Sessions

 

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Plenaries

  • APS Division of Biological Plenary Session - Dezhe Z. Jin

      • APS Division of Biological Plenary Session - Dezhe Z. Jin

      • PL05
      • Mon 07/30, 1:30PM - 3:00PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
      • Songbirds learn to sing songs like humans learn to speak. The songs of many species follow syntax crudely similar to the rules of human speech, and consist of stereotypical syllables strung together into variable sequences. Experimental and computational works, many by physicists, start to unveil how the collective dynamics of connected neurons in the songbird brain control the syntax. Neurons form unidirectional chain networks that drive the syllables. The chains are connected into branched networks. Neural activity flows along the branched pathway to produce syllable sequences. At a branching point, one of the connected chains is selected to carry on the activity, producing a probabilistic syllable transition. These results may shed light on how human speech is encoded in the brain.
  • APS Division of Biophysics Plenary Session - William Bialek

      • APS Division of Biological Plenary Session - William Bialek

      • PL04
      • Mon 07/30, 1:30PM - 3:00PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
      • Statistical mechanics gives us a language for describing the emergence of collective behavior. These phenomena can be exotic, as with superconductivity and superfluidity, or mundane (but subtle!), such as the rigidity of solids. Biological systems offer many examples of collective behavior, from the interactions among many amino acids that stabilize the structure of a protein molecule to the beautifully coordinated flight of birds in flocks. For decades, physicists have speculated that statistical mechanics should provide us with a way of thinking about these systems, but there was huge gap between these theoretical ideas and experiment. In the last decade, it has been possible to close the gap, and move beyond metaphor to detailed calculations and quantitative comparison with data. I'll review this work, leaning heavily on the flock of birds as an example, but also looking at proteins and networks of neurons. Astonishingly, all of these systems seem to be poised near a critical point in their natural parameter space, hinting at some deeper principles.
  • APS Intro Plenary: Birds, Brains and Physics - the Fascinating Field of Biological Physics

      • APS Division of Biological Plenary Session

      • PL03
      • Mon 07/30, 1:30PM - 3:00PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
      • Schools of fish, flocks of birds and stampeding elephants are examples of phenomena from the natural living world that can be described using the tools of physics. Biological physics is a rapidly developing field of research that lies at the boundaries of physics, chemistry, and biology, and seeks to contribute to our understanding of life. Professor William Bialek from the Physics Department at Princeton University uses statistical mechanics to describe a wide range of living phenomena, from amino acids in a protein molecule to networks of neurons to birds in flight. Professor Dezhe Jin from the Physics Department at Penn State University studies how complex bird songs, which share many common features with human speech, are controlled by the emergent dynamics of neurons in brains of songbirds. Understanding how birds sing will help to resolve the language-centric pathways in the brain.
  • David Halliday and Robert Resnick Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching Award

      • David Halliday and Robert Resnick Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching Award

      • PL02
      • Mon 07/30, 11:00AM - 12:05PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
      • The 2012 David Halliday and Robert Resnick Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Physics Teaching Award is presented to Kevin M. Lee, in recognition of his contributions to undergraduate physics teaching and his extraordinary accomplishments in communicating the excitement of physics to students. John Wiley & Sons is the principal source of funding for this award.
  • Distinguished Service Awards

      • Distinguished Service Awards

      • PL09
      • Wed 08/01, 11:00AM - 12:15PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
      • JD Garcia, Chandralekha Singh, Euginia Etkina
  • Millikan Medal and Distinguished Service Awards

      • Millikan Medal and Distinguished Service Awards

      • PL08
      • Wed 08/01, 11:00AM - 12:15PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
      • The Robert A. Millikan Medal for 2012 is presented to Philip M. Sadler forhis notable and creative contributions to the teaching of physics. Sadler's work on student conceptions led to the production of the award-winning documentary series, "A Private Universe" and "Minds Of Our Own" with colleague Matthew Schneps, videos that continue to influence classroom practice. This work has also furthered scholarly knowledge on students' understanding of physical science and astronomy.
  • Plenary: J. Richard Gott, III - Sizing Up the Universe

      • Plenary: J. Richard Gott, III

      • PL06
      • Tue 07/31, 11:00AM - 12:00PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
      • The sun is so large that a million Earths could fit inside it, yet there are stars much larger than the sun, and the distances between stars and galaxies are truly awesome. The large sizes encountered in astronomy are part of its fascination, but depicting them is perhaps astronomy's greatest challenge. Professor Gott will tell about his Map of the Universe, which preserves shapes (as the Mercator map of the Earth does), but which allows him to plot everything from satellites in Earth orbit to the moon and planets to distant stars and galaxies, out to the cosmic microwave background, the most distant thing we can see-all on a single map. The L.A. Times compared it to famous maps over the centuries, calling it "arguably the most mind-bending map to date." Professor Gott will tell how he got in the 2012 Guinness Book of Records for measuring the "largest structure in the universe," the Sloan Great Wall-1.37 billion light years lonog. He will show size comparisons and maps from his new National Geographic book Sizing Up the Universe, in collaboration with Professor Robert J. Vanderbei, answering such questions as, how big was Hurricane Katrina compared to the Great Red Spot (a centuries-old storm on Jupiter)? A series f size comparisons, each covering a scale a thousand times larger than the one before, will show everything from Buzz Aldrin's footprint on the moon, to asteroids, moons, planets, stars, black holes, and galaxies, ending with the first real picture of the entire visible universe.
  • Plenary: Nima Arkani-Hamed

      • Plenary: Nima Arkani-Hamed

      • PL07
      • Tue 07/31, 3:30PM - 4:30PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
  • The Paul W. Zitzewitz Excellence in Pre-College Teaching Award

      • The Paul W. Zitzewitz Excellence in Pre-College Teaching Award

      • PL01
      • Mon 07/30, 11:00AM - 12:05PM
      • by
      • Type: Plenary
      • The Paul W. Zitzewitz Excellence in Pre-College Teaching Award for 2012 ispresented to Mark D. Greenman in recognition of his career-long concern for and attention to quality education at the pre-college level. Greenman's career included 30 years of service at Marblehead High School where he served as a physics teacher, teacher mentor, computer director, mathematics director, and science director. He earned his BA in Physics from Hofstra University and his MS in Physics from Syracuse University. Honors include induction into Sigma Pi Sima, the physics national honor society, and Kappa Mu Epsilon, the mathematics national honor society. Greenman has recently served for two years as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the National Science Foundation within the Division of Undergraduate Education (2009-2011). He is a recipient of the 2009 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the Massachusetts' Council for Technology Education Path Finder Award, and the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers (MAST) Teacher of the Year Award from Essex county. He is an inductee into the Massachusetts Hall of Fame for Science Educators.