Physics Blog

Every four years, the Society of Physics Students (SPS) and Sigma Pi Sigma organizes the Physics Congress meeting (PhysCon). It is the largest gathering of undergraduate physics students in the US, and PhysCon 2022, held in Washington D.C. on October 6-8, absolutely lived up to our expectations! The Omni Shoreham hotel, was…

A groundhog visited Taylor Hall on July 6.See Paul Bonvallet's Twitter post and the August 8 report in C&EN.

Niklas Manz, associate professor and department chair of physics at The College of Wooster, recently co-authored an article in Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science, a  peer-reviewed publication. The article, “Science, serendipity, coincidence, and the Oregonator at the University of Oregon, 1969–1974” is the feature piece in the journal’s Focus Issue and…

As part of my science history project, the article “Science, serendipity, coincidence, and the Oregonator at the University of Oregon, 1969–1974” has been published in Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science. It’s especially exciting because it’s the Feature article in the Focus Issue, From Chemical Oscillations to Applications of Nonlinear Dynamics: Dedicated to…

After MANY months of not traveling, I scheduled a meeting with Robert (Bob) M. Mazo, Professor emeritus from the University of Oregon, now living outside Philadelphia. In 1971/1972 he helped developing the key model to describe chemical reaction-diffusion systems. But, as he stated, he was “only the catalyst” and only accepted to…

2019-2020 Physics Club awarded Outstanding SPS Chapter – 4th year in a row!

Preston Pozderac ’17, PhD student at Ohio State University, talks about his research in our Colloquium series on Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 11 a.m. in Taylor 111. The title of his talk is “Relativistic Laser Plasma Interactions”.

A sunflower from Teague’s memorial service Yesterday, Dr Manz and I went to Lexington, Kentucky to attend the memorial service for Teague Curless.  It was good to gather with Teague’s friends and family so that we could talk about him and remember him, and share our aching hearts with each…

WOOSTER, OH (Aug. 24)—Wooster senior Teague Curless is being remembered as an exceptional student, and wonderful peer and friend to many.  Curless, 21, of Lexington, KY, passed away early Tuesday morning after an automobile accident on State Route 585 near Smithville, Ohio. A double major in mathematics and physics with…

Sadly and unexpectedly Wooster physics senior Teague Curless ’22 died yesterday. I was fortunate to teach Teague some physics, especially in my Nonlinear Dynamics class last spring. Teague’s semester project beautifully illustrated chaos in a double pendulum — a pendulum swinging from another pendulum, like The Swinging Sticks® kinetic sculpture that silently rotates and librates beside me as I write. Using Mathematica, Teague…

Interdisciplinary research team publishes article on geographic tongue Alumna Margaret McGuire ’20, alumnus Chase Fuller ’19, John Lindner, the Moore Professor of Astronomy at The College of Wooster, and Niklas Manz, assistant professor of physics, published a co-written article in early March titled “Geographic tongue as a reaction–diffusion system” in…

Wooster team earns a silver medal in the 2020 University Physics Competition

Professors and students collaborate on physics publication John Lindner, the Moore Professor of Astronomy at The College of Wooster, and Niklas Manz, assistant professor of physics, recently published an article with two Wooster undergraduates, Fish Yu ’21 and Margaret McGuire ’20, and alumnus Chase Fuller ’19, that was a result…

Wooster graduates play significant role in Indy 500 What did the top three finishers of this year’s Indianapolis 500 have in common? They had two Wooster alumni working hard to get them on the podium. Danielle Shepherd ’14 and Collin Hendershot ’18 applied skills they learned during their four years at Wooster to their current occupations in auto racing. Shepherd, a simulation engineer for…

Teaching physics to neural networks removes 'chaos blindness' Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered that teaching physics to neural networks enables those networks to better adapt to chaos within their environment. The work has implications for improved artificial intelligence (AI) applications ranging from medical diagnostics to automated drone…

I met two scientists for my BZ-history project with a combined age of 177 years. It was a great pleasure and honor to talk to them. Meeting with Horst-Dieter Försterling Meeting with Hermann Haken.

Last weekend, I attended a conference in Germany. I used the opportunity during my sabbatical to return to this conference series, which I attended the last time in 2002. The conference takes place in a small village in the Harz, a Mittelgebirge (I didn’t know that this is an English word!) in…

Senior Abigail Ambrose becomes SPS Associate Zone Councilor Abigail Ambrose is a senior physics major at the College of Wooster. From Fall 2018 to Spring 2020 Abigail is serving as the president of the Wooster SPS chapter as well as the Astronomy Club. She is very active in outreach, including writing…

Carlos in action at his poster, with Andrew Blaikie ’13 and Daniel Blaikie ’19. I thought the March APS meeting was fantastic. It felt great to present our research findings to people who cared about what Dr. Lindner and I were working on at the College. I attended fun talks…

Having never been to a physics conference, or even to the city of Boston, attending the annual American Physical Society’s March Meeting was all around a new and incredible experience. Being able to present my research to physicists from across the globe was nerve-racking but very insightful to get opinions…