Australian Institute of Physics

South Australian Branch

AIP Free Public lecture
The Claire Corani Memorial Lecture
being the South Australian lecture in the 2004 AIP Women-in-Physics Lecture Tour

presented in conjunction with the Women-In-Physics Group

Thursday, August 12th, 2004, at 7:30pm
in the Union Hall,
University of Adelaide

Dr Mahananda Dasgupta
Department of Nuclear Physics,
Research School of Physical Sciences & Engineering
Australian National University

"Speeding Nuclei: exploring the nucleus and the natural environment"

Atomic nuclei accelerated to reach speeds of up to 30,000 km/sec are used to investigate nuclear properties and nuclear interactions, and a diverse range of topics such as climate change, defects in semiconductors and archeology. The question is - how do we study nuclei, which are completely invisible, being only 10-15 meters across, and interact in times of only 10-20 seconds? How do we use speeding nuclei to learn about phenomena as diverse as quantum tunneling and the global environment? I will discuss these questions and describe the latest research on these fields being done at the Australian National University.

The Claire Corani awards and the Bronze Bragg Medal and certificates will be presented during the meeting.