September 17 - 23, 2000 THE BOSTON AREA PHYSICS CALENDAR The Boston Area Physics Calendar is published weekly during the academic year by the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT. You may send your announcement by e-mail (bapc@lns.mit.edu) or FAX (617-253-8674). We cannot accept announcements by telephone. Entries should reach us no later than 11:00 a.m. the Monday of the week preceding the week of the event. ENTRIES RECEIVED AFTER THE DEADLINE WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. _________________________________________________ Monday, September 18, 2000 Monday September 18, 2000 2:00PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology Monday, Research Seminar Center for Theoretical Physics Bldg 6 3rd fl Seminar room ``Field-dependent Symmetries in Fluid Mechanics" Peter Horvathy University of Tours, France Monday, September 18, 2000 4:15PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nuclear and Particle Physics Colloquium Building 26-Kolker Room 414 ``Physics Opportunities with Beams of Rare Isotopes produced by Projectile Fragmentation at NSCL and at RIA" Konrad Gelbke Michigan State University Refreshments served at 4:00p.m. Monday, September 18, 2000, 4:30PM Brown University Department of Physics Colloquium Barus & Holley Room 168 ``Tests of Einstein's Equivalence Principle and Newton's Inverse Square Law" Professor Eric Adelberger University of Washington, Seattle Refreshments served at 4:00p.m. Monday, September 18, 2000 4:30PM Harvard University Physics Colloquium Jefferson Lab, Room 250 ``Exploring the Universe with Atomic Clocks" Professor Norman Ramsey Harvard University Tea served at 4:00pm in Jefferson, Room 450 ________________________________________________ Tuesday, September 19, 2000 Tuesday, September 19, 2000, 12 noon Massachusetts Institute of Technology Modern Optics and Spectroscopy, Fall Seminar McNair Bldg, Marlar Lounge (37-252) ``Quest for Superfluidity in an Optically Trapped Fermi Gas" John Thomas Duke University Refreshments served following the seminar Tuesday, September 19 , 2000 at 12:45PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology String Lunch Club ``Uniqueness of Tachyonic Solitons" Nicolas Moeller MIT Tuesday, September 19, 2000, 3:40PM Boston University Physics Colloquium MSC, Room 107, 590 Commonwealth Ave. ``The Phases of QCD in Heavy Ion Collisions and Compact Stars" Krishna Rajagopal Massachusetts Institute of Technology Refreshments served at 3:20PM Please call (353-2600) in advance for parking. Tuesday, September 19, 2000, 4:00 PM Brandeis University Martin Weiner Lecture Series, Physics Colloquium Physics Bldg, Abelson 131 ``Aggregation Kinetics in Gelation, Traffic, Wealth and Other Everyday Phenomena" Professor Sidney Redner Boston University Refreshments served at 3:30p.m, Room 333 Tuesday, September 19, 2000, 4:00 PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nuclear Theory Seminar Center for Theoretical Physics, Bldg 6 3rdfl Seminar Room ``Topology in the Lattice Skyrme Model" Ben Svetitsky Tel Aviv University/MIT Refreshments served at 3:30p.m. Tuesday, September 19, 2000, 4:30PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology Harvard-MIT Mathematical Physics Seminar Building 4, Room 159 ``Some Novel Geometric Invariants" Professor Alan Carey University of Adelaide _________________________________________________ Wednesday, September 20, 2000 Wednesday, September 20, 2000, 11:45AM Brandeis University Condensed Matter Seminar Physics Building, Room 333 ``Diffusion Limited Reactions in Agarose Gels" Chein-Shiu Kuo Boston University Wednesday, September 20, 2000, 4:00PM University of Massachusetts at Lowell Department of Physics Colloquium Olney 428 ``Carbon Nanotubes as Atomic Force Microscopy Probes" Dr. Jason Hafner Harvard University Refreshments served at 3:30p.m Wednesday, September 20, 2000, 4:30PM Harvard University Joint Theory Seminar Jefferson 256 ``Generalized (Nonabelian Supersymmetric) Fluid Mechanics" Roman Jackiw Massachusetts Institute of Technology Refreshments at 4:00, HET commons, Jefferson 460 _________________________________________________ Thursday, September 21, 2000 Thursday, September 21, 2000, 2:00PM Boston University Biophysics Seminar SCI 352, 590 Commonwealth Ave. ``Cellular Mechanosignal Processing in Disease" Dr. Kevin Parker Children's Hospital Thursday, September 21, 2000, 4:00PM Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Scientific Colloquium Phillips Auditorium, 60 Garden Street ``Searching for Really Red QSO with the FIRST Survey" Dr. Robert Becker University of California, Davis Tea served at 3:30p.m. Thursday, September 21, 2000, 4:15PM Harvard University Duality Seminar Jefferson 453 ``Supergravity solutions for localized brane intersections" Arvind Rajaraman Rutgers University Refreshments at 3:45pm in HET commons. _ Physics Colloquium September 14, 2000 MIT Room 10-250 4:15 PM Prof. Eric Mazur Harvard University UNDERSTANDING OR MEMORIZATION: ARE WE TEACHING THE RIGHT THING? Education is more than just transfer of information, yet that is what is mostly done in large introductory courses -- instructors present material (even though this material might be readily available in printed form) and for students the main purpose of lectures is to take down as many notes as they can. Few students have the ability, motivation, and discipline to synthesize all the information delivered to them. Yet synthesis is perhaps the most important -- and most elusive -- aspect of education. Students get frustrated because they are unable to grasp simple concepts. Instructors get frustrated because they don't know how to help their students grasp the material. The problem has a relatively simple solution: shift the focus in lectures from delivering information to synthesizing information. This requires students to take more responsibility for obtaining the information in the first place, but this is a process that they are quite good at anyway. With examples from my own discipline (physics), I will illustrate how I discovered rampant problems in my own lectures and how I have begun to remedy the problem. Refreshments will begin at 3:00 PM in the Physics Common Room, 4-339