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Contact Dr. Todd Timberlake PO Box 5004 Mount Berry, GA 30149-5004 ttimberlake@berry.edu Phone: (706) 368-5622 Fax: (706) 238-7855 Office: SCI 338A

2007-2008 Edition

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After ten years of outstanding work at Berry College, Dr. Paul Wallace will be leaving us. Dr. Wallace plans to enroll at Candler Theological Seminary at Emory University this Fall to pursue a Masters of Divinity degree. In many ways Dr. Wallace has been the architect of the current Berry physics program. He chaired the department from 2001 to 2007, was instrumental in hiring Drs. Lane and Timberlake, and has been a key factor in the growth of the physics program (both in quality and in numbers of students) over the past ten years. His presence as a teacher, scholar, mentor, and friend will be greatly missed. We wish him the best of luck at Emory!

Berry physics majors Sarah Earl and Molly Nelson presented their research at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society in Nashville, TN. Sarah presented a poster entitled "Measurement of Silver Nanoparticles on Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) Surfaces." The poster describes work that Sarah conducted last summer as part of the NSF REU program at North Carolina State University. Molly gave a talk on "Eigenvalue spacings of the asymmetric infinite square well" during the Socity of Physics Students Zone Meeting that was held in conjunction with the SESAPS meeting. Molly's talk described reserach she conducted with Dr. Timberlake at Berry.

Four Berry physics majors gave talks on their research at Berry's annual Symposium on Student Scholarship:

• Sarah Earl, "Measurement of Silver Nanoparticles on Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) Surfaces." Mentor: Dr. Jack Rowe (Sarah's REU supervisor at NC State).
• Molly Nelson, "Eigenvalue Spacings in the Asymmetric Infinite Square Well." Mentor: Dr. Timberlake. Molly also presented "Thomas Campion and the Lyric" which describes work she has done in conjunction with her major in English.
• Robby Boston, "Wavepacket Revivals in the Asymmetric Infinite Square Well." Mentor: Dr. Timberlake.
• Tim Margrave, "Science Majors' Beliefs about the Nature of Science." Mentor: Dr. Timberlake.

The McAllister award is given to an outstanding student in Berry's physics program. The 2008 McAllister award was given to Sarah Earl, a physics-math double major. Sarah has been a fantastic student during her four years at Berry and will graduate with honors in May 2008. She has participated actively in research during her time at Berry, from conducting a study of Berry's Foucault pendulum to investigating radioactive decay and Lorentz violation with Dr. Lane to conducting experimental solid-state reserach at NC State. Sarah plans to begin work toward a PhD in physics in Fall 2008.

Dr. Todd Timberlake was awarded the Voice of Berry Faculty Award for 2008. This award is given in appreciation of outstanding communication skill throughout the academic year. In presenting the award VP for Advancement Bettyann O'Neill mentioned Dr. Timberlake's work on the QEP Steering Committee as well as his work as Vice Chair of Faculty Assembly.

During the annual MNS Awards Banquet Tim Margrave was presented with the blue ribbon (first place) award for Most Effective Communication. This award was given to acknowledge the outstanding job Tim did in presenting his talk on "Science Majors' Beliefs about the Nature of Science" during the 2008 Symposium on Student Scholarship.

Dr. Dan Robb has accepted a physics faculty position at Berry. Dr. Robb will be replacing Dr. Wallace, who departs to start Seminary at Emory this Fall (see above). Dr. Robb earned his bachelor's degree from Williams College and his Masters and PhD degrees from the University of Texsas at Austin (under the same supervisor as Dr. Timberlake). Dr. Robb is currently a postdoctoral research associate at Clarkson University in upstate New York. His conducts research in computational studies of nanoparticle formation, among other things.

The Physnic (or Physics Picnic) has become an annual tradition in which physics faculty and students, as well as several other guests, join to celebrate the year each Spring. The 2008 Physnic was hosted at Dr. Timberlake's home.

Six of our physics majors graduated this year, the largest graduating class we have had in recent years. Sarah Earl will enroll in the PhD physics program at Vanderbilt University (where she received a generous fellowship) this Fall. Susanne Galyon will be attending Mercer University medical school. Derrick Colbert will enroll in the University of Georgia's veterinary medicine program. Tim Margrave will pursue a Master's degree in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee or the University of Wisconsin (he's still deciding). Ryan McClay is exploring a variety of employment options. John Boyea, who graduated from Berry and Georgia Tech after completing the dual-degree engineering program and earning a physics major, will be working as a materials engineer at Redstone Labs in Huntsville, AL.

Two of our Berry students will begin courses at Georgia Tech this Fall as part of Berry's dual-degree engineering program with Tech. Judy Cook, who assisted in the construction of the Cage Center last summer, plans to pursue a degree in civil engineering. Molly Nelson, who has already completed the requirements for a double-major in physics and English at Berry, will likely study mechanical engineering.

Dr. Chuck Lane was awarded the 2008 Dave and Lu Garret Award for Meritorious Teaching during the Spring Commencement ceremony. During the award presentation President Steve Briggs cited Dr. Lane's incredible enthusiasm for physics, his devotion to his students, his innovative and effective teaching methods, and his efforts to involve students in undergraduate research. Physics professors have now won all three of the major teaching awards at Berry (Dr. Julian Shand won the Teaching Excellence Award in 1998 and Dr. Malcolm MacDonald won the Carden Award in 1988).

Several Berry physics majors participated in research projects during the 07-08 academic year:

• Molly Nelson worked with Dr. Timberlake on studies of eigenvalue spacings in the asymmetric infinite square well. She will complete this project in May.
• Robby Boston worked with Dr. Timberlake on studies of wave packet revivals in the asymmetric infinite square well. He will finish up this project during summer 2008.
• Tim Margrave worked with Dr. Timberlake on a study o the epistemological beliefs of undergraduate science majors. He will complete this work in May.
• Ryan McClay worked with Dr. Wallace to map out the analemma of the Sun using a large sundial on the roof of the science building.

Several Berry physics majors also plan to conduct reserach this summer:

• Robby Boston and Trey Bobo will work with Dr. Lane on a project in theoretical subatomic physics.
• Andrew Duty will work with Dr. Timberlake to replicate several historic experiments that demonstrated the pressure of the air and refuted the Aristotelian doctrine of "horror vacui".
• Richard Royal will work with Dr. Lane on computer visualizations of relativistic effects.
• Robbie Gill will work at Montana State University as part of their NSF-sponsored REU program in engineering.

We've heard from a few of our Berry physics alums recently. Trinity Allen will begin the PhD program in Geology (with a focus on planetary science) at the University of Colorado this Fall. Chad Grennor (who recently got married) is now working for Bechtel and has been assigned to work on one of the new TVA nuclear power plants. Chad is also a co-author of a recent paper in the journal Nuclear Technology. Speaking of publishing papers, Jeff Tucker had a paper accepted for the Proceedings of the Harriet J. Walton Symposium on Undergraduate Mathematics Research. The paper describes research on the randomness of prime numbers that Jeff conducted with Dr. Timberlake while we has a Berry student.

The names of Berry faculty who are co-authors of these publications and presentations are indicated in bold type. Names of Berry students are shown in red type.

• Charles Lane, "Doppler-effect Experiments and Lorentz Violation," Fourth Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, IN, August 2007.
• Sarah Earl, James Perkins, Dong Wu, and J. E. Rowe, "Measurement of Silver Nanoparticles on Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) Surfaces," 2007 Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society, Nasvhille, TN, November 2007.
• Molly Nelson and Todd Timberlake, "Eigenvalue spacings of the asymmetric infinite square well," 2007 Socity of Physics Students Joint Zone Meeting, Nasvhille, TN, November 2007.
• T. Timberlake and Jeffery Tucker, "Is there quantum chaos in the prime numbers?," 2007 Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society, Nasvhille, TN, November 2007.
• Ron Taylor and Todd Timberlake, "Tearing Plastic: A Laboratory Exercise on Fractals and Hyperbolic Geometry," PRIMUS (2007) 17(4): 316-324.
• Jeffery Tucker and Todd Timberlake, "Statistical Analysis of the Randomness of Prime Numbers," Proceedings of the Harriet J. Walton Symposium on Undergraduate Mathematics Research (2007) 5: 15-19.
• Todd Timberlake and Javier Hasbun, "Computation in Classical Mechanics," American Journal of Physics (2008) 76(4&5): 334-339.