Events at Physics |
Events on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008
- Chaos & Complex Systems Seminar
- Engaging the flow: a creative dialogue
- Time: 12:05 pm
- Place: 4274 Chamberlin (Refreshments will be served)
- Speaker: Harry Webne-Behrman, UW Office of Human Resource Development
- Abstract: Creative conversations don't mechanically follow 'outline form,' they emerge from the synergies and interactions of participants in hard-to-predict ways. Is there a way to facilitate such dialogues, rather than direct them, so 1 + 1 >2? Is there a way to capture the creative ideas that emerge? Building from theories on synchronicity in innovation and the process used by Nathan Myhrvold at Intellectual Ventures, the Chaos & Complexity Seminar will engage in a creative dialogue whose outcome is unknown and whose parameters will be co-created by the group in the weeks ahead. Join us for fascinating conversation and see what happens!
- Astronomy Colloquium
- Breakout: High-Energy Transients from Supernovae and the Mystery of the Dim GRBs
- Time: 3:30 pm
- Place: 6515 Sterling Hall
- Speaker: Chris Matzner, University of Toronto
- Abstract: Since 1998 is has been clear that some long-duration gamma-ray bursts come from broad-lined type Ic supernovae -- energetic explosions of bare stellar cores. For bright, variable GRBs observed at cosmological distances, this means that an ultra-relativistic jet must sweep aside the star's envelope before beaming at Earth. However, a much more populous class of dim bursts, which lack evidence for beaming or highly relativistic flow, has recently become apparent. Are these produced by off-axis jets, or shock breakout? I shall review these two physical models, and argue that dim GRBs and related x-ray transients reveal an unexpected diversity of pre-explosion stellar mass loss behavior.