UNO Physics

Happy 200th Birthday to William Thomson, AKA Lord Kelvin!

It's the birthday of William Thomson, who was born in 1824 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Thomson studied mathematics and physics at Cambridge University. At the age of 22 he was appointed physics professor at Glasgow University. Although Thomson had wide interests, including electromagnetism, his research focused on establishing a mathematical framework for thermodynamics, including its first and second laws and the absolute temperature scale. His theoretical interest in electromagnetism became a practical one, when in the 1850s, he served as a consultant on a proposed transatlantic telegraph cable. The eventually successful project was completed in 1858. Queen Victoria knighted Thomson for his role in the project. Later, in1892, she enobled him, and Thomson became known as Lord Kelvin.

https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/news/2023/09/astrophysics-aspirations-explores-undergraduate-research-opportunity.php?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=275296047&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--Wxs-MfQQpvqc6b3K0-4Jbru3h5M4wNSEhFzSlT-KbCctyEm3ALPYex-vQ08yuAV3Vc88vMbiuOs2EpkcE_MzT0etFng&utm_content=275296047&utm_source=hs_email

Astrophysics Aspirations: UNO Senior Explores Undergraduate Research Opportunities Senior physics major Jaidyn Spoon participated in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supported by the National Science Foundation.

First detection of secondary supermassive black hole in a well-known binary system Supermassive black holes that weigh several billion times the mass of our sun are present at the centers of active galaxies. Astronomers observe them as bright galactic cores where the galaxy's supermassive black hole devours matter from a violent whirlpool called accretion disk. Some of the matter....

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/3/16/how-many-decimals-of-pi-do-we-really-need/?utm_source=thisistrue.com

How Many Decimals of Pi Do We Really Need? - Edu News | NASA/JPL Edu While world record holders may have memorized more than 70,000 digits of pi, a JPL engineer explains why you really only need a tiny fraction of that for most calculations – even at NASA.

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200711/physicshistory.cfm?fbclid=IwAR2xjB_O-oy-7DdOAI5xNdzIbMjEZmQaS46YmaR5PUG3wEI-816RAxvzTPI

November 1887: Michelson and Morley report their failure to detect the luminiferous ether By the late 1800s, physicists generally believed that light was a wave.