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Tag archives: APS March
Physics reveals the mysteries behind art
Artists’ secrets: Charles Falco describes how artists used optical lenses. (Courtesy: Tushna Commissariat)
By Sarah Tesh in New Orleans, Louisiana, US
As a physicist who likes to sketch and paint, I love it when art and physics come together. I was therefore excited to see that the APS March Meeting had a variety of talks on the subject. Charles Falco from the University of Arizona in the US told us about his work with the famous artist David Hockney. On a trip to see the 15th century painting The Arnolfini Marriage by Jan van Eyck, Hockney decided that the chandelier was too detailed to have been done freehand. So Falco and Hockney began looking at the intricate parts of paintings by artists through the ages and found that they essentially cheated.
Through focal length and depth-of-field calculations, Falco showed that artists had used optical lenses to project the complicated parts onto the canvas before painting them. They suggest that this has been happening since the 1400s and is a technique used by artists such as Hans Holbein (who painted the iconic portraits of Henry VIII) and Johannes Vermeer (whose work includes Girl with a Pearl Earring). Obviously, they still possessed huge amounts of skill, but it definitely makes me feel a bit better about my own skill level.
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Invisible robots overshadowed by metallic hydrogen
Metallic debate: Silvera, Ceperley and McMahon discuss metallic hydrogen. (Courtesy: Sarah Tesh)
By Sarah Tesh in New Orleans, Louisiana, US
After much coffee and a lot of crispy bacon, the second day of the APS March Meeting began. The hot topic of the day – metallic hydrogen. Even though we arrived 15 minutes early to Isaac Silvera‘s talk, the crowd was overflowing from the room, but despite all the pushing and shoving (my foot has not recovered from being stood on), we did manage to get seats. Silvera began by saying that he had been working on the problem for “probably longer than [most of us] were born” before taking us through the nearly 45 years of research on the subject. He also gave a press conference that included talks by theoretical physicists David Ceperley from the University of Illinois and Jeffrey McMahon from Washington State University. My colleague Tushna Commissariat caught up with Silvera later on, so be on the lookout for a more detailed update from her.
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APS sees friction as fracture, cat pictures and brain implants
Cats and DFT: Thomas Baker chats about machine learning and density functional theory. (Courtesy: Sarah Tesh)
By Sarah Tesh in New Orleans, Louisiana, US
So the first day of the APS March Meeting has been and gone and the second is nearly at an end. Being my first conference as a journalist not a scientist, I was definitely as nervous as some of the speakers looked. The conference centre is huge, there are thousands of people and almost as many talks – a rather daunting prospect for a newbie. Thankfully there were some very interesting press talks, covering a variety of topics.
The first session began with Jay Fineberg from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel talking about “friction as fracture”. While we all learn about friction at school, the fundamental physics behind it remains shrouded in mystery. So Fineberg looks at the problem as the fracture of contact points. This approach makes it particularly useful for studying the motion of tectonic plates and, so, earthquakes. As Fineberg points out, seismologists have no idea about conditions deep in the ground at a fault. He and his team therefore hope to work out “what makes earthquakes tick”.
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Physicists take over the Big Easy
New Orleans: city with a view. (Courtesy: Tushna Commissariat)
By Sarah Tesh and Tushna Commissariat in New Orleans, Louisiana, US
It is that time of the year again when around 10,000 physicists gather for the American Physical Society (APS) March Meeting and this year we’re in the Big Easy. While yesterday was a jetlag-recovery day, it’s all kicking off today at the sprawling Ernest Morial Convention Center, where more than 9600 papers will be presented during the week.
Despite our sleep-deprived state yesterday, we played the traditional game of “spot the physicist” during our wanderings in the French Quarter. This was made particularly interesting with the simultaneous game of “spot the spring-breakers”. Relaxed, youthful students chatting loudly about their late-night escapades were a stark contrast to academics looking anxious and lost while over-burdened with poster tubes, suitcases and laptop bags.
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Baltimore braces itself for physics
March madness: the APS March meeting at the Baltimore Convention Center (top) and the IOP Publishing stand at the exhibition. (Courtesy: Tushna Commissariat)
By Matin Durrani and Tushna Commissariat in Baltimore, Maryland, US
So here we are in Baltimore to attend the 2016 March meeting of the American Physical Society (APS). We’re writing this at the window seats in a burrito bar on Pratt Street while staring at the hulk that is the Baltimore Convention Center, where nigh-on 10,000 physicists will be congregating all week.
We’ve been playing a game of “spot the APS attendee” while tucking into our burritos. Without wishing to stereotype physicists (okay, go on then, we will) they’re the ones with the backpacks stuffed with poster tubes, pulling little trolley suitcases, looking lost before veering towards the convention centre.
There are also some physicists inside Chipotle Mexican Grill – you can tell because they’re huddled around laptops looking at PowerPoint presentations showing graphs of Fermi surfaces and topological insultators. Probably not the usual subject of discussion in here.
