Physics 5101, Physics Seminar, Spring, 2012 (Last modified 1/19/12)
Department of Physics Colloquium, 3:30PM - 5:00PM, Thursdays, Science Room 234
3:00PM-3:30PM, there will USUALLY be FREE refreshments in Room 103!! Please come to refreshments!
What other class gives you FREE food?? Coming to this gives opportunities to interact informally with the speaker & with Physics faculty!
Physics 5101 Syllabus and Announcement Page. Spring, 2012 TTU Academic Calendar.  Final Exam Schedule.
Instructor and Contact Information
Dr. Charles W. Myles, Professor of Physics. Phone: 742-3768. Office: Science Room 18. 
E-mail: Charley.Myles@ttu.edu. Office Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 2:00-3:00pm and by appointment.
An email distribution list will be developed. Here is an important email announcement!! Please be sure that I have your correct email address, that you tell me if it changes, and that you check your email DAILY!
Class Meetings
Class officially meets 3:30PM - 5PM Thursdays. But, 3-3:30PM, there will USUALLY be FREE refreshments in Room 103!! Please come to refreshments!You are encouraged to come to this & to interact informally with the speaker & the  faculty. What other class gives you free refreshments? The class officially starts at 3:30pm, but the talks start at 3:40pm. Occasionally, a talk may last past 5PM.
Syllabus, Course Objective and Topics
Objective: The course objective is to expose physics graduate students to current research in a variety of physics and physics-related sub-areas. This will be achieved by having (hopefully pedagogical!) research talks on a variety of topics by a variety of speakers. See the Syllabus. Details (rules, grading scheme..) are there. Topics: A TENTATIVE list of speakers and a TENTATIVE list of topics is on the
Announcement Page.

THIS IS A GRADUATE COURSE
It is designed for students in the Physics graduate programs. Each speaker has been requested to make their talk so that a first year Physics graduate student can understand a major portion of it. If a given talk is at too high a level, obviously, that is beyond my control!

STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES and RULES
1. ATTEND EACH COLLQUIUM!!!
2. CELL PHONES MUST BE TURNED OFF!!!
3. PAY ATTENTION to the speakers!
4. Out of COURTESY TO THE SPEAKERS, NO
sleeping, eating, drinking, talking, reading, doing homework, etc. is allowed, during the talks.
5. Out of COURTESY TO THE SPEAKERS and to
the audience, please ARRIVE ON TIME!!
It is VERY RUDE to noisily barge into a room where a talk is already underway!!.
Attendance and Grades: This is a pass-fail (P/F) course.
You must keep a Colloquium Notebook in which you write notes on each talk. This should be written in during each talk & should be kept throughout the semester!! It should NOT be constructed at semester's end for grading purposes!! It needn't be detailed, but it should be enough to convince me that you were there & paying attention. At semester's end, your notebooks must be turned in. At that time, you must also turn in A Report, which summarizes, in one (1) page each, the three (3) talks (3 pages total) which, in your opinion, were the three (3) best.

To Receive a P Grade in this Course:
1. YOU MUST ATTEND at least 13 (87%) of the 15 scheduled colloquia.
I allow two (2) missed colloquia, which should normally be sufficient for cases of illness, etc.
Further absences won't be excused without a doctor's note or a similar "official" excuse.
2. At semester's end, you must turn in the Colloquium Notebook discussed above.
NOTE!! This means a BOUND NOTEBOOK!!!
IT DOES NOT MEAN a bunch of loose papers stapled together!
3. At semester's end, you must turn in the Report discussed above.
The deadline to turn in the material in items 2 & 3 will be set later. Once that deadline is set,
THERE WILL BE NO EXTENSIONS!
Failure to turn in the notebook & reports will result in an F in this course!!!

Announcements and Calendar Items
The Announcement Page contains important 
Announcements, schedule changes, and other Calendar Items.
Please check it often!
Miscellaneous Topics
1. For some physics news, go to Physics Central. For news at a more advanced level, go to Focus News from the American Physical Society.

2. Check out the "Top 10 most influential people of the last 1000 years"! (Link borrowed from Dr. Tom Gibson!)

3. Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics! Did you ever wonder why there aren't more women physicists? Actually, a number of women made very important contributions to many areas of physics in the 1900's. Here is a website which discusses this in detail!

4. Do you want to know more about Dr. Myles (education, experience, research, etc.)? See his Homepage, his Research Page, & his Personal & Family Page. A page discussing his Current & Future Teaching is Here.

5.  For some Physics Fun, click Here. If you want more fun with Physics and with other science as well, the following is for you! I'm sure that you all have heard of the Nobel Prizes. Well, have you ever heard of the Ig-Nobel Prizes? These are real prizes, awarded each fall in a ceremony at Harvard University to the most entertaining research published recent years in several areas. The research projects may sound strange, but each is a REAL research project published in a REAL scientific journal. Most researchers receiving an Ig Nobel are practicing scientists, some of them are really very distinguished and a few of them have also been awarded a physics Nobel Prize. The presentation ceremony is streamed live on the internet. The Ig Nobel website has downloadable video clips of the ceremonies. The Ig Nobel presentations are always made by Nobel Prize winners.  Often dressed in silly costumes, these Nobel Laureates also participate in various silly activities which happen during the ceremony. For example there is a lottery with the tickets to the ceremony, the winners of which "Win a Date With a Nobel Laureate! The Ig Nobels are awarded by the same people who publish the Journal of Improbable Research (JIR). The requirements for a research paper to be published in JIR are that
it must contain research that  A. Makes People Laugh and B. Makes People Think!
These are also the two requirements for research to be considered for an Ig Nobel Prize.

WY Physics LogoThe WORLD YEAR OF PHYSICS 2005 marked 100 years since Albert Einstein published 3 pioneering papers (Relativity, Brownian Motion, Photoelectric Effect), which changed physics forever & are considered the beginning of "modern" physics! (He won the 1921 Nobel Prize for the Photoelectric Effect!).  The United Nations, the US Congress, & the governments & scientific societies of many countries have endorsed it. 2005 events will highlight the vitality & importance of physics & bring physics excitement to the public. For more information, click the image on the left.

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