Emory physicists to study airborne microbes, funded by $1.2 million Keck Award

The Keck Foundation awarded Emory physicists Minsu Kim (left) and Justin Burton $1.2 million to explore how microbes adapt to living in the Earth’s atmosphere and the broader role that these organisms may play in the planet’s ecosystem. Microbes have an incredible ability to thrive in different environments. Extensive research has shown the vital roles … More Emory physicists to study airborne microbes, funded by $1.2 million Keck Award

Professor Connie Roth Receives NSF Special Creativity Award

Professor Connie Roth is awarded an NSF Special Creativity grant in 2022 for her unique research into polymer material properties at the local nanoscale level. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Special Creativity Award is a two year extension of funding on an existing research grant “to offer the most creative investigators an extended opportunity to … More Professor Connie Roth Receives NSF Special Creativity Award

Bigger, better bubbles: Physicist seeks ultimate formula for fun

When he’s not conducting high-level research on fluid dynamics and granular materials, physics professor Justin Burton is on an ever-expanding quest: testing formulas and techniques to make the ultimate giant soap bubbles. Emory News recently interviewed Prof. Burton and his family on his quest to make the biggest bubble. Read more: https://news.emory.edu/features/2022/08/esc_quest-for-bigger-better-bubbles_01-08-2022/index.html

New Method Reveals Minimum Heat for Levitating Drops

When water is sprinkled into an extremely hot frying pan, the droplets levitate just above the pan’s surface, sliding across it on vapor layers. This odd physical phenomenon, known as the Leidenfrost effect, was first described nearly three centuries ago, but many mysteries remain about its characteristics. Emory Physics graduate student Dana Harvey and Associate … More New Method Reveals Minimum Heat for Levitating Drops

Stopping an Iceberg

Shortly before Jakobshavn Isbræ, a tidewater glacier in Greenland, calves massive chunks of ice into the ocean, there’s a sudden change in the slushy collection of icebergs floating along the glacier’s terminus, according to a new collaborative paper led by Dr. Ryan Cassotto (CIRES, UCBoulder) and Emory Physics faculty, Justin Burton. The work, published today … More Stopping an Iceberg

NYT Posts Article Featuring New Faculty Member Dr. Jennifer Rieser

The New York Times recently published the article “The Skin-Deep Physics of Sidewinder Snakes” featuring our newest faculty member, Dr. Jennifer Rieser. The article’s focus is on how snake skin helped Dr. Rieser and other members of the team to understand how snakes move in different environments, such as on sand. They discovered that the … More NYT Posts Article Featuring New Faculty Member Dr. Jennifer Rieser

Modulus of Neighboring Rubbery Domain Strongly Impacts Local Glass Transition of Glassy Polymers

Physics PhD graduate student Yannic Gagnon and Professor Connie Roth have demonstrated that the local glass transition temperature Tg, the temperature at which the material locally transitions from an equilibrium liquid to a non-equilibrium solid glass, is strongly impacted by the modulus of a neighboring polymer domain. Polymer materials are often made of blends of … More Modulus of Neighboring Rubbery Domain Strongly Impacts Local Glass Transition of Glassy Polymers

Professor Eric Weeks wins 2020 Slack Award of SESAPS

The Francis G. Slack Award was created by the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society (SESAPS) to honor Excellence in Service to Physics in the Southeast. Prof. Eric Weeks was announced as this year’s Slack Award winner with the citation: “For demonstrated excellence in service to the physics community of the Southeast through his … More Professor Eric Weeks wins 2020 Slack Award of SESAPS

Ground State Properties of the Diluted Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Spin Glass

By: Stefan Boettcher This paper adds a new perspective on the venerable Sherrington-Kirkpatrick (SK) spin glass model, which is a crucible of disorder and glassy behavior. It has applications not only in the physics of disordered materials, but also in AI (neural networks), brain function, combinatorial optimization, and machine learning, for example (see the book … More Ground State Properties of the Diluted Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Spin Glass