The ~real~ periodic table
Gravity acts on mass(/energy), the weak force acts on flavor, the strong force acts on color, and the electromagnetic force acts on this property of particles.
What is charge?
More massive black holes have weaker of this type of force (non-fundamental). Hint: This force leads to what is often called "spagettification"
What is tidal?
SPS advisor Prof. Mann is working on a project to send this type of small but useful satellite into space.
What is CubeSat?
At one colloquium, Prof. Alexander from Brown University discussed how this genre of music mirrors modern physics, such as quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the physics of the early universe
What is jazz?
This trans-Neptunian mystery was recently theorized, so to speak, to be a primordial black hole.
What is planet 9?
This class of particles has half-integer spin and follows the Pauli exclusion principle.
What are fermions?
This type of energy makes up 23% of the energy in the universe today and was responsible for galaxy/structure formation.
What is dark matter?
Prof. Law's group made and operates this set of two telescopes (that kind of look like colanders). One is in the southern hemisphere and one is in the northern hemisphere and they stare at the whole sky all night long...generating massive amounts of data.
What is the Evryscope?
In November, we will have a colloquium by Rainer Weiss, one of the physicists who won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery that provided strong evidence in support of Einstein's theory of general relativity as well as a proof of concept for a large scale interferometer.
What are gravitational waves?
Neutrinos were thought to be massless until evidence of "missing neutrinos" from this source led to the discovery that they can oscillate between flavors and thus have mass.
What is the Sun?
If charge or parity symmetry (but not both) are violated then this must also be.
What is time reversal symmetry?
The current prevailing cosmological model is called Lambda-CDM where CDM is cold dark matter and lambda refers to this form of energy which Einstein called his rejection of his "biggest blunder".
What is the cosmological constant, or dark energy?
Prof. Lopez' research focuses on the physics of light manipulation and control within nanoscale materials and how it used for this energy application.
What is solar power/energy?
In the most recent colloquium, Prof. Ana Maria Rey from CU Boulder talked about how this type of atom can be used for very precise measurements with applications including clocks, simulating many-body physics problems, and quantum computing
What are alkaline earth atoms?
In this famous experiment, electrons were found to behave as both waves and particles.
What is double slit experiment?
Only two spin states of this spin-1 particle are possible in an open-space vacuum. (Hint: the third is attainable in a wave guide)
What is a photon?
This is the sign (pos, neg, or zero) of the acceleration of the expansion of the universe today
What is positive!? The universe is expanding at an accelerated rate today!
The Wilkerson/Henning group(s?) is part of this collaboration looking at a process called double neutrinoless beta decay which is theoretically neutrinoless if neutrinos are their own antiparticle. Hint: this is also an adjective used to describe particles which are their own antiparticle.
What is Majorana?
Prof. Miller from UVA is developing a new medical imaging technique to replace this current technique that utilizes spin dynamics of nuclei in the body. The new modality called Polarized Nuclear Imaging, takes advantage of the fact that nuclear isomers with spin > ½ emit gamma rays in a spatially non-uniform pattern.
What is MRI? (will also accept NMR, because we are physicists and aren't scared of the word nuclear)
Kip Thorne, 2017 Nobel Prize winner and guest speaker at UNC last year, was the science advisor for this movie.
What is Interstellar?
This flavor of quark was the last to be discovered. Two independent experiments observed ten quark-antiquark pairs from proton-antiproton collisions. The mass (173 GeV[/c^2]) was much larger than expected and is about that of a gold atom.
What is the top quark?
This event in the early universe was the first time (despite part of its name) that electrons attached to nuclei to form atoms, and is the event which allowed the light we see in the Cosmic Microwave Background to escape!
What is recombination?
In 1957, a major conference in this field of physics was held at UNC, organized by physicists Cecile and Bryce DeWitt (who later both left UNC because the university would not grant tenure to a woman, but UT Austin did...after 13 years). The conference was funded by a rich guy with a random interest in this field of physics but who thought, until convinced otherwise by the DeWitts, that it would be cool to have the conference at a different university that had a nuclear reactor "for anti-gravity purposes".
What is gravitation?
In one colloquium, Prof. Bousso from UC Berkeley discussed how this object/system reveals a deep connection between quantum information and spacetime geometry.
What is a black hole?
Noether's theorem states that this type of law (often taught as early as 118) is derived from the more fundamental idea of symmetry.
What is conservation?