Students and faculty members from the UW-Milwaukee Physics Department have recently been featured in several stories published in the UWM Report. With Help from NASA, Students Launch Experiment into Space: The UWM Students for the Exploration and Development of Space … Continue Reading »
UWM Physics Professor Reflects on the Legacy of Stephen Hawking
This article originally posted on CBS58 by Amanda Porterfield For most of his life Stephen Hawking was trapped motionless by disease, but his mind reached beyond the furthest stars. Hawking passed away this month at his home in Cambridge, England. … Continue Reading »
Joachim Frank, 2017 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Visits UWM to Speak on Imaging Molecules
Professor Joachim Frank, who shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, visited UWM on Friday, 3/9/2018 to deliver a colloquium, at the invitation of Abbas Ourmazd, a UWM distinguished professor of physics, who has published recent papers with Professor Frank. … Continue Reading »
UWM Professor Reminisces on Friendship With Stephen Hawking
Following the death of famed Physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking on March 14, 2018, Milwaukee’s WTMJ Channel 4 interviewed UWM’s Distinguished Physics Professor Emeritus Leonard Parker who discussed his friendship and previous work with Dr. Hawking. Click here to view the … Continue Reading »
UWM Physics Major Selected for “Posters on the Hill” in Washington, D.C.
Kirill Shmilovich, a UWM senior pursuing a double major in Physics and Mathematics, has been accepted to present his undergraduate research at the 22nd Annual “Posters on the Hill” event in Washington, D.C., presented by the Council on Undergraduate Research. … Continue Reading »
2018 UWM Research Magazine Released
The 2018 edition of UWM Research magazine has launched, celebrating the stories and work of nearly 100 faculty members, students and staff. “I’m amazed every day at the sheer breadth of research at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,” UWM Chancellor Mark … Continue Reading »
Physics on WUWM: Entrepreneurial Enterprises and the Hubble Space Telescope
Members of the UWM Physics Department appeared on WUWM twice during the month of February, discussing both research and a program celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope presented by the UWM Manfred Olson Planetarium. On February 8, 2018, Physics Professors Marija … Continue Reading »
Dawn Erb Selected as Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Science
Dawn Erb was selected as a Kavli Fellow by the National Academy of Science Frontiers of Science Program. The Academy’s Frontiers of Science symposia brings together outstanding young scientists to discuss exciting advances and opportunities in a broad range of … Continue Reading »
NANOGrav on PBS
Hunting Monster Black Holes
by Kate Becker
It’s a basic scary-movie rule: Never show the big, bad monster. Show his shadow, his tooth marks, his trail of slime. But as soon as you show his face, the fright bubble pops.
The universe seems to understand this rule. Its biggest, baddest monsters—supermassive black holes that haunt the center of nearly every galaxy, containing as much mass as millions or billions of stars—are totally invisible. Sure, by looking at the way stars whip around the center of the Milky Way and observing the electromagnetic fireworks going off in faraway galaxies, astrophysicists infer that supermassive black holes are lurking there. But they can never see the black holes themselves. And that’s not just storytelling—it’s physics.
UWM Astronomers to Use New Tool to Hunt Gravitational-wave Events
By Greg Walz-Chojnacki
It’s fair to say good luck played a role in the prompt discovery of an optical (and radio, X-ray, ultraviolet and infrared) counterpart to the gravitational waves from colliding neutron stars found last August.
But it’s also true that scientists don’t like to lean too hard on good luck, so astronomers have been developing a more systematic way to search for objects detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
The of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is a partner in the Zwicky Transient Facility, the latest tool for capturing astronomical observations of short-lived, or transient, phenomena. ZTF recently saw “first light,” taking its first detailed image of the night sky. In February, it will begin a regular program of swiftly scanning the entire sky to search for cosmic explosions, such as novae and supernova. The facility is also well-suited to discovering members of the solar system, principally asteroids and comets.
Continue reading the rest of the article in the UWM Report here