Tuesday 26th May 2009 @ 6.00PM At the Slade Lecture Theatre, School of Physics, University of Sydney.

“From Stellar Nucleosynthesis to Cancer Therapy; what is the link?” - Professor Barry Allen
The creation of elements in stars is a fundamental science, upon which all life forms rest. Charged particle reactions can produce elements up to iron, but we need the fast and slow neutron capture reactions to create the heavier elements. Early in my career I studied the slow rate of nucleosynthesis of elements in stars by the sequential capture of keV neutrons up the valley of beta stability (s-process). We were able to validate this theory by the orrelation of isotopic 30 keV neutron capture cross sections with solar system abundances, which showed the influence of the magic numbers across the periodic table over 5 orders of magnitude. The rapid neutron reaction process in supernovae (r process) created the neutron rich nuclides that decayed rapidly and led to the synthesis of the actinides. Some 40 years later, the products of the stellar nucleosynthesis are being used to kill cancer cells. With the development of monoclonal antibodies, a small band of biomedical scientists have brought these two Nobel prize winning achievements together to create targeted alpha therapy (TAT) for cancer. In spite of many setbacks, we have taken targeted alpha therapy for metastatic melanoma from the test tube to the bedside. Clinical trial results so far point to a very promising therapy. But then, in 2009, TAT was hit by the perfect storm!

Tuesday 19th May, 7.00 PM, Wollongong Science Centre, Bookings Essential!

“To planets or just to the shops, Plasmas pave the path” Assoc. Professor Christine Charles
Space Plasma, Power & Propulsion Group, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Australian National University.

Plasmas have existed since the very first moments of the Universe. It is the stuff of stars. It fills the space between stars. It gives us the beautiful northern and southern aurorae. Our houses have plasma TV displays, plasma lights (fluorescent tubes). Everywhere we look, there is plasma. But we stand on solid earth and the solid state accounts for less than one percent of the total mass of the Universe. The rest is plasma, a hot ionised gas containing positive and negative charges (except, perhaps, for dark matter). By properly harnessing the plasma state we can make microchips for computers, we can make plasma engines (thrusters) to get to the planets and we can make fuel cells to take people just down to the shops. The discovery in Australia of a current-free electric double layer (a cliff of potential like a river waterfall which energise charged particles falling through them) in a laboratory plasma is the basis of a new space engine: the Australian Helicon Double Layer Thruster.

The Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) International Women in Physics Lecture Series was instituted to celebrate the contribution of women to advances in physics. Under this scheme, a woman who has made a significant contribution in a field of physics will give a series of lectures around Australia, including a Public Lecture arranged by each participating branch of the AIP. The Lecture will be of interest to a non-specialist physics audience and is expected to increase awareness among students and their families of the possibilities offered by continuing to study physics.

Tuesday 28th April, two talks, starting 5:30 pm and 7:00 pm in the Slade Lecture Theatre, School of Physics, University of Sydney

“How to get beyond the Standard Model” The Standard Model of particle physics --- describing the fundamental constituents of matter, and their interactions --- has been extraordinarily successful. Over decades it has passed every test set for it, and even now there are only a handful of measurements in conflict with its predictions: few-sigma effects of the kind that come and go, and are inevitable when many measurements are made. Any one of them might be the first sign of something new ... or they might all evaporate, as other presumed failings have done in the past. And yet we know that the Standard Model is incomplete. The mathematics itself tells us that something else must be going on, but doesn't determine what that "something" is. Experiment has to find a way. There are three broad strategies being pursued at accelerator laboratories around the world, to find that way forward. One can increase the energy of the particles in colliding beams, giving access to shorter distances, and more massive fundamental particles: this is the approach of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. One can make the beams more intense ("more amps" rather than "more volts") as at labs in California and Japan, using precision measurements to probe for new phenomena hiding in the fine print of the theory. Or one can use neutrinos, whose very difficulty --- they interact only by the weak nuclear force --- makes them sensitive to certain kinds of new physics. In this talk I will review these three approaches, with examples of how they have worked in the past, and of the experiments that are currently bringing them to life. Until it happens, we can't know which approach (all of them with Australian involvement) will be the one to finally break the Standard Model, and show the new physics beyond it.
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“The Acoustics of Musical Wind Instruments – and of Musicians”Wind instruments have a valve or control oscillator (reed, player's lips, air jet) coupled to two acoustic waveguides: the bore of the instrument (downstream) and the player’s vocal tract (upstream). This talk introduces some of the interesting effects, including multiphonics or chords produced in woodwinds by superposition of standing waves, and the interactions between the resonances of the bore and the vocal tract. Our lab has developed techniques for measuring the acoustical properties of musical instruments, especially the acoustical impedance spectrum, (the ratio of acoustic pressure to acoustic flow, in nice analogy with electrical impedance). We have used this to provide databases for wind instruments that allow the development of physical models precise enough to make predictions and analyses useful to makers and players. We have also used it to measure the impedance spectrum of the vocal tract, while it is in use for speech, singing or playing. In this talk we’ll see how the player’s vocal tract is involved in performance on wind instruments, including the didjeridu, where the tract has a spectacular influence on timbre, and on some reed instruments, where it can have a strong influence on pitch.
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