SPE: A glance back through the years (1993-2018)
(All speakers are physics professors, unless otherwise noted.)
1993–1994 Director: David Hertzog
- Looking into the Brain with a Laser
Enrico Gratton - Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow
Paul Goldbart - What is Everything Made of?
Gordon Baym (member of the National Academy of Sciences, NAS) - The Particle Zoo and Who's Behind the Bars
Tony Liss - Magnetic Resonance Imaging: From Physics to Medicine
Paul Lauterbur (Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine 2003) Chemistry, Center for Advanced Study
1994–1995 Director: David Hertzog
- What is Everything Made of?
Gordon Baym (NAS)
- Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow
Paul Goldbart - Superfluid Superstars: An Inside View of a Pulsar
David Pines (NAS) - No Escape from Black Holes
Ed Seidel, NCSA, Physics and Astronomy - Magnetic Resonance Imaging: From Physics to Medicine
Paul Lauterbur (Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine 2003) Chemistry, Center for Advanced Study - What is Mass?
Scott Willenbrock - The Collision of Quantum Mechanics with Supercomputers
Philip Phillips
1995–1996 Director: Paul Goldbart
- Watching the Social Activities of Atoms
Murray Gibson - Chaos: the Science of Non-Elephants
David Campbell - No Escape from Black Holes
Ed Seidel, NCSA, Physics and Astronomy - Cosmic Collisions: Comet Shoemaker-Levy's Impact on Jupiter
Margaret Meixner, Astronomy - Never Be Lost Again
Jeremiah Sullivan - Active Mountain Building and Earthquakes
Wang-Ping Chen, Geology - Severe and Unusual Weather: the Roles of Science and Technology
John Walsh, Atmospheric Sciences
1996–1997 Director: Paul Goldbart
- The Birth, Life and Death of Stars
James Kaler, Astronomy - Surfing Waves in the Microcosmos: Using Light Waves to View the Body
Eric Wiener - So You Thought Computers Could Do Anything? Some Probably Unsolvable and Infeasible Computational Problems
Michael Loui, Electrical and Computer Engineering - The Strange Fate of Cats (and Other Things) According to Quantum Mechanics
Anthony Leggett (Nobel Laureate in Physics 2003; NAS; Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire; Fellow of the Royal Society) - Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes
Frederick Lamb - When Ash Meets Cowhide: The Physics of Baseball
Alan Nathan - My Time is NOT Your Time: Einstein's Relativity in Theory and Practice
Gary Gladding - Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, and Other Ways to Really See Atoms
Munir Nayfeh
Fall 1997 Director: Scott Willenbrock
- Black Holes: A Video Voyage Through Einstein's Spacetime
Stuart Shapiro - Liquid Crystals: Strange Fluids That Don't Always Flow
Paul Goldbart - Using Chaos to Mix Fluids Well
Hassan Aref, Physics, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics - The Physical and Chemical Effects of Ultrasound
Kenneth Suslick, Chemistry - Radio Observations of Large Interstellar Molecules of Possible Biological Interest
Lewis Snyder, Astronomy - The Physics of Music
David Hertzog - The Particle Zoo and Who's Behind the Bars.
Tony Liss
Fall 1998 Director: Scott Willenbrock
- Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Black Holes
Frederick Lamb - Baseball: It's Not Nuclear Physics (or is it?)
Alan Nathan - High Temperature Superconductors: From Broken Symmetries to Cell Phones
Laura Greene - What's a Physicist Doing Studying Biology?
Paul Selvin - How Do Airplanes Work? Taking the Fear out of Flying a Piper Archer II
Deborah Errede - Is Music Composition More Elusive for Computers?
Douglas Hofstadter, Cognitive Science, Indiana University
Fall 1999 Directors: Mats Selen & Inga Karliner
- Finessing Photons: Interesting Ways in Which Light is Manipulated in Science and Nature
Lance Cooper - The Art and Science of Pin Hole Camera
Peter R. McCullogh, Astronomy - Computational Science: The Real World of Ideas
Roscoe Giles, Computer and Electrical Engineering, Boston University - Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: An Ingenious Experiment With Surprising Results
Charles Slichter (NAS) - The World of Quantum Mechanics: How is it Different from Our Everyday World?
Aida El-Khadra - Atom Smashes: Particle Accelerators and Detectors
Mats Selen
Fall 2000 Directors: Mats Selen & Kevin Pitts
- The Education of John Bardeen, Double Nobel Prize Physicist
Lillian Hoddeson, Physics and History - The Universe: From Big Bang Till Today
Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy - Biophysics, How Nerves Fire and Muscles Contract
Paul Selvin - Chaos: The Science of Non-Elephants
David Campbell, was Physics Department Head; became Dean of Engineering, Boston University - The Mystery of Mass
Scott Willenbrock
Fall 2001 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Phonon Imaging: Seeing Sound in Solids
James Wolfe - Bose-Einstein Condensation: A Journey to the Coldest Places in the Universe
Gordon Baym (NAS) - Liquid Crystals: From the Laboratory to the Shopping Mall
Paul Goldbart - Peering inside the Proton
Naomi Makins - The Physics of Dance
George Gollin - Science: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Jon Thaler
Fall 2002 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Something Quantum This Way Comes
Paul Kwiat - Physics in the Early Universe: Ingredients of the Primordial Soup
Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy - The Physics of Music
Steven Errede - A Trip Through the Light Fantastic: Tricks with Light in Science and Nature
Lance Cooper - All About Energy
David Ruzic, Nuclear Engineering
Fall 2003 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Human Induced Climate Change: An Introduction and Overview
Michael Schlesinger, Atmospheric Sciences - Light From Black Holes
Charles Gammie, Physics and Astronomy - How We Use Light to Illuminate Biology
Robert Clegg - Complex Systems: Where Physics Meets Life
Alfred Hubler - It's So Weird, It's So Simple, and You'll Derive It for Yourself Entirely
From Scratch, Right There In Your Seat: Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity.
George Gollin - The Elusive Neutrino: Why Something That Does So Little Matters So Much.
Mats Selen
Fall 2004 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Steaming Geysers and Puffing Volcanoes
Susan Kieffer, Physics and Geology - What is Absolute Zero? Ultra-cold Quantum Weirdness
Brian DeMarco - Could a Defense Against Intercontinental Missiles Work?
History and Technology.
Frederick Lamb - From the Infinite to the Infinitely Small. Probing the Cosmos at an Accelerator
Tony Liss - Little Engine that Could: How Tiny Motor Proteins Move on a Molecular Highway
Taekjip Ha - The Crystals that Nature Cannot Make
Jim Eckstein
Fall 2005 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Einstein's Miracle Year
Paul Kwiat - From Transistor to Light-Emitting Transistor
Milton Feng, Electrical and Computer Engineering - Looking into Brain with Lasers
Enrico Gratton - The Latest from Broadway to Loomis: The First 10 Microseconds of the Universe
Matthias Grosse-Perdekamp - Quantum Mechanics: Stranger Than We Can Imagine
Michael Weissman
Fall 2006 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Corked Bats and Rising Fastballs: Using Physics to Debunk Some Myths of Baseball
Alan Nathan - Why Can't Time Run Backwards
Anthony Leggett (Nobel Laureate in Physics 2003; NAS;
Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire)
Fellow of the Royal Society) - Physics of the Body
Klaus Schulten - Looking for 10^-16 m Objects with a 10 ^4m Microscope
Tim Stelzer - Phonon Imaging: Seeing Sound in Solids
James Wolfe
Fall 2007 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- The Great Scientific Instruments: Why We Build Them
David Hertzog - The Liquid Crystalline State of Matter: From the Laboratory to the Shopping Mall
Paul Goldbart - Fire or Ice? The Fate of the Universe
Jon Thaler - Over the Moon with Carbon Nanotubes
Nadya Mason - Mysteries of the Cold Universe
Smitha Vishveshwara
Fall 2008 Directors: Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- How We Use Light to Illuminate Biology
Bob Clegg - The Pervasive Nature of Feedback in Natural and Engineered Systems
Andrew Alleyne, Mechanical Science and Engineering - Transforming Science Policy, and the Power Grid with High Temperature Superconductors
Laura Greene - The Physics of UFOs
Kevin Pitts - Law and Science
Amy Gajda, Law School, Journalism - Special lecture May 2009
Angels & Demons: The Science Revealed
Kevin Pitts and Mark Neubauer
Fall 2009 Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Exotic Superconductors: New Mysteries, Exciting Applications
Dale Van Harlingen - Decision Making in Living Cells
Ido Golding - The Dark Side of the Universe
Brian Fields, Physics and Astronomy - Understanding Complex Systems
Alfred Hubler - The Atom Chip
Benjamin Lev - From Blindness to Sight: The Physics of Vision Restoration
Dr. Samir Sayegh, MD, PhD
Fall 2010 Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Black Holes and Other Strange Objects in the Sky
Charles Gammie, Physics and Astronomy - Quarks and Cold Atoms: From the Hottest to the Coldest Places in the Universe
Gordon Baym - A Curvy, Stretchy Future for Electronics
John Rogers, Materials Science & Engineering - Physics of Genes and Why It Matters to You
Aleksei Aksimentiev - A Trip Through the Light Fantastic: Tricks with Light in Science and Nature
Lance Cooper - Unlocking the Dark Secrets of our Universe: How Studying the Smallest Things with the Biggest Science Project Ever Gets to the Heart of the Matter
Tony Liss
Fall 2011 Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- Exotic Objects of the Cosmos: Neutron Stars, Pulsars and Black Holes
Frederick Lamb - The Physics of Climate Change
Scott Willenbrock - The Mysterious Neutrino
Jen-Chieh Peng - Corked Bats, Humidors and Steroids: The Physics of Cheating in Baseball
Alan Nathan - Transforming Science, Policy and the Power Grid with High Temperature Superconductivity
Laura Greene - Inside Out: How Physics Has Revolutionized Medical Imaging
P. Scott Carney, Electrical and Computer Engineering
Fall 2012 Directors: Naomi Makins, Inga Karliner & Kevin Pitts
- The Quantum Information Revolution
Paul Kwiat - A Billionth of a Billionth of a Meter: Building a Microscope for the Observation of Quarks and Anti-Quarks Inside the Proton
Matthias Grosse Perdekamp. - How We Think and Move at the Smallest Scale
Paul Selvin - Extrasolar Planets
Jon Thaler - Our Weird Quantum World
Michael Weissman - Understanding the Energy Challenge: It Takes More Than Science
Paul Debevec
Fall 2013 Directors: Liang Yang and Inga Karliner
- Nature's Biological Nanomachines
Yann Chemla - Creating Quantum Matter at the Coldest Temperatures in the Universe
Brian Demarco - Baby Stars: Take A Solar Mass of Gas and Dust and Just Add Gravity
Leslie Looney - The Ultimate MRI: Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy
Raffi Budakian - Why is There Mass?
Tony M. Liss - What Is Inside Jupiter and Saturn and How Do We Know?
David M. Ceperley
Fall 2014 Directors: Liang Yang and Inga Karliner
- Decisions, Decisions: How Cells Sense Their Environment and Make Decisions to Adapt and Respond
Thomas E. Kuhlman - This Old Zero-Net-Energy House
Scott S. Willenbrock - Everyone Loves Science
Mats A. Selen - When Stars Attack! In Search of Killer Supernova Explosions
Brian D. Fields - Building Mountains: How Forces in the Earth Raise Rock Miles into the Sky
Stephen Marshak - Magnets and Big Machines: The Use of Neutrons to Explore Magnetism in New Materials
Gregory MacDougal
Fall 2015 Directors: Peter Adshead and Inga Karliner
- The First Galaxies in the Universe and the ALMA Telescope
Professor Joaquin Vieira - Building Emergent Biological Machines
Professor Rashid Bashir - Hunting for the Elusive Neutrino
Professor Liang Yang - How Laws, Sausages, and Science are Made: an Inside View of How Science Really Works
Professor Peter Abbamonte - I'm Beginning to See the Light: Properties and Applications of our Friendly Photons
Professor Paul G. Kwiat - How to Train your Photon (20-min talk followed by lab tours)
Professor Virginia Lorenz
Fall 2016 Directors: Peter Adshead and Inga Karliner
- Exoplanets
Professor Jon Thaler - Visualizing the Amazing Quantum World
Professor Vidya Madhavan - What can theoretical physics tell us about the evolution of early life?
Professor Nigel Goldenfeld - Black Holes, Gravitational Waves, and LIGO
Professor Edward Seidel - The Hidden Universe: Dark Matter and Dark Energy
Professor Jeffrey Filippini - Visit to the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) where the Higgs Boson was Found
Professor Verena Martinez Outshoorn
Fall 2017 Directors: Brian DeMarco and Liang Yang
- When Stars Attack! Radioactive evidence for a near-Earth supernova explosion
Professor Brian Fields - Visualization in Science, Technology and the Arts
Professor Donna Cox - Radiation, friend or foe?
Professor Kevin Pitts - Nuclear Proliferation: Can terrorists buy, steal or build a nuclear bomb?
Professor Matthias Grosse Perdekamp - How Small Can We Go? The physics behind nanoscale electronics
Professor Nadya Mason - Understanding Nature's Micro
Professor Yann Chemla
Fall 2018 Directors: Brian DeMarco and Liang Yang
- A Look Inside the Hottest Matter in the Universe
Professor Anne Sickles - Sustainable Energy
Professor Scott Willenbrock - Inflation and the Hot Big Bang: The Quantum Origin of Structure in the Universe
Professor Peter Adshead - Towards a Quantum Internet
Professor Virginia Lorenz - Ubiquitous Crackling: from Nanocrystal, to Neurons, to Earthquakes, to Stars
Professor Karin Dahmen - Even Evolution Can't Have it All
Professor Seppe Kuehn