Physics pumpkin drop featured on ESPN
The 9th Annual Pumpkin Drop, hosted by the Department of Physics and Astronomy every year during Dad’s Weekend, received national attention during ESPN coverage of the Oct. 12 football game.
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WSU astrobiologist contributes to Smithsonian blog
Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a professor in the School of the Environment, explores the mysteries of methane on Mars in his latest post on the Smithsonian Air & Space blog, The Daily Planet.
The tractor beam has arrived
WSU physicist Phil Marston was intrigued by the way an acoustic beam is scattered by a sphere.
“Basically, it goes into the category of a problem you solve because it would be curious to see what the answer is and whether there is something there that you didn’t anticipate,” he says. “That was true.”
In the serpentine path from abstract musing to basic science to demonstrated phenomenon, he sowed the seeds for a small-scale but real-life tractor beam that could have applications in both nanotechnology and medicine.
Superconductor created from solvent
From WSU News:
A study led by Washington State University researchers has turned a fairly common nonmetallic solvent into a superconductor capable of transmitting electrical current with none of the resistance seen in conventional conductors.
“It is an important discovery that will attract a lot of attention from many scientific communities – physics, chemistry and materials science,” said Choong-Shik Yoo, a professor in chemistry and in the Institute for Shock Physics. The National Science Foundation-funded discovery, which grows out of research by Yoo doctoral student Ranga Dias, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Read more at WSU News about the power and transport implications
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Shafei earns international scholarship for optics research
Shoresh Shafei has been awarded a 2012 scholarship from the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) for his potential contributions to optics, photonics, or a related field.
Shafei is a graduate student of physics at Washington State University. Under the supervision of professor Mark Kuzyk and in collaboration with adjunct professor Rick Lytel, he is working on nonlinear optical properties of nanoscale quantum graphs as the molecules for future optical device materials.
Shafei is a reviewer for several journals, including the Journal of the Optical Society of America B and New Journal of Physics and was a founding member and president of the SPIE and OSA student chapters at WSU. Based on his leadership and research accomplishments, he received the 2012 President’s Award for Leadership at WSU.
SPIE awarded $350,000 in scholarships to 140 outstanding individuals. SPIE has distributed more than $3.3 million dollars in scholarships, reflecting the society’s commitment to education and to the next generation of optical scientists and engineers around the world.