Spring 2008

April 8 Solubility
Bob Mazo
ITS
Abstract:
To clarify the title: this talk will not deal with the solution of equations but with phenomena like "What happens when you put sugar in your coffee?" I shall talk primarily about the salting out effect, the decrease (usually) of the solubility of a solute in a solvent when a third component is added. After a brief discussion of the physical factors affecting solubility, I shall discuss a formal theory of the salting out effect,based on the fluctuation theory of solutions. Then I shall indicate how application of this formal theory to experimental rresults enables one to draw conclusions about the microscopic structure of a solution. If time permits, I shall discuss what happens when the system is near the critical point of the solvent, where fluctuations are very large.
April 15 Glauber, Einstein, and Bohr-Kramers-Slater: Old Wine, New Bottle
Howard Carmichael Physics Colloquium
University of Aukland
April 22 Maximum Entropy and Maximally Broken Time-Reversal Symmetry
Roger Haydock
ITS
Getting the most out of moments
April 29 Wheeler, Einstein, and Mach's Principle (with an experimental test of Mach's Principle)
Jim Isenberg
ITS
May 6 Protein local dynamics
Marina Guenza
ITS
May 20 Heat content and heat trace asymptotics with singular initial temperature distributions
Peter Gilkey
ITS
May 27 WMAP 5 Year Data Analysis: What is New?
Greg Bothun 331 Klamath Hall
UO Physics
July 8 GRAVITATIONAL VACUUM ENERGY IN OUR RECENTLY ACCELERATING UNIVERSE
Sidney Bludman Friday 4pm
Departamento de Astronomia Universidad de Chile Santiago, Chile
Abstract:
We review current observations of the homogeneous cosmological expansion history which, because they measure only kinematic variables, cannot determine the dynamics driving the recent accelerated expansion. The minimal fit to the data, the flat L CDM model, consisting of cold dark matter and a cosmological constant, interprets 4 L geometrically as a classical spacetime curvature constant of nature, avoiding any reference to quantum vacuum energy. (The observed Uehling and Casimir effects measure forces due to QED vacuum polarization, but not any quantum material vacuum energies.) An Extended Anthropic Principle, that Dark Energy and Dark Gravity be indistinguishable, selects out flat L CDM. Prospective cosmic shear and galaxy clustering observations of the growth of fluctuations, in principle, will test whether 'dark energy' is static or moderately dynamic and distinguish Dark Energy from Dark Gravity.