Akron Phy sics Club
Archive 1997
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Newsletter
Meeting Announcement: MONDAY, January 27, 1997 - TANGIER, 6:00 PM
Guest speaker for our first meeting of 1997 will be Dr. Rex Ramsier, assistant professor of physics, the University of Akron. Dr. Ramsier will be speaking to us on:
COLD FUSION: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE?
Minutes, January 27, 1997
In attendance for our January meeting were Dan Galehouse, Jack Gieck, Bob Hirst, Dan Livingston Leon Marker, Darrell Reneker, Jack Strang, Ernst von Meerwall and Marianne, and Charlie Wilson.
Rex Ramsier, assistant professosr of Physics, the University of Akron, has studied (what seems to be the mostly political) phenomenon of COLD FUSION for years. There are, it turns out, some 14 books on the subject [sample title: The Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics, (formerly called “The Theory of Everything)], 1075 papers, and 211 patents (lots of Japanese but no U.S.). Considering the odious aura that the “finders’” claims have in the “straight” scientific community, Rex presented the results of his studies in what Ernst characterized as a remarkably “restrained” manner.
It turns out that the ideas of Pons and Fleischman were not new, but go back as far as 1926 when Paneth and Peters believed they had achieved the transmutation of hydrogen to helium—although Pons and Fleishman have obviously made a much bigger deal of their famous wet cell with the lead anode and a palladium cathode in a bath of butyrated lithium hydroxide—with which they claim to be able to produce 1.5 megajoules per mole (of deuterium?), during which they think they convert deuterium to tritium.
Data which the team presented in 1990 showed an oscillation in cell temperature over a period of days, going from 32° to 52° C. Their data was presented with the equivalent of a “don’t try this at home” warning, since, at one point, they said their apparatus melted at 1554°! What has created the flurry, of course, is that Pons and Fleischman reported getting more energy out of their cell than they put in; and they claim this is the result of a nuclear reaction—one in which gamma rays are emitted. But the data is less than impressive: With a power density of 500 watts, and with their somewhat suspect (thermistor) instrumentation, they reported getting 500.5 watts out.
What seems to be happening in the real world is a familiar exothermic reaction characteristic of metal hydrides—a reaction that dies away as the raw materials are used up.
The unconventional public press conference announcement of their findings in combination with their secretive attitude has put Pons and Fleischman in the center of a political turmoil in the scientific community—one that has somehow resulted in an infusion of millions of dollars in support funds, particularly from the (gullible?) Japanese. And, indeed, one entrepreneur is marketing a kit selling for $3750 which permits the purchaser to achieve a “high energy flux” using either deuterium oxide or more conventional tap water.
The problem, of course, is that no one seems to be able to reproduce Pons and Fleischman’s results. And when refuters publish their findings in respected scientific journals they are invisible to the zealots, who publish in such evangelistic tracts as “Infinite Energy” and the “Journal of Cold Fusion,”—a subscription for which costs $300 per month!P
AND NOW IT IS THAT TIME ONCE AGAIN: PLEASE don’t forget to call in your reservation(s) OR REGRETS to me or my friendly answering machine (867-2116) by Thursday afternoon, February 20th. And please don't forget to cancel if you must. The Club gets charged for no-shows.
As usual, we will meet at Tangier (532 West Market) at 6:00 PM for a social [half] hour, with dinner at 6:30. See you there.
Jack Gieck
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Newsletter
Meeting Announcement: MONDAY, February 24, 1997 - TANGIER, 6:00 PM
Speaker for our February meeting will be Dr. Stanley Christensen, Professor Emeritus of Kent State University, whose Physics Department he headed. Dr. Christensen will be treating us to what he characterizes as:
"MY FAVORITE DEMONSTRATIONS"
Minutes, February 24, 1997
Present for our February meeting were (we are pleased to note) Mark Dannis, Dan Galehouse, Jack Gieck, Bob and Brigitte Hirst, Dan Livingston, Leon Marker, Pad Pillai, Jack Strang, Ernst and Marianne von Meerwall, and Charlie and Marty Wilson. And we were pleased to meet our speaker’s wife, Bernie Christenson.
Our speaker Dr. Stanley Christenson, Professor Emeritus (and Chair Emeritus) of Kent State University’s Physics Department entertained us with a thirty-year collection of his favorite demonstrations — the classification being a fickle one, he confessed, because a speaker’s favorite demo is invariably his most recently-invented one. Most were aimed at middle school audiences, he explained, and all were conceived with the primary goal of having a low cost. Indeed, except for some examples of obviously recycled hardware, all appeared to have been constructed on a budget of two figures or less!
Stan’s spirited demonstrations of the hardware were accompanied by overhead visuals which formulaically enunciated the physics that was going on at the time. Elegant physics demonstrations with a nice mix of principles included a rotating window illusion (having an ambiguous pipe stuck through it), portable tornadoes in a bottle — and other fun vortices — especially BIG toroidal ones, made visible as smoke rings shooting across the room. Then we had “forces come in pairs,” some unique electrostatics, an Atwood machine, battering rams tempered by elastomeric bumpers with varying hysteresis, wildly coupled pendulums and other coupled oscillators (during one of which Dan Galehouse suggested a configuration that, it was agreed, would result in the pendulum mode being equal to the vertical bouncing mode [but it’s too much to explain here!]).
We saw match-box derby cars looping the loop, Moire interference patterns moireing away in 3-D, an incredibly cheap wave machine, and a wonderful variety of musical instrument configurations, one involving a vacuum cleaner transformation and another whose rosined rods were played by human hands — as well as a xylophone made of electrical conduit (together with a formulaic analysis of the lengths required to produce an equally-tempered twelve-tone scale).
But the star of the show was Stan’s transmission of sound on a light beam — after a technology pioneered by the U.S. Navy in the mid-1930s — but this time created by a (vastly cheaper) modulated flashlight having a coil in series with the filament. Not exactly high fidelity concert music, but altogether remarkable considering the expected thermal ballast of the 2800° K or so glowing filament.
The scene on which your secretary faded was a memorable one: a gaggle of middle-aged PhD physicists staying on well after the meeting ended, joyfully gathered around the speaker to play with his exquisite collection of toys.
The fact that your secretary has been tripped up by the fourth Monday in March coming a week earlier than he anticipated (as of yesterday!) in this five-Monday month does not change his deadline. So: PLEASE don’t forget to call in your reservation(s) OR REGRETS to me or my friendly answering machine (867-2116) by Thursday afternoon, March 20th. And please don't forget to cancel if you must. The Club gets charged for no-shows.
As usual, we will meet at Tangier (532 West Market) at 6:00 PM for a social [half] hour, with dinner at 6:30. See you there.
Jack Gieck
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Newsletter
Meeting Announcement: MONDAY, March 24, 1997 - TANGIER, 6:00 PM
We are pleased to announce a return engagement of Dr. Don McIntyre, Professor Emeritus of Polymer Science, the University of Akron (who last regaled us with his Russian-connection experiences). This time, Don will be addressing:
The Physical Chemistry of Eye Diseases Affecting Visual Clarity
Minutes, March 24, 1997
Present for our March meeting were Mark Dannis, Ron Eby, Dan Galehouse, Jack Gieck, Dan Livingston, Leon Marker, Pad Pillai, Jack Strang, Ernst von Meerwall, and Charlie and Marty Wilson. And we were pleased to have Allison McIntyre join us once again.
Having assessed members present the infrequent (sort of semi-biannual) sum of $5.00, Treasurer Galehouse was pleased (and relieved) to announce that the club was back in the black by the end of the meeting.
After analyzing the Gregorian Calendar (the Julian having been largely retired in 1582), and assessing interference of Memorial Day with our next meeting, the members present decided that our last meeting of the year should be moved forward this time to June 2. Chair[man] von Meerwall then advised that, in accordance with our new bylaws, it was time to set in motion the machinery that will result in our nomination process for officers for the coming year. Accordingly:
On behalf of the Executive Committee, your secretary hereby and herewith solicits nominations for the offices of Chair, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, Program Chair, and Vice of Same. These may be written (even anonymously if you wish), or you may verbally offer your nomination when you (please!) call in your reservation. Be advised that your current officers are not driven by either the power or the prestige associated with our jobs, and we (including and especially your seven-year secretary, who may now be the oldest member in the club) would be delighted to pass along our torches to stalwart others willing to serve! So who do you want to do these things next year?
Having won a kind of auction ascertaining who had known our speaker longest, winner Ron Eby reviewed the illustrious background of our speaker, Don McIntyre, who has a wealth of experience on his specialty, going back to research to help wounded GIs on the battlefield by maintaining the molecular weight of blood plasma at a figure in the neighborhood of 100,000 — since, if it is too high, it promotes clotting by the blood platelets, and if too low, is filtered out by the kidneys. This got Don into the physical chemistry of biological processes, eminently qualifying him to speak to us on The Physical Chemistry of Eye Diseases Affecting Visual Clarity — which, it must be conceded, is one of our longer titles.
Talk about visual aids! Never mind Don’s illuminating (no pun intended) overhead transparencies. Our speaker brought both eyes of a recently slaughtered cow, one of which had been beautifully dissected by Allison so that we could examine the two principal components of bovine (and human) peepers, the lens and the vitreous humor, both bodies of triglyceride gelatinous materials encased in transparent sacks — the optical density of the latter being so close to that of the water in which they were swimming that the vitreous was nearly invisible.
Don gave us an overview of his work in measuring light scattering (including polarized) in both the lens and the vitreous (measuring the scattering angles into a positioned photo-multiplier tube), giving us a detailed explanation of how either traumatic or senile changes in the lens proteins result in cataracts; and how the change in pH, especially in combination with supplemental oxygen (as formerly practiced with some newborns), cause similar problems in the vitreous. He likened the result of intraocular light scattering to a “nude in the shower” image, or the translucent scattering of Scotch Magic Tape.
Our speaker advised that we, too, can obtain animal eyes from a slaughter-house for our own demonstrations, provided we sign an affidavit that they will not be eaten.
Once again, the standard but obviously requisite reminder: don’t forget to call in your reservation(s) OR REGRETS (and this time your nominations) to me or my friendly answering machine (867-2116) by Thursday afternoon, April 24th, since I must call them in Friday morning. And please don't forget to cancel if you must.
As usual, we will meet at Tangier (532 West Market) at 6:00 PM for a social [half] hour, with dinner at 6:30. See you there.
Jack Gieck
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Newsletter
Meeting Announcement: MONDAY, April 28, 1997 - TANGIER, 6:00 PM
For our April meeting we are pleased to announce a return engagement of Prof. Donald Palmer, Chairman of Kent State University’s Department of Geology, who will speak to us on:
GLOBAL WARMING
Minutes, April 28, 1997
Present for our April meeting were Tom Dudek (welcome back!) Dan Galehouse, Jack Gieck, Bob Hirst, Dan Livingston, Leon Marker, Ernst von Meerwall, Darrell Reneker, Charlie Wilson, Jack Strang, and Jack’s two guests, independent entrepreneurs (the stuff of which Akron history is made), Victor Burke and Bill Jenkins.
When summoned, Treasurer Galehouse reported that the treasury is now sufficiently in the black that the club is likely to survive until Christmas without a further dun. Chair[man] von Meerwall then called upon the only member to submit nominations during the recent appeal, bidding him to introduce his slate as a motion. Vice-Program-Chair (and Chair Emeritus) Wilson thereupon complied, proposing:
| Chair | Ernst von Meerwall |
| Vice-Chair | Darrell Reneker |
| Secretary | Jack Gieck |
| Treasurer | Dan Galehouse |
| Program Chair | Leon Marker |
| Program Vice-Chair |
Charlie Wilson |
Having ascertained (and applauded) their willingness to continue to serve, the membership confirmed the honor with a vote. With the mechanics of club operation behind us, Program Chair[man] Leon marker reintroduced our speaker. Prof. Donald Palmer, geophysicist and Chair of Kent State University’s Department of Geology (who had bound a geologic spell for us once before), who spoke this time on GLOBAL WARMING an idea first speculated upon more than a century ago by Swedish geochemist Svante Arrhenius — who calculated how much fossil fuel had been burned in the last half of the nineteenth century, and who wondered about the effects of such profligate oxidation.
As it turns out, Don explained, the period of 850 through about 1350 A.D. was actually significantly warmer than the climate today. It was during this era that the Vikings colonized Greenland — a colony that lasted some 500 years before the weather clamped down to begin a little ice age lasting 300 years. Indeed, the years from 1890-1895 were the coldest experienced on the earth in a thousand years. But things have been warming up from 1900 or so to the present.
Opening with his trademark longshot portrait of this liquid planet, our speaker presented a series of stunning graphics showing how shifts in specific humidity and precipitation can create disasters in some areas as climate zones shift — while opening up deserts and arctic wastelands in other areas to agriculture and colonization. It is biological processes, Prof. Palmer emphasized, that run the system, including such nuances as carbon dioxide uptake and release — which, in itself, is more complicated than it might seem, considering how this gas oozes all over, into the ocean, into plants, into rocks, into (some) animals, where it may be deposited as coral reefs, etc. He gave us statistics on its rate of rate of increase since the beginning of the industrial era — doubling in Siberia, significantly increasing in upper Canada. He also had data on particulate matter, which is a whole other issue: particulate matter, it turns out, modulates CO2.
The bottom line is that all of this is very complex, and is probably beyond the ability of computer models to predict, much less the mentality of simplistic politicians [editor’s comment] or that of idealistic environmental activists. What’s so bad about farming Siberia or upper Canada? But is it worth further cooking inhospitable spots in Africa? And then, what will how many degrees do to glacial melting and changes in sea level that may wipe out the world’s harbors? Further, we mustn't forget that 80% of variation in ice cores is due to orbital variation of the earth. This observer is holding his bets.
SO: this time please remember to call in your reservation(s) OR REGRETS to me or my friendly answering machine (867-2116) by Thursday afternoon, May 29th, since I must call them in Friday morning. And please don't forget to cancel if you must.
As usual, we will meet at Tangier (532 West Market) at 6:00 PM for a social [half] hour, with dinner at 6:30. See you there.
Jack Gieck
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Newsletter
Meeting Announcement: MONDAY, June 2, 1997 - TANGIER, 6:00 PM
. . . in order to book a much-sought speaker who has been interviewed on his subject by three television networks (including the BBC) several newspapers (includ-ing the Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Times of London) and others. Closing out this year before the summer solstice, our own Darrell Reneker will be speaking on:
POLYMER NANOFIBERS
Minutes, June 2, 1997
Reaching back across time to just the other side of the summer solstice, present for our June meeting (slid out of May because of Memorial Day and the availability of our speaker) were Georg Böhm, Mark and Doris Dannis, Alan Gent, Jack Gieck, Bob Hirst, Dan Livingston, Leon Marker, Pad Pillai, Jack Strang, Ernst von Meerwall, Charlie Wilson, and we were pleased to have Bill Jenkins join us for a return visit. Victor Burke also had a reservation but had to cancel.
Called on for a report, pro tempore Treasurer Charlie Wilson advised that the treasury had actually topped $34 before the evening was out
We were delighted to have our another of our own (internationally ac-claimed) speaker, Dr. Darrell Reneker, and his able assistant Dr. Iksoo Chun (who seems to have stage-managed Darrell’s multi-media production before [replete with video, 35mm slides, and overhead transparencies]) give us a great show on a spectacular subject, Polymer Nanofibers — during which we were treated to evidence of and for Darrell’s international acclamation.
Compared to garden-variety textile fibers having a diameter of 10 microns (or 10,000 nanometers), representing perhaps 20,000 molecules, the slimmest of Dr. Reneker’s fibers have a diameter of only two or three nanometers (Dr. Chun measured one at 2.89) — with a possible future minimum of half a nanometer, or one molecule in thickness. Dramatizing these numbers visually, the electron microscope photos Darrell presented in the course of the evening included nanofibers lying on the surface of (the equivalent of) cotton shirt fabric — which, depending on the gauge of the nanofibers (and that of the conventional fabric fiber selected), looked variously like hair on the side of a boa constrictor, or, later, hair on the leg of a brontosaurus (albeit without reptilian scales).
The technique used by Darrell’s lab to produce these (hair-like is obviously the wrong description, by orders of magnitude!) filaments consists of subjecting a fine, molten, extruded stream of polymer to a charge of 30,000 volts, causing the particles to fly repulsively apart — exploding into a branching, conical labyrinth as the leading particles pull submicroscopic, dynamically attenuating fiber cylinders (retained in this form by surface tension) behind them, necking down ever finer as they stretch and simultaneously cool into a solid. One of Darrell’s slides showed how an electric field guides and distributes these filaments. It is a technology first written up, our speaker discovered in his literature search, in 1917. when it was recorded that “as has been known for many years, sealing wax, when electrified . . .” — this at a time when every physics laboratory worth the name (or worth including in James Whale’s Frankenstein, or George Plympton’s Universal Flash Gordon serials) had a heavy-duty Wimshurst static electricity generator at the ready. At this point, our lecturer put out an appeal for a stick of red sealing wax so he can repeat the century-old demonstration.
Models of the action suggest an alternate “stretch and splay” mechanism. Under some circumstances the fibers are beaded, with fine filaments between the beads. We saw examples produced from a variety of polymers, including polystyrene, polyamide, polybutyrate, polyethylene, polyacrylonitrile, nylon, and others your secretary wasn’t swift enough to write down.
Possible nanofiber applications seem endless. Dense clusters make excellent filters — or absorbers, because of their enormous surface-to-volume ratio. Fabrics made from them (or a layer thereof sandwiched between conventional fabrics) could make excellent protective clothing for the armed forces (indeed, color-coded fibers could identify toxic elements in the atmosphere that are undetectable by the human nose). Vastly more efficient pesticides (instead of the common wastage of 97 percent of the chemicals!) are another possibility; and we saw examples of fibers clinging to the leaves of plants. But perhaps the most exciting application, one taking advantage of the lightness of spun fabrics produced from nanofibers — and one actually proposed to NASA — was the stratospheric assembly of a solar sail to support, lift, and move a satellite. A modest one-ton quantity of polymer could produce a sail having an area of five square kilometers.
After playing with the floating, wispy fabric samples that our speaker wafted into the atmosphere of Tangier’s Paris Room, his audience seemed convinced.
Now, then: a review of the drill as we open the season: please don’t forget to call in your reservation(s) OR REGRETS to me or my friendly answering machine (867-2116) by Thursday afternoon,September 18th, since I must call them in Friday morning. And please don't forget to cancel if you must.
As usual, we will meet at Tangier (532 West Market) at 6:00 PM for a social [half] hour, with dinner at 6:30. See you there.
Jack Gieck
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Newsletter
Meeting Announcement: MONDAY, September 22, 1997 - TANGIER, 6:00 PM
Launching our new 1997-1998 season, our own, and the University of Akron Physics Department’s, Dr. Gregory Townsend will enlighten us about:
ON-LINE ASTRONOMY: Looking at the Universe without Leaving the Comfort of Your Chair
Minutes, September 22, 1997
Present for our first meeting of the new season were Mark Dannis, Tom Dudek, Dan Galehouse, Jack Gieck, Bob Hirst, Leon Marker, Pad Pillai, Darrell Reneker, Jack Strang, Greg Townsend, and Ernst von Meerwall.
After Treasurer Dan Galehouse reGaled us with our current ($21) treasury balance — a crap shoot as to solvency through year end (the alternative being our semi-bi-annual $5! assessment), Program Chairman Leon Marker and others titillated our anticipation with speaker possibilities for the coming months. Chairman Ernst (printing his last name takes too much toner) indicated he hoped to get Dr. S. I. (Hari) Hariharan, Professor of Mathematical Sciences, University of Akron, for our October meeting. And VOILA! (pardon my French), see the above.
Speaker for the evening was our own, and the University of Akron Physics Department’s, Dr. Gregory Townsend. Vying for at least a tie for the longest Physics Club title in a decade with his On-Line Astronomy: Looking at the Universe, without Leaving the Comfort of Your Chair, Greg opened a whole new world (or maybe more like 108 or so of same, not counting those little fuzzies in the nebulae) with what could be dangerous, habit-forming secrets. WARNING: Revealing the following to one’s science-prone children or grand-same could seriously inhibit their ability to ever get their homework done!
Downloading the viscera of his laptop computer into a liquid-crystal projection panel mounted atop Treasurer Galehouse’s overhead projector, Greg revealed what we have been missing by never heretofore knowing the URLs listed below — where, at the flick of a key, one can see the real-time, real-world images available through a variety of first-class telescopes in observatories throughout the Western Hemisphere.
To wit: Bradford University’s 46 cm. [18 in.] telescope is located on the moors of West Yorkshire, in England. Usually pointed straight up, one can see whatever it sees — e.g. illuminated clouds the night I tried it; or a bright daylight sky if you want to be silly about it. Anyone can request that the robotic telescope be directed to a selected part of the northern sky at Bradford, and some of the other sites listed below. It may take a week for one’s request to be scheduled. One can request filter choice, exposure, and gain. Bradford publishes a list of previously scanned objects one can dial up any time, including selected stars and nebulae; they look down upon no pun intended) requests for (obviously mundane in their view) planets.
Image quality is a very nice 520 X 352 pixels, which is better than most VHS video resolution. Bradford offers FITS software that will boost the 16 levels of gray available on most browsers to 20,000 levels of gray (GIF file 64), yielding an image of 374K bytes. All of this beautiful stuff may be downloaded and stored, as Greg has done.
But the the real mind-blower is available from no less than Mount Wilson Observatory, which has an offer that can’t be duplicated by either Hertz or Avis: One may rent Mount Wilson’s 24 inch [61 cm.] scope at $300 for the night (or $200 for half a night) to be driven by the modem of the renter, making any man (with a couple of c-notes) a space voyeur for the night! Priority assignment is based on “reason.” [We guess that means you can’t point the thing down at Hollywood.]
And so, as with alchemical fraternities of another era (who had neither Macs nor PCs, poor bastards), the secret knowledge of the night is imparted herewith:
| Bradford University, Bradford, England | http://www.telescope.org/ |
| Univ. of California, Santa Barbara | http://www.deepspace.ucsb.edu.index.htm |
| Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne | http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/stardial/ |
| University of Iowa | http://inferno.physics.uiowa.edu/ |
| Automated Telescopes (including Mt. Wilson, the Global Network of Automated Telescopes, and many more) | http://www.eia.brad.ac.uk/rti.automated.html |
Once again, the standard but obviously requisite reminder: Please call in your reservation(s) OR REGRETS to me or my friendly answering machine (867-2116) by Thursday afternoon, October 23rd, since I must call them in Friday morning. And please don't forget to cancel if you must.
As usual, we will meet at Tangier (532 West Market) at 6:00 PM for a social [half] hour, with dinner at 6:30. See you there.
Jack Gieck
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Newsletter
Meeting Announcement: MONDAY, October 27, 1997 - TANGIER, 6:00 PM
For our second program of the new year, we will be privileged to have Dr. S. I. (Hari) Hariharan, Professor of Mathematical Sciences, University of Akron, who will enlighten us about:
Linear and Nonlinear Waves: Old Problems and New Computations
Minutes, October 27, 1997
Present for our October meeting were Tom Dudek, Dan Galehouse, Jack Gieck, Bob Hirst, Leon Marker, Pad Pillai, Darrell Reneker, Jack Strang, Ernst von Meerwall, and Charlie Wilson.
Called upon by Chairman Ernst, Treasurer Dan Galehouse confessed that our treasury balance was somewhere between ten and fifteen dollars, an exact accounting to be made upon paying Tangier for the evening’s repast, and seeing how much was left in the envelope — thus providing new insight into why no bank in Akron was willing to embrace our checking account when we resuscitated the club seven years ago. Appropriately, albeit zombie-like, our treasury is undead!
Program Chairman Leon Marker revealed that he has a couple of potential speakers up the sleeve of his turtleneck for 1998.
Speaker for the evening was Dr. S. I. Hariharan, Professor of Mathematical Sciences, the University of Akron, whose subject was Linear and Nonlinear Waves: Old Problems and New Computations.
A brilliant and very entertaining scholar (albeit naive enough to believe we are “an erudite intellectual group”), Prof. Hariharan first provided us with a bit of insight into the culture of mathematical academe, where “if you compute, you were considered impure” by the conservative orthodoxie. Having a mind of his own, and in the spirit of Galileo Galilei and Martin Luther, our speaker explained that he had “reformed, to become a teacher of applied mathematics.”
Although captivated by the concepts of gas dynamics problems imposed by a “pulsating vs. oscillating vs. squishing sphere” — concepts illustrated by delightful video animations showing how the pressure waves, clean at first, become corrupted as various would-be mathematical models turn out to be inexact after a dozen periods or so — this engineer turned to physicist von Meerwall for a better summary of Hari’s communique for the evening. Ernst’s comments follow:
“Prof. Hariharan — or Hari, as he wishes to be addressed — regaled us with a mix of highly abstract theory and numerical computation, the latter in the form of video animation. His subject was the propagation of (mainly two-dimensional) waves in linear as well as non-linear media, and his examples included Maxwell-like equations and those governing transsonic fluid flow past obstacles at rest and in oscillatory motion. His studies are funded mainly by NASA-Lewis. Hari showed how to set up analytic but approximate solutions to these equations in a rapidly-converging series of correction terms, with the additional restriction that they must be conveniently discretized for numerical computation. He also discussed approaches to the design and placement of boundary conditions, compromising between the requirement of accuracy and the need to accommodate to the available non-infinite computing resources. The results generate simulations which permit useful insights into wave propagation in various demanding circumstances, with a minimum of computational artifacts.
“Our speaker’s audience was highly appreciative, if understandably somewhat overwhelmed by the mathematics. As a bonus during the question period, Hari entertained us about the recent successful proof of Fermat's last theorem, the subject of a PBS production to air the following evening.”
The TV program, no doubt watched by most of us, (1) suggested that Andrew Wiles’ proof probably differed from Fermat’s, and (2) never revealed how he did it — which was just as well from this writer’s perspective. But, in this regard, Hari uttered a reassuring apothegm: “If you prove theorems, you are definitely not going to get a job!”
Now then: This type face is intended as an attention-getting admonition: Only four guys called me last month! So, this time, please call in your reservation(s) OR REGRETS to me or my friendly answering machine (867-2116) by Thursday afternoon, November 20th, since I must call them in Friday morning. And please don't forget to cancel if you must.
As usual, we will meet at Tangier (532 West Market) at 6:00 PM for a social [half] hour, with dinner at 6:30. See you there.
Jack Gieck
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Newsletter
Meeting Announcement: MONDAY, November 24, 1997 - TANGIER, 6:00 PM
Our last program of 1997 will feature a visit by Dr. Douglas Jayne of the Lubrizol Corporation in Wickliffe, who will give us a:
Historical Perspective on the XPF, *ISS,* and SIMMS*
* Note for those who require a translation (which group includes your secretary):
XPS = X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy
ISS = Ion Scattering Spectroscopy
SIMS = Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy, a.k.a:
ESCA = Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis
Minutes, November 24, 1997
Present for our November meeting were Georg Böhm, Mark Dannis, Dan Galehouse, Jack Gieck, Bob Hirst, Leon Marker, Pad Pillai, Darrell Reneker, Jack Strang, Ernst von Meerwall, and Charlie Wilson.
Treasurer Galehouse, called upon for a report, revealed that our treasury had slipped into the red by a little over six dollars, mandating a $5 dues dun at our first 1998 meeting — a rare occurrence. Meanwhile, two anonymous members, in the spirit of the upcoming holidays, made their contributions early, obviating the humiliation of our club’s finishing the year in a destitute condition.
In a discussion of possible programs for next year, our invited speaker’s first words to the group were a suggestion that we consider inviting Dr. Geoff Landis of Lewis Research Center [(216) 433-2238] for one of our future programs. Landis’s work at NASA is on photovoltaics, e.g. the development of solar cells, but he has prepared talks on more pie-in-the sky [appropriate metaphor!] projects, including the Mars Pathfinder. We have so noted herewith.
Bob Hirst then introduced our speaker, Douglas T. Jayne, research chemist with The Lubrizol Corporation in Wickliffe — who is also, while holding a full-time job, working on his Ph.D. at Case Western Reserve. So we are in his debt for adding a 90-minute X 2[!] commute to visit our club. His sacrifice was well worth it from our perspective, of course, as we were treated to his extremely well presented overview of an Historical Perspective on the XPS, ESCA, ISS, and SIMS. [Keen observers will note that these acronyms don’t quite match the title billed in the club’s program announcement — further evidence that your secretary’s cochlea lost everything above 3K Hz during World War II, making some consonants indistinguishable. Sorry about that.]
To define them once again (correctly this time):
XPS = X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy
ISS = Ion Scattering Spectroscopy
SIMS = Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy, a.k.a:
ESCA = Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis
The foundation for these techniques, our speaker pointed out, began as early as 1895 with the work of Wilhelm Röntgen — and we were treated to a reproduc-tion of an X-ray image, created by Röntgen’s pinhole camera, with which he photographed his wife’s hand with her wedding ring easily visible, this genuine X-ray image in contrast to the shadowgraph techniques used in medicine today.
With a double handful of excellent transparencies to develop lots of technological nuances, our speaker led us through what had been an acronymical jungle for some of us. Doug first established the growing need for accurate surface analysis techniques — driven by printed circuit computer technology, which from 1975 to 1995, has been doubling the number of transistors in a chip every 18 months — going from 4500 in 1975 to 3.1 million in 1995 with the Pentium chip, and to 5.5 million since, in the Pentium Pro. Doug’s Table 1, accordingly, was a Particle Size Roundup.
Although X-rays can penetrate relevant materials to a depth of 10 microns, we learned that XPS techniques limit penetration to a range of 20 to 40 Angstroms because photoelectrons cannot escape from depths below 40Å. Impacting the surface variously with photons, electrons, and even ions (using the rest of the alphabet soup of the talk’s title, and subheads thereunder) can further increase acuity, permitting examination of one layer at a time — beginning with the single top layer of atoms, then scuffing (or “sputtering”) one’s way down, knocking electrons or ions loose one layer at a time, and usually measuring the emitted vs. incident energy, yielding both qualitative and quantitative results.
For those of us who grew up doing this kind of thing in wet labs more than half a century ago, it was a mind expanding experience.
So, once again, the standard reminder: Please call in your reservation(s) OR REGRETS to me or my friendly answering machine (867-2116) or by e-mail (see below) by Thursday afternoon, January 22nd, since I must call them in Friday morning. And please don't forget to cancel if you must.
As usual, we will meet at Tangier (532 West Market) at 6:00 PM for a social [half] hour, with dinner at 6:30. See you there.
Jack Gieck