News Archive
May 2008
Big Glasses! The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), the most powerful optical telescope ever built, has recently been turned on. Located on Arizona's Mount Graham, near Tucson, the LBT has two 8.4 meter diameter mirrors and has ten times (10x) the resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope. For more information, see the LBT site.
It's never too late to finish your studies. We've had our fair share of "non-traditional" students. However, one of the coolest stories of "seeing it to the end" involves Brian May, the guitarist for the rock group Queen. Thirty seven years after dropping out of Imperial College to found the band, he's finished and defended his PhD thesis in Astrophysics. If you have any questions about his thesis, titled "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud", I'm sure he'd love to answer them.
February 2008
Professor Michael Shea, who has a long and distinguished career at Sacramento State has retired, effective the end of the Fall 2007 Semester. Prof. Shea has served Sac State not only as a dedicated Professor, but also as Physics Department Chair and as the Associate Dean for the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. He will be missed, but we suspect that we'll see him often. Congratulations, Mike!
Congratulations to Winter 2007 Graduate Mark Kerfoot! Good Luck and visit us often!
December 2007
Sac State Physics Alumnus Henry Garcia (2005) is a member of the team that has constructed the world's first nanoradio. The research group of Alex Zettl at UC Berkeley has produced a radio out of a single carbon nanotube that is 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. The nanoradio is a complete system, with the nanotube serving as the antenna, demodulator, and amplifier. You can also see the San Francisco Chronicle article on the project.
2007 Nobel Prize in Physics: Albert Fert (France) and Peter Grünberg (Germany) have won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics for their independent discovery of the phenomenon known as Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR). Very small changes in magnetic fields can yield major differences in the electrical resistance in certain materials. This effect has been used to miniaturize hard drive "read heads", thereby enabling the miniaturization of a whole host of electronic equipment - including your iPod. Read the press release here.
September 2007
Congratulations to our Spring 2007 Graduates: Victoria Brandt, Laura Diaz, Joshua Kline, Zhuo Huang, Joshua French, and Kris Karas!
May 2007
On Thursday April 26, the Department of Physics and Astronomy held its 37th annual Awards Dinner and Sigma Pi Sigma Induction Ceremony. Congratulations to: Kris Karas (Sigma Pi Sigma Inductee), Vickie Brandt and Mark Kerfoot (Senior Awards Winners), and Phil Jackson and James Macdougall (Vanderberg Award Winners). Forty five students, faculty, staff, alumni, and emeriti were in attendance. See the photoalbum!
April 2007
The Sac State Chapter of the Society of Physics Students sent 5 students to this year's SPS Regional Meeting held on April 13 - 14 at USC. This year's meeting was held jointly with the Southern California Chapter of the American Association of Physics Teachers. Student Zhuo Huang presented a poster on his research at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Prof. William DeGraffenreid was an invited speaker for the meeting. His talk addressed teaching professionalism to undergraduate students.
March 2007
Congratulations to the Sac State Chapter of the Society of Physics Students. They just won their third Outstanding Chapter Award in the past four years.
December 2006
Congratulations to Chris Parmelee, who graduated in Fall 2006. Good luck and don't forget to stop by and see us!
November 2006
The Department is looking for a new Instructional Support Technician. This full time staff position provides instructional support and services for our physics and astronomy labs. Please see our employment page for more details. November 29: This position is now closed.
Professor Chris Taylor and Instructor Jason Ybarra were recently interviewed by the Sacramento Bee about the transit of Mercury on November 8. Transits are infrequent events where Mercury or Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth.
October 2006
2006 Nobel Prize in Physics: The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Mather (NASA) and George Smoot (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab) for their work with the COBE satellite project. The COBE satellite measured the cosmic microwave background, the radiation from the deepest parts of the universe. Their measurements of the spatial fluctuations in the intensity of the signal could only be explained by the big-bang theory.
Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Lab and Russia's Joint Institute of Nuclear Research have announced the creation of a new element, currently identified by its atomic number 118. Formed by smashing together Calcuim and Californium atoms, the new element lasted for approximately 1 millisecond. Element 118 had once been previously announced (in 1999), but was later retracted (in 2002) based on charges of mishandled and/or falsified data. The current results have been published in the journal Physical Review C.
August 2006:
The International Astronomical Union has adopted guidelines for what are to be classified as planets and dwarf planets. Sadly for friends of Pluto, it is now considered to be a dwarf planet.
An email circulating has been claiming that in August or September of 2006, that Mars will be at its closest approach to Earth in many years. In fact, Sept. 2006 found Mars passing behind the sun, thus being near its furthest distance from the sun. It will not look spectacular, it's actually hard to see at all. More information on the Mars Spectacular Hoax can be found here.
July 2006:
The Department of Physics and Astronomy is announcing a vacancy for a tenure-track position in physics with an emphasis in theoretical/computational physics. Details and application information can be found at our employment page. Review of applications will begin Oct. 1, 2006 and the position will start in Fall 2007. Oct. 3: This position has been canceled due to budgetary issues.
May 2006:
Congratulations to the Class of 2006: David Stafford, Ben Topham, Jon Villalva, and Curtis Castrapel. Good luck on what comes next and don't forget to visit us often!
October 2005:
Department hosts the 2005 Meeting of the California Section of the American Physical Society. Two hundred physicists from California and nearby states converged on Oct. 21 - 22 for a meeting filled with exciting research talks, plenary sessions, and fellowship.
August 2004:
Department hosted the 129th National Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). This weeklong meeting brought high school, college, and university physics teachers together to share ideas, strategies, and techniques. Highlights included sessions on the physics of music and the human body as well as the Demonstration Spectacular and BBQ hosted by our friends at Pasco. Over 1200 people participated in the meeting.
Last Updated: March 7, 2008
