Colloquium Archive

Wednesday, February 12th
Cookies & Tea with HD!
Come hang out and chill with all the Physics professors and enjoy some homemade cookies (by HD) and tea.

3:30pm
Tome 208 (Physics Majors' Room)

Wednesday, March 5th
The Magic of Physics & the Physics of Magic with Professor Pfister

3:30pm
Tome 208 (Physics Majors' Room)
Dunkin donuts & coffee provided

Tuesday, April 8th
Ben Kimock '15, Redjack
Physics, Math, and Astronomy to Cyber and Compilers

Join Ben for a whirlwind tour of how has has used a physics and math degree across cyber resilience, compiler maintenance, and programming language semantics. There will also be a very fast introduction to Rust; you’ll need it.

Noon
Tome 115
Pizza provided

Tuesday, April 15th
Professor Jackson & Professor English
What does a rock falling into a hole have to do with iterated maps and chaos? Approaching first-semester physics problems in a creative way

In PHYS 131, students are asked to find the depth of a chasm from the time it takes to hear the sound of a dropped boulder hitting the bottom. The standard solution involves a system of two equations with two unknowns, but it turns out that a recursive method will also give the right answer. We analyze this non-traditional approach using iterated maps and determine the conditions under which it converges to the correct solution. Interestingly, the iterative method fails to converge when the well depth is large enough for the rock to reach the speed of sound; instead, we get a series of period-doubling bifurcations very similar to what is seen in the logistic map.  It turns out that other basic physics problems can also be solved in this way, as long as a mathematical condition is satisfied.

Noon
Tome 115
Pizza provided

Tuesday, April 22nd
Physics Majors Dinner
Join us as we induct our newest members into Sigma Pi Sigma, induct our newest Physics majors, and announce Awards and Prizes

5:30pm
Rector Atrium
Served meal by Dining Services

Thursday, May 1st
Departmental Physics Honors Presentation - Emma Lothrop '25
Reducing Thermal Loss Through a Solar Air Heater's Glazing by Altering Flow Pattern

Due to the current climate crisis, there is an urgent need for efficient and sustainable heating solutions for homes and buildings, particularly in the U.S., where a significant portion of carbon emissions originates from space heating. Solar air heaters (SAHs) offer a promising solution, with current models achieving solar-to-thermal conversion efficiencies of 60 to 80%. However, there is still room for improvement, particularly in reducing thermal losses through the glazing of SAHs.

Our research focuses on optimizing SAH efficiency by exploring passive loss reduction strategies, which do not require additional electricity input. Specifically, we investigate variations in channel depth as a method for passive thermal loss reduction. Initially, we confirm that higher mass flow rates enhance efficiency. Subsequently, we measure the efficiency of SAHs with varying channel depths.

Our findings indicate that while higher mass flow rates do increase efficiency, the benefits are counteracted by thinner boundary layers and turbulence, especially if the absorber is not a perfectly flat plate. Despite the turbulence, our results show that a double-pass SAH is more efficient than a single-pass SAH. We recommend future research to focus on designing absorbers that promote laminar flow above the absorber and turbulent flow below it.

Noon
Tome 115
Pizza provided