Unless noted otherwise, seminars take place on Tuesdays at 1:15 p.m. in Room 1116, IPST Building 085.  As in the previous academic year, it has been resolved to keep alive the seminar this coming semester and not  necessarily on a regular basis.  This seminar is organized by Professor Michael Fisher.  Please send suggestions for speakers to Caricia Claremont
(claremon at ipst.umd.edu).
As in the past, each seminar will be preceded by an INFORMAL CAFETERIA LUNCH to which all are welcome, departing from Room 2100B about five minutes after 12:00 noon.
For further information, contact:
Professor Christopher cjarzyns@umd.edu (301)-405-4439
Professor John Weeks jdw@ipst.umd.edu (301)-405-4802
Professor Michelle Girvan girvan@umd.edu(301)-405-1610

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR – SPRING 2008

Tuesday, February 12th
1:15 PM - IPST 1116
Speaker:     Greg Morrison
                   Department of Physics, UMCP
Topic:         The Influence of Handles on the Folding Landscape and Kinetics of RNA Hairpins
http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb

Tuesday, February 19th
1:15 PM - IPST 1116
Speaker:     Professor J. Barkley Rosser, Jr.
                   Department of Economics, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA
Topic:          Econophysics and Economic Complexity
http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR – FALL 2007

Tuesday, September 4th
1:15 PM - IPST 1116
Speaker:     Professor Janusz Holyst
                   Faculty of Physics - Warsaw University of Technology - Warsaw, Poland
Topic:          Phase Transitions and Scaling in Complex Networks

Tuesday, September 11th
1:15 PM - IPST 1116
Speaker:     Dr. Edward Ott
                   Department of Physics, UMCP
Topic:          The Onset of Coherence in Large Networks of Coupled Heterogeneous Oscillators

Tuesday, September 25th
1:15 PM - IPST 1116
INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR
Speaker:      Professor Michael E. Fisher
                    Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP
Topic:          Atoms and Ions:   Universality, Singularity and Particularity; Boltzmann's Vision
                    a Century Later

Tuesday, October 2nd
Speaker:      Dr. Zhonghan Hu
                    Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP
Topic:          Transport Properties, Optical Response and Slow Dynamics of Ionic Liquids

Tuesday, October 16th
Speaker:     Dr. Hal Tasaki
                  Gakushuin University, Tokyo, Japan
Topic:         The Hubbard Model and the Origin of Ferromagnetism

Tuesday, October 23rd
Speaker:     Dr. Andriy Anishkin
                   Department of Biology, UMCP
Topic:         Bypassing Limitations of Conventional MD in Studies of Ion Channel Gating

Tuesday, October 30th
                  OPEN

Tuesday, November 6th
Speaker:     Dr. John Angle
                   Inequality Process Institute, Maryland
topic:           A Stochastic Generator Mimicking Wealth-Income Dynamics?

Tuesday, November 13th
Speaker:     Professor Daniel Kosov
                   Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UMCP
Topic:         Electron Transport Through Molecules

Tuesday, November 20th
Speaker:     Prof. Caio Lewenkopf
                   Rio de Janeiro State University, Harvard
Topic:         Nonlinear Transport in Nanoscopic Devices:  Violations of the Onsager Relations

Tuesday, November 27th
Speaker:     Dr. Matthew P.A. Fisher
                   Microsoft, Station Q - University of California, Santa Barbara
Topic:         Bose and Fermi Quantum Fluids with Critical d-wave Correlations

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR – SPRING 2007

 6 February           Prof. Christopher Jarzynski
                             Institute for Physical Science & Technology and Department of Chemistry, UMCP
                             “Microscopic Reversibility, Macroscopic Irreversibility and Fluctuation Theorems”
  

13 February           Dr. Yael Roichman
                              Center for Soft Matter Research, Physics Dept., New York University

                              “Anomalous Collective Dynamics in Optically Driven Colloids

 

20 February           Prof. Konstantina Trivisa
                              Department of Mathematics, UMC
                               “On Multicomponent Reactive Flows

 

27 February           Prof. Michelle Girvan

                              Department of Physics and Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                              “To Be Announced”

 

Updated 1/29/07

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR – FALL 2006

12 September           Professor Rob Walker
                                 Department.of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UMCP
.                               
At Arm's Length - Correlating Molecular Structure with Interfacial Solvation

19 September           Jocelyn Rodgers
                                 Institute of Physical Science & Technology, UMCP
                                
Nonuniform Charged Systems: Accurate Short-Ranged Simulations

26 September           Open

  3 October                 Dr. Jürgen Mimkes
                                 Physics Department, U. Paderborn, Germany
                                 Chemistry of Social Bonds: A Thermodynamic View of Socio-Economic Systems

10 October               Dr. Olga Dudko
                                 Center for Information Technology National Institutes of Health
                                
Single Molecule Experiments: Rates and Activation Free Energies

17 October                Professor Elliot Elson
                                  Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics,     
                                  Washington University School of Medicine
                                  “Molecular Cluster-Size Distributions From Fluorescence Fluctuations”

24 October                Dr. Denis Tsygankov
                                  Institute for Physical Science & Technology, UMCP
                                  “Wrong-way Walking and Hidden Steps of Molecular Motors”

31 October               Professor Surajit Sengupta
                                
S.N. Bose National Center for Basic Sciences, Kolkata , India
                                 “Microstructure Selection During Solid State Transformations:
                                 The role of non-elastic variables”

  7 November              No Seminar

14 November            Dr. Saar Rahav
                                 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UMCP
                                 “The Classical Limit of Quantum Transport”

21 November           Professor Sean Sun
                                Mechanical Engineering and Whitaker Institute, Johns Hopkins University
                                 “The Physics of Bacterial Cell Division”

28 November           Professor Sow-Hsin Chen
                                Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, M.I.T.
                               
  “Dynamic Crossover in Protein Hydration Water and the Glass Transition in Biopolymers”

  5 December           Professor Thomas C. Schelling
                                Department of Economics, UMCP
                                To be Announced

12 December           Daphne A. Fuentevilla
                                Department of Chemical Engineering, UMCP
               
                 Two Liquid Waters: Secrets Revealed through Supercooling

Updated 11/9/06

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR – SPRING 2006

31 January             No Seminar

  7 February           Dr. Subir K. Das
                              Institute for Physical Science & Technology, UMCP
                              “Critical Dynamics
in a Binary Fluid: Resolving a controversy by simulation” “  

 

14 February           Dr. Sumanta Tewari
                              Condensed Matter Theory Center, UMCP

                              “Topological Quantum Computing using Half-quantum Vortices

 

21 February           Open

 

28 February           Professor Horst Meyer

                              Department of Physics, Duke University

                              “Convection in a Supercritical Fluid:  How is it started?”

 

7 March                 Professor Moira Steyn-Ross & Dr Alistair Steyn-Ross

                              Department of Physics & Electronic Engineering,

                              University Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

                              “Phase-transition Model for Anesthesia and Natural Sleep”

 

14 March               APS Meeting

 

21 March               SPRING BREAK

 

28 March               Professor M. A. Anisimov

                              Chemical Engineering and Institute for Physical Science & Technology, UMCP

                              “Complete Scaling and Asymmetry in Fluids:  Can thermodynamics teach us

                              something new?”

  

  4 April                 Dr. Natasha Denesyuk
                              Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP  
                              “Mixing Immiscible Polymers:  Adding block copolymers

 

11 April                 Professor Oleg Tchernyshyov
                              Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University
                              “
Fractional Vortices and Domain Walls in Nanomagnets”

 

18 April                 Dr. Elshad Allahyarov
                             Heinrich Heine Universityof Dusselfdorf
                             “Simulation of Critical Electrolytes in a Channel”

 

25 April                OPEN

 

  2 May                 Professor Douglas B. Abraham

                             Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, Oxford University  

                             “Pinning and Depinning at a Grain Boundary”

 

  9 May               Rutgers Statistical Mech. Meeting

 

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR – FALL 2005

12 September       Prof. Michael E. Fisher
                             Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP
                             “CRITICALITY IN IONIC SYSTEMS:  Recent Progress, Open Questions”

20 September       Dr. Madhav Ranganathan
                             Institute for Physical Scienceand Technology, UMCP
                             “Dynamics of spiral steps on Crystalline nanomounds”

27 September       Dr. Robert Axtell
                            Center on Social and Economic Change, Brookings Institution
                             “Heavy-Tailed Fluctuations in Firm Sizes and the Central Limit Theorem”

4 October            Dr. Denis Tsygankov

                            Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP
                            “SPONTANEOUS SYNCHRONIZATION: Josephson Junctions and Fiber Lasers”

 

11 October          Professor Alan DeSilva

                            Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, UMCP
                            “Observations of Electrical Conductivity in Metal Plasmas”

 

18 October–1 November    NO SEMINARS

 

  8 November      Jeng-da Chai   -  DISSERTATION DEFENSE
                           “Orbital-free Density Functional Theory of Atoms, Molecules, and Solids”

                           PLEASE NOTE DIFFERENT TIME:  1:30 PM.

 

15 November      Professor C. David Levermore
                            IPST and Department of Mathematics, UMCP

                           “Nonlinear Stochastic Dynamics: Entropy-Based Closures”

 

22 November      Martin Lind é n
                            KTH-Stockholm and IPST, UMCP
                            “Bacterial Motility via Pilus Retraction: modeling a powerful molecular motor”

 

29 November      OPEN

 

  6 December       Professor Bei-lok Hu
                            Department of Physics, UMCP
                            “What's Statistical Physics to Quantum Gravity”

13 December      Alberto Pimpinelli
                           Universite Blaise Pascal Clermont-2 and UMCP
                           “Crystal Surfaces Out of Equilibrium:  Instabilities, Multiscaling and Nonlocality”

                            Postponed until next semester:
                            Dr. Subir K. Das
                            IPST, UMCP
                            “Spinodal Decomposition in Fluid Films:  A Molecular Dynamics Study”

20 December        RUTGERS UNIVERSITY STAT. MECH. MEETING

Updated:  12/12/05

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR – SPRING 2005

1 February           Dr. Claudio Cioffi-Revilla
                              George Mason University
                              “Power Laws in the Social Sciences: Origins and Recent Advances”

  8 February           Professor Ellen D. William

                              Department of Physics and MRSEC, UMCP

                              “One-Dimensional Interfaces in Two-Dimensional Structures”

 

15 February           Dr. Stephen M. Hsu

                              Materials Science and Engineering Laboratory, National Inst. of Standards and Tecnology

                              “The Science and Technology of Nanofriction.”

 

22 February           “POSTPONED UNTIL MARCH 1

 

 1 March                Fariel Shafee  

                              Physics Department, Princeton University

                              “Spin-glass-like Dynamics of Social Clusters”

 

   8 March              Dr. James Warren

                              National Institute of Standards and Technology

                              “Modeling the Dynamics of Crystal Growth:   The Influence of Liquid Structure”

 

15 March               Dr. Olivier Pierre-Louis

                              University Jos. Fourier, Grenoble
                              “Morphological Transitions of One Dimensional Fronts on Growing Crystal Surfaces

 

22 March               SPRING BREAK & APS Meeting

 

29 March               Dr. Ana Maria Rey

                              National Institute of Standards and Technology

                              “Fermionization of Bosons in an Optical Latice: A Simple Picture

 

5 April                   Jeng-Da Chai
                             Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                             “Orbital-free Kinetic Energy and Pseudopotentials for Quantal Ground States”     

12 April                Dr. Justin J. Stambaugh
                             MIT Lincoln Laboratory
                             The Self-Assembly of Complex Particles”  

 

19 April                Profesor Richard A. Ferrel
                            Department of Physics, UMCP

                            “A Nonconventional Computation of the Anomalous Dimension, Eta, Using the
                            Lorentz Metric”

 

26 April                Dr. Valeri Barsegov
                             Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP
                            “Unbinding of Cell-adhesion Molecules:  Transition from Catch to Slip Bonds

 

  3 May                Dr. Anirban Chakraborti
                            Brookhaven National Laboratory

                            “Econophysics:  Analyses & Modeling

 

                            Last Seminar

10 May                R. Thomas Willis
                            Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                            “Yang-Yang Anomaly in Fluid Criticality:  Exactly Soluble Models

 

Updated 4/13/05

 

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR -- FALL 2004

14 September     Professor Richard E. Prange

                           Department of Physics, UMCP

                          Resurgence in Quasiclassical Scattering

21 September     Dr. Sumanta Tewari

                           Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP 

                          “Floating Phases in Josephson Junction Arrays

 

28 September    Professor Michael A. Coplan

                          Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                          “Electron Correlations in Atoms and Molecules”

 

  5 October        Professor Shmuel Fishman

                          The Technion, Haifa, Israel

                          “Eigenmodes and Thermodynamics of a Coulomb Chain”

 

12 October       Professor Walter I. Goldburg

                         Physics Department, University of Pittsburgh

                         “Fluctuating Energy Dissipation in the Steady State

 

19 October       Professor Wolfgang Losert

                         IREAP, UMCP

                         “The Memory of a Sandpile

 

26 October       Professor J.R. Dorfman

                         Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                         “What Are the Jarzynski Relations That We Should Be Mindful of Them?

 

  2 November    Professor Ted Jacobson

                         Department of Physics, UMCP

                         “What Themodynamics Do Black Holes Have?  And Why?

 

  9 November   

 

 16 November   2:00 PM - IPST Colloquium

                         Michael Shlesinger

                         “Elliott W. Montroll:  A Retrospective

23 November     Dr. Charles W. Clark

                          Chief, Electron and Optical Physics Division

                          National Institute of Standards and Technology

                          “Superfluid and Laser Analogies with Coherent Matter Waves

30 November     Dr. Charanbir Kaur

                          Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                          “A Molecular Field Theory for Charged Walls and Counterions

7 December       Dr. Peter G. Velikov

                          Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Houston

                           “Phase Transitions in Protein Solutions

      

14 December      To be Announced

21 December      Christmas Week  

Updated 11/16/04

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR -- SPRING 2004

27 January        Dr. Nadya Mason

                        Materials Research and Engineering, Harvard University

                        “Local Gate Control Carbon Nanotube Quantum Dots”

 

  3 February       Professor Michael E. Fisher

                          Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                         “Lars Onsager and the Ising Model:  Some Fruits of Genius”

10 February        Professor J.R. Dorfman

                           Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                          “Fractal Forms in Chaotic Transport” 

17 February         OPEN

24 February         Dr. Young C. Kim

                             Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                            “Simulating Criticality to High Precision via Finite-Size Scaling”    

   2 March             Magdalena Constantin

                        Department of Physics, UMCP

                            “Persistence in Fluctuating Steps on Crystal Surfaces”

  9 March              Professor D. Thirumalai

                             Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                            "Stretching Biomolecules"

16 March             Guido Pupillo

                            Physics Department, UMCP

                          “The Mott Insulator as a Quantum Computer”

23 March            SPRING BREAK

30 March            Dr. Alexander V. Neimark

                           TRI/Princeton Core Technology Program

                          “Phase Behavior and Nucleation in Nanoconfined Fluids”

  6 April               Dr. Taner Yildirim

                           National Institute of Standards and Technology

                          “Studying Advanced Materials via Quantum Mechanics and Computers”  

13 April              Professor J.D. Weeks

                           Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                     “Screening, Structure, and Simulation of Coulomb Systems:  The Long and Short of It”

20 April              Professor Thomas G. Mason

                     Dept. of Chemistry, U.C.L.A. 

                          “Rotational Microrheology”

                           Host:  Jan V. Sengers

27 April             Dr. Ferenc Szalma

                          Department of Physics, UMCP

                         “Nano-islands Fluctuating on Anisotropic Surfaces”

  4 May             Professor Sandra C. Greer

                        Dept. of Chemical Engineering, UMCP,

                        “The Wonders of Poly(ethylene oxide) in Solution”

 11 May              Yng-gwei Chen

                      Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                     “Local Molecular Field Theory for Ionic Fluids”  

 

 INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR - FALL 2003

16 September    Professor Shmuel Fishman

                          The Technion

                          "Kicking Cold Atoms:  Quantum resonances and decoherence"

 

23 September    Professor Sean Sun

                         Whitaker Biomedical Engineering Institute, Johns Hopkins University

                          "How to Compute Free Energies from Nonequilibrium Processes"

 

30 September    Dr. Victor Galitski

                          Dept. of Physics, University of Maryland

                          "Essential Singularities in Disordered Magnets"

 

  7 October       Dr. Professor F. T.M. Nieuwstadt

                         J.M. Burgers Centre for Fluid Dynamics, The Netherlands

                         "Drag Reduction by Polymers and Fibers"  

 

14 October       Dr. Jean-Nöel Aqua

                         Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

                         "Ionic Criticality:  An exactly soluble model and its lessons"

 

21 October       Dr. Alain Karma

Joint                  Department of Physics, Northeastern University

w/Biophysics     "Patterns of Electrical and Calcium Signaling in Cardiac Arrhythmias"

 

28 October       No Seminar

 

  4 November    Professor José M. Ortiz de Zárate

                         Department of Applied Physics I., Complutense University, Madrid

                         "Why are Nonequilibrium Correlations of Long-range?"

 

11 November    Professor A.B. Kolomeisky

                         Department of Chemistry, Rice University

                         "Phenomenological Theory of Protein Nucleation Phenomena"

 

18 November    Dr. Amy J. O'Brien

                         Digital Systems Resources, Inc., Fairfax, VA

                         "Fuzzy Logic, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Shades of Gray"  


25 November    Dr. Madhav Ranganathan

(Thanksgiving     Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP

 Week)              "Kinetic Theory for Dynamic Fluctuations in Simple Fluids"                         

 

   2 December   Dr. Ramses van Zon

                         Rockefeller University

                         "Extensions of the Fluctuation Theorem - Differences between Work and Heat"

 

 9 December     Dr. Raymond L. Orbach

                         Director of Research, U.S. Department of Energy

                         Title:  To be Announced

 

16 December    Open

 

Informal Statistical Physics/Biophysics Seminar - SPRING 2003

 

16 January        SPECIAL SEMINAR  

                        Professor David R. Nelson

                        Lyman  Laboratory of Physics, Harvard University

                        “Localized States and  Biophysics”

 

28 January        First day of classes

 

  4 February      Professor Das Gupta

                         Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

                         “Mound Formation and Coarsening in Surface Growth”

 

11 February      Dr. Alasdair Steven

                         NIH

                         “Phase Transitions in Prions and Viruses and their Functional Implications”

 

18 February      Canceled Due to Snow

 

25 February      Dr. Joanna Aizenberg

                         Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies

                         “Biologically-formed Single Crystals: Architecture, Mechanics, Optics Biomimetics”  

 

  4 March         Gibbs Double Centennial Symposium, March 5th and 6th

 

11 March         Professor David Fushman

                        Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, UMCP

                        "Conformation and dynamics of polyubiquitin chains”

 

18  March        Dr. Martin Greiner

                        Siemens AG, Corporate Technology - Information and Communications,  Munich, Germany “Complex Wireless Communication Networks -- an Applied Statistical Physics View”

 

26 March         SPRING BREAK

                        Note:  Special Day (Wed.) 

                        Professor Vijay Pande

                        Stanford

                        “Folding@Home:  using equilibrium and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and

                       100,000 CPUs to tackle difficult problems in computational biophysics”

 

  1 April           Rescheduled  from 18 February

                        Rogerio de Sousa

                        Department of Physics, UMCP

                        “Spin Echoes and Coherence for Quantum Computation”

 

  8 April           Professor Albert J. Libchaber
                        Laboratory for Experimental Condensed Matter, Rockefeller University

                        "Some Physics Techniques for Biology"

15 April           Professor Eve Ostriker

                        Department of Astronomy, UMCP

                        “Star Formation:  the Big Picture”

 

22 April           Professor Corey O’Hern

                        Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yale University  

                        "Effective Temperatures in Systems near Jamming"

 

29 April           Professor Alan Finkelstein

                        Departments of Physiology and Biophysics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

                        “Protein Translocation Associated with Channel Gating” 

 

6 May             Professor J. V. Sengers

                       Institute for Physical Science & Technology, UMCP

                       "Thermal Nonequilibrium Fluctuations in fluid layers below the Rayleigh-Benard 

                       Convective Instability"

 

13 May           Dr. Sergey Leikin

                       Chief, Section on Physical Biochemistry                      

                       National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

                       "Biophysics of Brittle Bones and Hyperextensible Joints:  New Lessons from

                       Collagen Studies"

 

20 May           "Rescheduled"

                       Professor Albert J. Libchaber

                       Laboratory for Experimental Condensed Matter, Rockefeller University

                       "Some Physics Techniques for Biology"

 

INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINAR - FALL 2002

  3 September        No Seminar

10 September        Professor Victor Muñoz
                              Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UMCP
                             "Equilibrium and Kinetics in Protein Folding: Downhill Folding and Hydrophobic Collapse"

17 September        Professor Sankar Das Sarma
                              Department of Physics, UMCP
                             "How to Make Semiconductors Ferromagnetic:  A First Course in Spintronics" 

24 September        Dr. Jean-Noël Aqua
                              Institute for Physical Science & Technology, UMCP
                             "Classical and Quantal Coulombic Fluids Near a Wall"

  1 October            Professor Amnon Aharony
                              School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University
                             "A Diabatic Quantum Pumping"

  8 October            Dr. Young C. Kim
                              Institute for Physical Science & Technology, UMCP
                             "Screening in Electrolytes near Criticality:  What to Simulate and How"

15 October           No Seminar

22 October            Professor T. L. Einstein
                              Department of Physics, UMCP
                             "Terrace-Width Distributions on Stepped Surfaces:  From Man Field to 'Wigner Surmise'"

29 October           No Seminar

5 November          No Seminar

12 November         Professor John Weeks
                              Institute for Physical Science and Technology, UMCP
                             "Gaussian Fluctuations and Molecular Fields:  A Simple Theory of Nonuniform Fluids"

19 November        Dr. Nicos S. Martys
                             National Institute of Standards and Technology
                            "Mesoscopic Modeling of Complex Fluid Flow: Theory and Validation"

26 November        Dr. Steven J. Schiff
                             Krasnow Professor of Neurobiology and Professor of Psychology,
                             George Mason University
                            "Relating Bad Brains, Rocks, and Gases -- Are Seizures Phase Transitions?"

3 December         No Seminar  

10 December        Yng-gwei Chen
                             Institute for Physical Science and Techology, University of Maryland"
                            "Different Thermodynamic Pathways to the Solvation Free Energy"

17 December        No Seminar


INFORMAL STATISTICAL PHYSICS SEMINARS - Spring 2002

(Pre-Semester)
  22 January           Dr. Smitha Vishveshwara
                              Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
                              "Carbon Nanotubes:  A Playground for Luttinger Liquid Physics"

  5 February           No Seminar

12 February           No Seminar 
                              
19 February           Dr. Peter Blair Blakie
                              Electron and Optical Physics Division
                              National Institute of Standards and Technology
                              "Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices"

26 February           No Seminar
                              
  5 March               Professor Wim van Saarloos
                              University of Leiden
                              "Force Distributions in Granular Media"

12 March               Dr. Johannes Hager
                              I.P.S.T., UMCP
                              "Droplet Condensation and Crystal Shapes in Two Dimens