NEWS BRIEFS
K-State Hosts 45th Midwest Solid State Conference
The Department of Physics hosted the 45th Midwest Solid State Conference
October 3-4, 1997. This conference draws together faculty and graduate
students from midwestern universities to exchange ideas on areas of current
research interest in Condensed Matter Physics.
Attendance was approximately 70 people, and papers spanned Biophysics,
Semiconductors, Magnetism, Surfaces and Liquids. The conference was
organized by Drs. Mick O'Shea and Amit Chakrabarti
with lots of assistance from Marilyn Woodward in Continuing Education and
was sponsored by the Department of Physics, Graduate School and the College
of Arts and Sciences. Although a lot of work, this conference was well
worth the effort since it brought in a number of invited speakers who were
expert in their fields.
The conference also gave our graduate students some experience in
presenting their results at a physics conference. Out students gave eight
of the total of 39 presentations at this conference.
O'Shea Attends Materials Science Conference
Mick O'Shea attended the First Conference on Materials Science at
Mu'tah University in Jordan November 1-4, 1997, as an invited speaker.
Mu'tah University is currently building up its research in the physical
sciences and this conference was to bring scientists together to discuss
research topics of interest to Mu'tah University.
The sessions were long with lots of invited papers with a number of them in
Arabic and French. They were still understandable since the mathematics
used is a universal language!
I also had a few hours each day for sightseeing and a great highlight
was to see Petra, a city carved into sandstone. It had numerous houses
carved out of solid sandstone and a number of larger temples. Remember the
temple in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"? It's in Petra (at least
the outside shot used in the movie is)! I look forward to my next visit to
Jordan which I hope is not too far into the future.
European Colloid and Interfacial Science Conference