Invited Talks

Van Gogh’s Starry Nights, Lincoln’s Moon, Shakespeare’s Stars, and More: Tales of Astronomy in Art, History, and Literature

Donald Olson, Texas State University

How do astronomical methods make it possible to calculate dates and times for Vincent van Gogh’s night-sky paintings? Why is there a blood-red sky in Edvard Munch’s The Scream? On what dates did Ansel Adams create his moonrise photographs in Yosemite? How can the 18.6-year cycle of the lunar nodes and the Moon’s declination on the night of August 29-30, 1857, explain a long-standing mystery about Abraham Lincoln’s honesty in the murder case known as the almanac trial? Why is a bright star described in Act 1, Scene 1, of Hamlet?
To answer questions like these, our Texas State group has published a series of articles over the last two decades, applying astronomy to art, history, and literature.

Profiting from the Inflationary Universe with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment

Dr. Karl Gebhardt, University of Texas at Austin

Observations over the next decade will be focussed on studying the expansion history of the universe, given that we have little conception for what drives the expansion either at late times (i.e., the nature of dark energy) or early times (i.e., inflation). I will describe an observational approach to studying both epochs of expansion that relies on measuring the power spectrum of galaxies as obtained from a large redshift survey: the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), a ground-based study already taking data. While planned experiments are designed to understand expansion, we must seize on the opportunities offered for other studies, especially given the difficulty in predicting implications for dark energy. One exciting aspect of HETDEX is that the primary instrument is and will continue to be unique for studies of black holes and dark matter profiles in galaxies. The latest results for both the dark matter profiles and black holes show important trends that impact theories of galaxy formation and black hole growth. Thus, the inflationary universe has much to offer.

The Observable Universe

Dr. Kim-Vy Tran, Texas A&M University

This is a tour of the universe as we have come to understand it through observations taken at many different wavelengths. Stunning images from the Hubble Space Telescope and surprising observations from other space telescopes like Spitzer and Chandra have given us a deeper understanding of the universe, both near and far. Equally important have been observations taken with ground-based observatories such as the Very Large Telescope in Chile. I willdescribe the most recent advances astronomers have made using these observatories and what we hope to learn in the near future.

_{Giant Magellan Telescope}

Etch-a-Sketch Nanoelectronics

Dr. Jeremy Levy, University of Pittsburgh

The popular children’s toy Etch-a-Sketch has motivated the invention of a new material capable of writing and erasing wires so small they approach the spacing between atoms. The interface between two normally insulating materials, strontium titanate and lanthanum aluminate, can be switched between the insulating and conducting state with the use of the sharp metallic probe of an atomic-force microscope. By “sketching” this probe in various patterns, one can create electronic materials with remarkably diverse properties. This material system shows promise both for ultra high density storage and as possible replacements for silicon-based logic (CMOS).

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Army Research Office and Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Dr. Jill Marshall, University of Texas at Austin

Women of the Manhattan Project

In the early 1990s Ruth Howes, a nuclear physicist on the faculty at Ball State University, and Caroline Herzenberg, a nuclear physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, were asked to write a chapter on the Manhattan Project for a volume on women working on weapons development for the military.[i] Realizing t Dorothy (Marcus) Gans

hat they knew very little about the women who had been involved in that effort, they embarked on a mission to find out more. Howes and Herzenberg were able to document the wartime contributions of more than 1000 women in Their Day in the Sun,[ii] preserving this legacy for generations to come. At the 2009 meeting in Chicago, the AAPT Committee on Women in Physics celebrated the accomplishments of these women and the men who worked beside them in a session cosponsored with History and Philosophy of Physics and Concerns of Senior Physicists. Howes presented an overview of the contributions of women to the development of the first nuclear weapon, and the session was honored with the presence of Manhattan project veterans, Ellen Cleminshaw Weaver, who worked at Oak Ridge, and Dorothy Marcus Gans, who worked as a technician in the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago.

[i] R.H. Howes. and C. L. Herzenberg, "Women in weapons development: The Manhattan Project," Chapter 8 of Women and the Use of Military Force, R. H. Howes and M. R. Stevenson, Eds. (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder and London, 1993).

[ii] R. H. Howes and C. L. Herzenberg. Their Day in the Sun: Women of the Manhattan Project (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1999).