I have not decided what I would prefer to do on Dec 3 myself yet, but as promised I'm open to any (reasonable and physics-related) suggestions for topics. Anything at least tangentially-related to the material we've covered I'm willing to give a lecture on. You can email your suggestions, or leave comments here, but just about anything goes. I will indicate if I think the topic you suggest is inappropriate or too detailed to explain clearly in one class.
My own suggestions, in no particular order:
- more on transistors & semiconductor electronics
- information storage technologies (hard disks, ram, flash, etc.)
- two-level systems & resonance
- applications of particle statistics (chemical kinetics, diffusion, etc)
- crystals, geometry, & diffraction
- magnetic materials
I probably don't get a vote this time around, but you do still owe a lecture on biophysics that was scrapped in favor of instructor evaluations.
ReplyDeleteIt might not be "tangentially related" enough, but how about a lecture that relates the possibility of time dilation to time travel (at least into the future.) Once again, I know this is very far-fetched but time travel is something everyone wonders about from time to time..
ReplyDelete@Andrew - that might be a good topic, though it would require a decent amount of prep. Fun though. Thanks to online evaluations we won't have the same problem again ...
ReplyDelete@Anonymous - that would be a fair topic and related enough. There are good physical reasons from relativity why time travel should be essentially impossible, at least without postulating never-observed types of space or matter.
Lets see what other suggestions come in, I will probably have to decide by next Tuesday to make something credible by Thursday ...
Other suggestions via email/direct contact:
ReplyDelete*computer memory (flash, ram)
*black holes
*power distribution
spintronics, mram,flash, etc..
ReplyDeleteIt seems flash/ram/etc has won the day.
ReplyDelete