UWM Physics Post docs, graduate student, and faculty

Spring 2025 APS Preview Talks

Members of the UWM Physics department will present their preview talks in preparation for the upcoming APS meetings

The event flyer is available here.

David Hogg, Professor of Physics & Data Science, NYU

Sailing as Momentum Transport

Sailboats represent an ancient (but newly relevant) sustainable form of transportation. They work off the relative velocity between the air and the water. Sailboats can sail upwind (by tacking), they can sail downwind faster than the wind (also by tacking), and they can sail crosswind much faster than the wind.

I present the simplest possible momentum transport model of a sailboat, and explain all of these capabilities. In this (spherical scow) model, the sailboat is defined by three dimensionless numbers: the sail-to-keel area ratio, a lift ratio for the sail, and a lift ratio for the keel. The model makes a number of amusing "predictions" that explain the properties of commercial and competitive sailboats. There are many connections to sustainable energy.

The event flyer is available here.

Geoffrey Bower, Chief Scientist for Hawaii Operations, Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics

Imaging Black Holes with the Event Horizon Telescope

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a global submillimeter-wavelength very long baseline array that produces the highest angular resolution images of black holes. The EHT Collaboration has produced images of two black holes, the supermassive black hole in the elliptical galaxy M87 and the Galactic Center black hole, Sgr A*.

In this talk, I will describe the techniques and technology behind these measurements, give updates on the latest results, and plans for future observations. Images of both sources have a ring-like morphology consistent with predictions of general relativity and the Kerr metric.

The event flyer is available here.