Berry College Physics & Astronomy News
2003-2004 Edition
Physics Faculty Travel Overseas
Two Berry physics professors spent some of their time during the Summer of 2003 in other countries. Dr. Paul Wallace traveled in Italy, Poland, and the Czech Republic. The purpose of his trip was to do some advance planning and make arrangements for his AST 120 course, entitled "The Copernican Revolution". This is a gen-ed science course that will be taught in part at Berry and in part at historic locations in the cities of Florence, Padua, Krakow, and Prague. Dr. Todd Timberlake also spent some time overseas as he attended the "Dynamical Chaos in Classical and Quantum Physics" Conference in Novosibirsk, Russia. While there he presented a poster and a talk based on research he carried out in cooperation with 2002 Berry grad John Foreman.
Matt Lewis conducts astronomy research at Berry
Berry senior physics major Matt Lewis spent the Summer of 2003 conducting research to help classify gamma-ray sources detected by the EGRET satellite. This work, in collaboration with Dr. Paul Wallace, is part of an ongoing study to identify EGRET gamma-ray sources with known radio or visible sources. The work done by Matt and Dr. Wallace focuses on a particular type of gamma-ray source known as a blazar. Dr. Wallace expects to present the results of their work at a conference in Hong Kong next summer.
Dr. Ron Taylor wins Fall Paper Championship
Dr. Ron Taylor won the Fall Paper Championship for the second consecutive time. Ron dominated the season from start to finish, leaving little doubt of the outcome in the season-ending tournament. For more information about the game of Paper see the
Paper Website.
Four Physics Majors Graduate in December
Berry physics majors Matt Lewis, Aitana Vargas, Scott Conrad, and Brian Blank graduated from Berry this December. Matt plans to pursue graduate study in astronomy. Aitana plans to attend graduate school in either Astronomy or Communications (with a specialization in science communications). Scott has already begun taking engineering classes at Georgia Tech. Brian received his Berry degree as part of the 3-2 engineering program after finishing his engineering courses at Georgia Tech. We are sorry to see them go and we wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors!
Dr. Paul Wallace Receives Tenure and Promotion
This February Dr. Wallace learned that he will be granted tenure and a promotion to Associate Professor for the next academic year. The hard work that Dr. Wallace has put into building and improving the physics and dual-degree engineering programs over the past six years paid off! Congratulations to Dr. Wallace on this outstanding acheivement. It was well-deserved.
McAllister Award Goes to Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson was awarded the 2004 McAllister Award. This award is given to an outstanding student in Berry's physics program. Matt is a physics major and 3-2 enginnering student. He will finish his time at Berry this year and begin his engineering studies at Georgia Tech this Fall.
Third Annual Physnic Held at the Wallace Residence
Physics faculty and students (as well as assorted faculty from other departments who are nearly cool enough to be physicists) gather at the home of Dr. Paul Wallace to celebrate PHYSNIC 2004.
The 2004 Physnic was a great success! Berry's physics faculty and students gathered for their annual festival of food, conversation, and good-spirited sporting competition. This year's Physnic featured a wicked (and I do mean wicked) game of croquet. Many thanks to the Wallace's for hosting this wonderful event.
Frank Petruzielo Wins Spring Paper Championship
Ron Taylor (F03 Champ, left) presents the McAllister trophy to Frank Petruzielo (S04 Champ, right).
Physics major Frank Petruzielo won the Spring 2004 Paper Championship. Frank's victory marks the first time since Spring 2002 that a student has won the McAllister Trophy. Frank was strong throughout the entire Paper season, giving himself a distinct advantage in the tournament at season's end. For more information about the game of Paper see the
Paper Website.
Berry Grads to Start Graduate School This Fall
Matt Lewis, who graduated with a physics major this past December, will be entering the graduate program in physics and astronomy at Dartmouth this Fall. Aitana Vargas, who graduate the same time as Matt, plans to enter graduate school in Communications at the University of Sussex in England. We wish them both well in their continuing academic pursuits.
Tyler Coats Graduates, Matt Wilson Off to Tech
Berry physics major and baseball star Tyler Coats graduated this May. Tyler plans to begin graduate work in engineering at Georgia Tech this Fall. Also off to Tech this Fall is Matt Wilson, who has completed his three years at Berry for the 3-2 engineering program. Matt will be awarded a B.S. in physics from Berry once he completes his coursework at Georgia Tech. We wish Tyler and Matt the best of luck in their engineering careers!
Dr. Paul Wallace, World Traveler
Dr. Wallace, Matt Lewis, and the AST 102 students pose with Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler in Prague.
Dr. Wallace taught his "Copernican Revolution" course for the first time this summer. This course focuses on the historic revolution in which the heliocentric theory of the solar system ultimately supplanted the established geocentric theory. To gain a better perspective on the historical and cultural aspects of this revolution, Dr. Wallace took his class to the Polish city of Krakow, the Czech city of Prague, and the Italian cities of Venice, Padua, and Florence. Pictures and commentary about the course can be found at
the AST 120 Website. Dr. Wallace also attended a conference in Hong Kong, China this summer where he presented work that he conducted with Berry physics major (and 2003 graduate) Matt Lewis.
Berry Physics and Astronomy Publications and Presentations (2003-2004)
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.
- C. Lane (with Robert Bluhm, V. Alan Kostelecky, and Neil Russel), "Probing Lorentz and CPT violation with space-based experiments," Physical Review D 68: 125008 (2003).
- C. Lane, panelist for the "Crackerbarrel on New Physics and Astronomy Faculty Workshop", AAPT Annual Meeting, Madison, WI, August 2003.
- C. Lane, "Clock-Comparison Tests of Relativity on Earth and in Space," talk given at the Annual Meeting of the Georgia Academy of Science, Mount Berry, GA, March 2004.
- C. Lane, "Satellite-based clock-comparison tests of Lorentz and CPT symmetry," talk given at DAMOP 2004, Tucson, AZ, May 2004.
- T. Timberlake, "A computational approach to teaching conservative chaos," The American Journal of Physics 72: 1002-1007 (2004).
- T. Timberlake and J. V. Foreman, "Correlation of the photodetachment rate and lyapunov exponent for a scarred resonance state," poster and talk presented at the International Conference on Dynamical Chaos in Classical and Quantum Physics, Novosibirsk, Russia, August 2003.
- T. Timbelrake, "Quantum-classical correspondence in driven open quantum systems," invited talk at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, January 2004.
- T. Timberlake, "Teaching Chaos Theory to Undergraduate Physics Majors," talk given at the Annual Meeting of the Georgia Academy of Science, Mount Berry, GA, March 2004.
- T. Timberlake, "A computational approach to teaching conservative chaos," talk given at the Gordon Research Conference on Physics Research and Education, South Hadley, MA, June 2004.
- P. Wallace, "Optical Monitoring of High-Latitude Unidentified Gamma-Ray Sources," invited talk given at North Georgia College & State University, February 2004.
- P. Wallace and Matt Lewis, "A Multiwavelength Investigation of Unidentified EGRET Sources", poster presented at the 2nd Workshop on Unidentified Gamma-Ray Sources, Hong Kong, China, May 2004.
