physics and Astronomy. We will continue in his absence for he would have it no other way, but without his steady hand our direction is just a bit less well-defined.

We are thankful for all that was gentle and noble in his life. We will miss you, dear friend.

---

The family asks that no flowers be sent. Donations may be sent to Temple House of Israel, P.O. Box 1412, Staunton, VA 24402, or to the Don Chodrow Memorial Scholarship Endowment. We are creating a scholarship in Don's name to continue his long tradition of putting our student's education first.

The Science enabled by Photon Sources: Local interest in Virginia

On May 16 2012 the Workshop on "The Science enabled by Photon Sources: local interest in Virginia" took place at JMU. Several Faculty members of the Department of Physics and Astronomy were in the Organizing Committee (Dr. Whisnant, Dr. Hughes, and Dr. Scarel). Dr. Hughes, Dr. Utter, Dr. Feitosa, Dr. C. Constantin, and Dr. Scarel were among the presenters. The Workshop gave an ample view of the vast capabilities of photon Sources in various fields of Science. Dr. Ward Plummer (Louisiana State University), one of the keynote speakers, gave a historical picture of the evolution of Photon Science and offered an overview of the possible developments. His talk touched topics related to physics and materials science, in particular related to superconducting materials. The need of photon sources to improve the research in materials science was illustrated in the presentations of various JMU faculty members, who underlined the need for better imaging techniques, and more sensitive tools to perform chemical analysis in soft and hard materials. Dr. Peter Abbamonte (University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign), another keynote speaker, illustrated how the mystery of the lack of a band gap in graphene was solved using high energy photons produced in a storage ring. Other presenters from JMU and from other Universities in Virginia and Washington DC described the power of photon sources in understanding phase transitions in oxides, collective excitations, and the properties of photon themselves. Dr. Stefan Vogt (Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University), the third keynote speaker, succeeded in convincing that photon sources offer enormous possibilities in the fields of biology and medicine. A new JMU Chemistry faculty member supported the view. Other presentations illustrated new fascinating mysteries awaiting to be investigated with the powerful photon sources in the fields of environmental sciences, electronics and spintronics, and mentioned the technical challenges associated to the process of data acquisition. A radio interview of Dr. Scarel aired on May 11 2012 can be found at http://wmra.org/post/physicist-giovanna-scarel

Here is Dr. Utter ....

Here is Dr. Abbamonte ...

... and here is Dr. Scarel

2nd Annual Video Contest

Judging for JMU physics' 2nd annual video contest is underway.  If you want to take a look at some of the videos high school students from Virginia and Maryland have entered, look here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/drscottpaulson?feature=mhee  

Details about this year's contest are on the department webpage, 

 csma31.­csm.­jmu.­edu/­physics/­Public/­videocontest.­html

Why the Engineering, Computer Science Gender Gap Persists

As indicated in an article published recently in Scientific American the answer to this question is yet anybody's guess...

Physics weekend affairs again: the CAA Undergraduate Research Conference

The weekend of the April 13th-15th , I [Jimmy Corcoran, a junior physics major] had the opportunity to participate at the Colonial Academic Alliance (CAA) Undergraduate Research Conference [at Old Dominion University in Norfolk].  Initially I wasn't sure I was skeptical about whether or not I would enjoy the experience, but I was quickly reassured.  There were events spaced out throughout the entire weekend, enough so that you always knew you were kept in an academic mindset, but not so many that you felt overwhelmed and didn't have enough time to relax.  Everything over the course of the trip went smoothly, both of the keynote speakers were fantastic speakers and were able to captivate the entire audience, regardless of their academic focus; the spacing out of all of the student presentations, and even all of the meals prepared for everybody were fantastic.  Overall I thought it was really a fantastic experience to be around so many people involved in undergraduate research in their respective fields, and also for the opportunity to share the research I've been doing with my peers from the entire CAA.  

Jimmy  was one of the 3 physics majors representing JMU physics and astronomy undergraduate research (out of a total of 10 JMU selected undergraduates): Jimmy the astronomer was accompanied by Ethan Cummings and Thomas Hoke (both juniors) who presented their findings on some novel materials' behavior at this 10th annual CAA conference.   Here are the three of them ( ...musketeers in quest for scientific answers to how the world works):

and here are some details about their presentations, as described in the Madison Scholar. 

What can we say, they have their own ways of saving the world!

We heard not once that "they were excellent presenters!"

JMU Physics Helping Out

This weekend students from all around JMU worked on service projects throughout the community as part of the "The Big Event", an annual day of community service. JMU Physics students and faculty give back to the Harrisonburg-Rockingham community in many ways all year long. Some by coaching Little League baseball and others by working with kids to learn about science.

For the second year in a row, Dr. Costel Constantin has organized a NanoDays event for the community at the Explore More Discovery Museum in Harrisonburg. With the help of JMU nanoscientists Drs. Brian Augustine, Kyle Gipson, and Chris Hughes, and a team of local school teachers and JMU students, the doors to the museum were opened for free from 1:00-4:00 pm on Sunday, April 15 for nearly 150 visitors to come learn about the amazing things that happen at the scale of one billionth of a meter. The event even got covered by our local TV station. Plans are already underway for next year's event which should happen some weekend in late March or early April of 2013.

The 2012 Honors Banquet

On April 4, we held the Honors Banquet with 60 faculty, students, parents and friends in attendance. Kim ordered up an excellent selection of the good food we have here on campus. Awards were presented for the best symposium presentations, scholarships and department awards. In addition we have a strong group inducted into the Sigma Pi Sigma.

Congratulations to all. See all the pictures here.

Spring Picnic

We have finally cross over to the other side. This is now what the department picnic looks like!

Invasion of the body snatchers? A paralysis inducing food additive? A new dance? We may never know.

What we do know for sure is that a good time was had and lots of good food was well prepared by Costel Constantin.

More picture found here.

Spring Symposium 2012

The 8th annual Spring Symposium was help in Highlands room of the Festival on March 17, 2012. there was a strong set of papers presented and food and fun was had by all.

The best papers as judged by the faculty this year are:

1. Anthony T. Chieco, "Digital Reconstruction of a Real Polydisperse Dry Foam"
2. Anita Jo Vincent-Johnson,"Characterizing the Angular Frequency of Radiative Polaritons using Infrared Spectroscopy"
3. Anthony Saikin, "Near Infrared Photometry of Nearby DEBRIS Candidates"

Congratulations to all participants. Everyone did a great job. 

Pictures of the full event are found here.

And You Thought Learning Only Happened During the Week...

"Meet the Scientist: Saturday Morning Physics at JMU" from the Office of Public Affairs- Check out the link below:

James Madison University - And You Thought Learning Only Happened During the Week...

Over and Over... cast and solar viewing

Team Awestronomy's adventures again here, featuring:

Anthony (edible comets), Nathan (black holes & solar viewing), Jimmy (galaxies and sunspotter), Emil (REAL comets), Kyle (solar viewing), in no particular order, got their act together again, or we should say, over and over...cast...

OK, the weather did not cooperate with us yesterday (our planned last Saturday of March), the clouds roamed around the whole morning (sometimes quite menacingly: check out the sky in the pictures), leaving us with basically little chance to show the Sun off through our Coronado. Yep, no flares in sight this time...

Nevertheless, the Breeze (finally) got a handle of us a this event (can you spot the Breeze photographer in the crowd in the above picture?). Until the Breeze article sees the light, here are some snapshots of the goodies of the day:

The sunspotter spotted the clouds and some tree branches, which was still sort of cool... (not only little) people were still fascinated by this little simple device:

The comet making was a big success (again!), from enchanted audience by the setting up process to happy clients, I mean learners about what it takes to produce that comet tail, with both the edible models and the real -non-edible-ones:

(phufff, we were so lucky those meteorites fell on Earth right there near our Market booth and right then -- we're only there 10am-noon)

- anyway, if you're interested in the recipe, you just have to ask. we'll provide it, ~30 million times smaller than the actual one, but for sure with no delay..

wow! look at that tail...

Asteroid and crater production were also quite popular this Saturday:

.... and we also featured guest scientists with us presenting little motors powered by squishy circuits (just so you know how those gyros aboard satellites like the Hubble Space Telescope look like):

All in all, and you can go here to check out some more pictures about today's making of the comets (both types), asteroid and crater involvement, and even some close to successful picking through the telescope.

JMU Physics Students at the National APS Meeting

During the week of February 26, 2012, students John Bridstrup (second right), Anthony Chieco (second left), Nora Swisher (center), and Anita Vincent-Johnson (left), and professor Costel Constantin (right) attended the National American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting in Boston. We presented our research and got to see many other research presentations in materials and quantum related fields. There were vendors there with all kinds of fancy equipment, and Stephen Wolfram was at the Mathematica booth one afternoon! For students, they had a lounge with grad school recruiters and snacks. Along with getting to see great new physics, we also got to explore Boston (seafood lunch, riding the T, etc.). It was a motivating experience and we all had a great time. Nora Swisher

Saturday Morning Physics 2012

The 2^nd annual edition of Saturday Morning Physics, Meet the Scientist is now underway. At the opening session, Dr. Adriana Banu started things off with a discussion of radioactivity. The turnout this year is lager than last year by a good bit. We had 48 attend in 2011 and this year there are 70. More photos of the opening session and the registration are available here.

This program is a big hit with the audience and fun for the faculty. See the web site for SMP for details on this years offerings.

Flares, comets, asteroids...

Yes, once again (following event1 and event2), we took Astronomy to the Market. Last Saturday was the first in the new Spring 2012 series to feature safe solar observations, edible comets, asteroid collisions, along with answers, many answers to your questions about the Universe at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market. The plan is to show off our science corner every last Saturday of the month, so be there if the Sun is up and not behind (too many) clouds!

Here are some little snippets of what were we up to:

-watching the solar flares (Nathan DiDomenico at the telescope), most probably related to the raging solar storm that hit us (the Earth) on Jan. 23 (did you feel it? there have been quite a few technical difficulties noted at the radio, as well as some internet glitches):

-the comet making: our own Julia Child (a.k.a. Anthony Saikin) is explaining how the real dirty snow balls (i.e., the real comets) and their beautiful tails can be simulated with just a little passion for cooking and, obviously, for astronomy (not to forget the liquid nitrogen though):

-in case you worried about it, we (mostly Jimmy Corcoran) did catch the Sun on our sunspotter, with and without clouds:

-our new addition to the group, Jonathan Iredell, oversaw the asteroid experiments:

New publication in Applied Spectroscopy

Did you know that the ability of thin oxide films to absorb infrared radiation depends on whether they "sit" on a metal, or on a piece of semiconductor, or on an insulator? Undergraduate student Anita Vincent-Johnson discovered that this is the case by creating computer simulations of the response of the thin films to the infrared radiation. The effort was accomplished under the direction of Dr. Giovanna Scarel and the results were discussed with collaborators of the University of Utah and of Howard University. The team discovered a peculiar substrate sensitive thickness where the effect is particularly evident, as illustrated in the picture on the left. The full reference is A. J. Vincent-Johnson et al., "Effects of metallic, semiconducting, and insulating substrates in the coupling involving radiative polaritons in thin oxide films", Applied Spectroscopy vol. 66 (2), pages 188-197 (2012).

Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics

Renee Ahern, Christina Hanks, Anita Vincent-Johnson, Liz Visosky, and Nora Swisher attended the Southeast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (SCUWP) at the University of Tennessee, January 12-15, 2012.  Here's what Nora says about the experience.                   

Over the long weekend we got to attend talks from successful women in physics, present our own research, interact with other women in physics over free meals, and listen to panels discussing careers, grad school, and undergraduate research.  We also got to tour Oak Ridge National Laboratory and see some of the incredible resources there, like the Spallation Neutron Source and their supercomputing facility. This is actually the 2^nd year I’ve attended this conference (Anita and I went to it at Duke University in 2010). I thought both trips were great experiences. SCUWP and other women in physics events provide the opportunity for young women to network and gain motivation and support to continue physics.

It is not O.K. that there are so few women in physics in the United States. Because of societal cues given to us our whole lives, women tend to have more self-doubt in their STEM abilities, and people have internal bias against women in STEM fields whether they realize it or not (women need to higher credentials in order to be judged as equally productive as men). To fix this we need the current women in physics to stay and continue breaking the mold. We need role models and mentors for young women, and we need to keep improving the climate by continuing to have good family policies, flexible schedules, and speaking out when colleagues make inappropriate comments. As an anecdote, I have experienced some inappropriate conversations, although the men probably did not realize it was uncomfortable for me. Once during a class, the professor and students discussed a system to rate female physical attractiveness. That might not have happened in class with a different female student ratio.

Although, women have some equalities (equal pay not being one of them), women still have many stereotypes to overcome. Unfortunately some of these stereotypes are preventing physics from gaining all the contributions that women and other minorities have to offer. I know it’s a subtle and difficult problem to fix, but it should be fixed before we can call our society truly equal, developed, and rational. 

New Planetarium Shows, Public Star Parties and the End of the World!?

With the start of a new semester already in full swing, there is a lot going on that John C. Wells Planetarium this semester! This month the 2:30pm family show is "Legends of the Sky: Orion", while the the 3:30pm feature show is "Stars of the Pharaohs". Following each show, a live star talk featuring the Harrisonburg night sky will be presented. Both shows are FREE with seats available on a first-come, first-seated basis! You can find our full schedule of shows that will be presented this semester at the Planetarium website.

A brand new initiative we are launching this semester is monthly star parties at Astronomy Park, located in the meadow behind the Physics & Chemistry building. The first star party will take place on Friday, January 27 starting at 7pm with subsequent public observing sessions on the last Friday of each month! Since these observing sessions are weather-dependent, the decision to proceed with observing or to postpone to Saturday (our back-up night) will be made by 4pm on each day. This decision will be published on the Planetarium website, the Planetarium facebook page and via the Planetarium twitter feed. If you have never seen Jupiter with its Galilean satellites, Saturn and its majestic rings, Mars, Venus or even the Moon through a telescope, you definitely do NOT want to miss any of these star parties!

Lastly, with calendar turning the page to 2012, no doubt you have heard of the many ridiculous doomsday scenarios circulating online and in the tabloids you see at the grocery store. All these end-of-the-world prophecies, from the Mayan calendar ending, to the Earth's magnetic field suddenly reversing polarity in 2012, are all baseless and without any scientific merit. I've written my own short "Debunking 2012 Doomsday Prophecies" which you can find at the Planetarium website.

I hope to see many of you at the Planetarium or at a star party this semester!

Clear skies!

Shanil Virani

Director, John C. Wells Planetarium

Hard Times for Physics Departments Everywhere

In the APS News ,December 2011 (Volume 20, Number 11) the Back PageThe Economics of Education: Closing Undergraduate Physics Programs, by Theodore Hodapp describes a pretty dismal state of affairs for physics Departments in this country. The heart of the matter is given in this paragraph:

These recent decisions in a number of states indicate that the era, if it ever existed, of a program existing because it is unthinkable not to offer physics is over. Dominating the current academic landscape are huge numbers of business, psychology, communications, and life-sciences majors. Physics undergraduate degrees accounted for 0.88%² of all majors in 1966. Now they account for 0.32%. Figure 1 shows how physics has fared compared to the aggregate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. The total number of physics graduates is roughly the same as it was in the late 60’s at around 6,000, but as a fraction of the undergraduate degrees it has fallen by almost a factor of three from its former standing. Further, if you normalize the data to the US population, which increases at roughly 1% per year, the data indicate that other majors have successfully lured away students who previously would have majored in physics. As a colleague recently said to me, “Who is better equipped to deal with the challenging problems that currently face our society–physics or psychology majors?” Psychology graduates increased from roughly 17,000 to 100,000 in those same four and half decades.

All pretty sobering stuff. Have a look at the full article for all the details.

Grant awarded for research on radiative polaritons

The Jeffress Memorial Trust has awarded a grant in support to the research that Dr. Scarel and her students are pursuing to understand the interaction between infrared radiation and matter. The funding will support an experiment in which infrared radiation with electric field perpendicular to the surface of a planar oxide film will excite radiative polaritons. A linearly polarized electromagnetic field, such as that used in the proposed experiment, is shown in the picture above. This experiment is expected to unambiguously correlate the absorption of infrared radiation with radiative polaritons. Dr. Scarel and her students hope that in the future the results of this research will inspire the design and development of devices to harvest and transform into electricity the infrared radiation from the sun and the atmosphere.

Jeffress Research grant awarded to Dr. Adriana Banu

Nuclear astrophysics research program at JMU is up for a good start in 2012!

The Thomas F. Jeffress and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust has approved a Jeffress Research grant of $25,000 to James Madison University in aid of Dr. Banu's project - "Studying the (alpha,p)-process in X-ray bursts using rare isotope ion beams". Dr. Banu and one of her research students, Brent Glassman, will conduct the research experiment, in collaboration with a team of scientists at the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M University, most probably in late spring this year. Stay tuned for the results! For more information, contact Dr. Banu at banula@jmu.edu.

Shanil Virani, Planetarium & Recruiting Director

The Department of Physics and Astronomy is delighted to announce that Shanil Virani will begin his duties full-time as Director of the John C. Wells Planetarium in January 2012. He brings planetarium experience both from Yale University as well as JMU. He is an enthusiastic and capable educator and is already working to move the planetarium program forward.

With our annual planetarium attendance near 10,000, there is already a vibrant program in place. Shanil already has many ideas for extending the reach of our programs both on- and off-campus. If you would like to discuss ideas for how the planetarium as a full-dome video facility, a star projection facility or as a unique auditorium can fit with your educational plans, please contact Shanil at viranisn@jmu.edu.

The Wells Planetarium is an amazing venue with capabilities unique among planetariums of its size. Come join Shanil in exploring the universe with the greater JMU community.


In addition to Shanil's duties in the planetarium, he is also charged with student recruiting. As many know, Dr. Jon Staib continues to orchestrate our winter recruiting/scholarship efforts that have done so much to grow our department into a nationally recognized program. However, since he retired several years ago, we've been living on borrowed time, hiring him part-time to continue with his successful approach.


This spring, Jon and Shanil will work together on the recruiting to pass the baton on to Shanil for the future. This combination of outreach and recruiting put Shanil in a central position to take our department to the next level in our quest to be the biggest, best and most amazing undergraduate physics department in the nation.


Join us in welcoming Shanil to his new position.

PandA Holiday Party

On the last day of classes, December 9, we hosted our annual department holiday party. As can be seen above, the pizza was a welcome component of the festivities.

Santa's helper, Dr. Butner, delivered a welcome round of joy and presents. The students also roasted presented gifts for the faculty.

A complete set of photos is found here.

As always the holiday video was met with howls of laughter and a good time was had by all.

Mystery of the Christmas Star

The John C. Wells Planetarium at JMU and the JMU Department of Physics and Astronomy are pleased to present a special full-dome planetarium movie entitled "Mystery of the Christmas Star" beginning THIS FRIDAY & SATURDAY evenings at 7pm! This movie allows audiences to journey back 2000 years to Bethlehem in pursuit of a scientific explanation of the star the wise men followed to find the baby Jesus. This modern retelling of the Christmas story is sure to charm and captivate audiences of all ages. All shows are free and seats are first-come, first-seated! Each performance will be followed by a live star talk featuring the Harrisonburg night sky.

The John C. Wells Planetarium is located in Room 1103 of Miller Hall.

View the trailer

Astronomy at the Market II

If you missed Team Awestronomy at Harrisonburg's Farmers Market last Saturday... you missed another good show (wondering about our debut? it's been immortalized here)! The team had a rain (snow) check appearance for the event scheduled for October 29th, when the weather was just impossible for any solar view or relaxing conversations about the Sun, Galaxies, Binary Stars, Big Bang, the History of Astronomy, you name it, only it has to be astro-wise...

On November 5th, the day was gloriously sunny, and the expected (and existing) cold temperatures did not seem to bother anybody eager to watch the Sun in action and understand its whereabouts. And it paid off: there were three quite obvious flares a the edge of the solar circle, and two other little bunches (sunspots come in pairs, usually) smack in the middle, very clearly spotted with the ... sunspotter.

Witness the team in action:

Do you know why the team was there last Saturday, and will be there again next semester (planned for every last Saturday of the month, weather permitting)? Read this, they confessed:

Emil Christensen: The reason I wake up at eight AM on some of my Saturdays is for science. It may sound corny, but it is true nonetheless. I have a lot of fun with the team taking astronomy to the market. There is a great sense of camaraderie in our group, and it makes it that more of an enjoyable experience. Also, it gives me a chance to share what I know, and hey, who would't want to play with liquid nitrogen.


Anthony Saikin: My reasons for doing this:

-Its not everyday that you see a group of people out with a telescope, It truly sets a person's day apart from others.
-The public usually isn't that Astro-literate. It's nice to educate the public.
-The conversations with people. Those who stop by often are interested in what we are doing there and sometimes the conversation will stray from Astronomy into some local science education issue, and how more opportunities for science education should be available.

-Its fun. Especially making Edible Comets, and serving them to people.


Jimmy Corcoran: I enjoy bringing Astronomy to the Farmer's Market because it's a great way to share and spread scientific knowledge within the Harrisonburg area. It surprises me everytime how many people, of every age, show their interest in science when given the opportunity.


Nathan DiDomenico: Science’s positive effects on society are numerous and sizeable. Along with other parts of our culture such as politics and fine art, science has sculpted our civilization into what it is today. Artists and politicians often have large groups of fans that they rely on for success , but the public seems removed from the process scientific discovery and therefore many feel apathetic towards the field of science. This cannot be allowed because progress in the scientific pursuits also relies heavily on how many fans it has. You don’t have to be a scientist to be a fan of science; you only need to recognize the benefits and beauty of scientific curiosity and discovery. The reason I am happy to bring astronomy to the market is because astronomy is a very astounding and wonderful field in science and I think that by talking about it with people I can play a small role in creating more fans of science.

Kyle Eskridge: Astronomy at the market is a good opportunity to get the community excited about astronomy and science in general. It is particularly good to get children excited about science because it may inspire them to one day become scientists or engineers which we could always use more of.

Thanks everyone for the smart questions and comments on how science fills up your everyday lives!

Support Don Chodrow

The Department of Physics and Astronomy is nominating Dr. Chodrow for the College of Science and Mathematics Teaching Award. Please send an e-mail to Dr. Scully (scullyst@jmu.edu) telling why you think Dr. Chodrow deserves this award. How did having him for mechanics (or other courses) change your life, your career path, your understanding of physics? Time is short. Get your e-mail to Dr. Scully by November 1.


This is your chance to thank him for that mental kick he gave you to start you on the path to success. Help us help him get the recognition he deserves.

3 Astronomers Share the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics!

This morning 3 American astronomers received the call of a lifetime when they were notified by the Nobel committee that they would share the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics!

Prof. Adam Riess of The John Hopkins University/Space Telescope Science Institute, Prof. Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory/UC Berkeley and Prof. Brian Schmidt, an American now working at the Australian National University, were recognized “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae.”

In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble discovered that the Universe is expanding. He found that the further a galaxy is from us, the faster it moves away. If you play this movie backwards, it provides an independent piece of evidence that there was a Big Bang. Today, these 3 astronomers are being recognized for their 1998 discovery that the expansion of the universe is actually accelerating and not linear like Hubble discovered. This accelerating expansion is being driven by a mysterious force called "Dark Energy" about which little is known except that it makes up ~70% of the Universe! The group that discovers what Dark Energy actually is will likely also win the Nobel Prize in Physics.

That these 3 astronomers won the Nobel Prize for their work is not surprising since it was recognized immediately after publication that their result has a profound significance on our understanding regarding the evolution of our Universe. Indeed, both teams shared the 2007 Peter Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize -- a gold medal and $500,000 -- and Science magazine dubbed their work as "The Breakthrough Discovery of the Year" in 1998.

Congratulations gentlemen on a very well-deserved honor!

We took the Astronomy at the Market, literally.

One astro faculty and a group of astro students (you'll see exactly which ones soon) took the department's Coronado solar telescope at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market. Along with the telescope, they also sported asunspotter, also to catch the Sun of course, just a little bit differently, in a clearly safe and simple way. The group also "cooked" edible comets (tasting suspiciously like ice cream), and showed how they can form their tails when the future eater pretends to be the Sun and blows a bit of "solar" wind on them.

The kids enjoyed probing cratering on potential planets' surfaces with a variety of impactors (i.e., peebles). Imagine all these while we all talked a lot about astronomy:

The black holes were surely a hit, mainly because Nathan DiDomenico was there to answer the questions:



Kyle Eskridge mastered the Sun:





Jimmy Corcoran went extragalactic:

Anthony Saikin delighted audience with details about binary stars:


Emil Christensen illuminated on the history of astronomy, geo- vs helio-centric systems, telescopes, distances to stars, etc…


Anca Constantin featured the big bang and the history of the universe:




You can see here many more pictures with us and the curious people who surrounded us on that first day of October (also our 1st, and thus our debut with the "Astronomy at the Market" Show).