December 13-December 17, 2004 THE BOSTON AREA PHYSICS CALENDAR The Boston Area Physics Calendar is published weekly during the academic year by the Department of Physics at Boston University. You may send your announcement by e-mail (bapc-events@cosmos.phy.tufts.edu ) or FAX (617-353-9393). We cannot accept announcements by telephone. Entries should reach us no later than 12:00 p.m. the Tuesday of the week proceeding the week of the event. ENTRIES RECEIVED AFTER THE DEADLINE WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. MONDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2004 Monday, December 13, 2004, 2:00PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology Nuclear & Particle Theory Seminar Center for Theoretical Physics, Building 6, Third Floor seminar room ``On the nature of thermal QCD phase transition" Yoshitaka Hatta Brookhaven National Lab Refreshments will be served Monday, December 13, 2004 @4:15 p.m. Harvard University Department of Physics Colloquium Jefferson 250 "Mechanics of DNA at High Curvature: From Spinning Tops to Wandering Kinks" Philip Nelson Pennsylvania University Tea will be served in Jefferson 450 at 3:30 pm Monday, December 13, 2004., 4:15 p.m. Harvard University Woodward Lecture Series in the Chemical Sciences/Organic Chemistry Seminar Pfizer Lecture Hall, 12 Oxford St "The Transition from Chemical Evolution to Darwinian Evolution." Jack Szostak Massachusetts General Hospital TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2004 Tuesday, December 14, 2:30PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Tufts/CfA/MIT Cosmology Seminar Center for Theoretical Physics, Building 6, Third Floor seminar room ``Contracting Universes" Joel Erickson Princeton Refreshments will be served at 2:00PM Tuesday, December 14, 2004, 12:30 pm Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Pratt Conference Room 60 Garden Street, Cambridge "Resonant Excitation of White Dwarf Oscillations in Compact Object Binaries" Yasser Rathore CalTech Tuesday, December 14, 4:00pm Harvard University CUA seminar Jefferson Lab 356 "One-Electron Quantum Cyclotron: First Fully-Quantum Measurement of the Electron Magnetic Moment, and an Improved Value for the Fine Structure Constant" Gerald Gabrielse Harvard University WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2004 Wednesday, December 15, 2:00PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology String/Gravity Theory Seminar Center for Theoretical Physics, Building 6, Third Floor seminar room `` Baryogenesis from Inflationary Gravity Waves: An Observational Constraint on the String Scale" Stephon Alexander Stanford Refreshments will be served Wednesday, December 15, 2004, 4:00pm Northeastern University Dana Research Building, room 114 Physics Colloquium "Magnetic Anisotropy and Spin Dynamics in Functional Magnetic Nanostructures" Dr. Srikanth Hariharan University of South Florida Wednesday, December 15, 2004, 2:30 P.M Brown University Theoretical Seminar B&H 555 "Non-Critical Supergravity and Holography" Stanislav Kuperstein Tel-Aviv U THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2004 Thursday, December 16, 2004, 12:30pm Tufts University Robinson Hall, Room 250 Lunchtime Cosmology Seminar "Baryogenesis from Inflationary Gravity Waves: An Observational Constraint on the String Scale" Stephon Alexander Stanford University Thursday, December 16, 2004, 4:00 pm Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Phillips Auditorium 60 Garden Street, Cambridge "Relativistic Jets in Gamma-Ray Burst Sources and Active Galactic Nuclei" Arieh Konigl University of Chicago Tea and cookies at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, December 16, 2004, 4:15 p.m. Harvard University Duality Seminar Jefferson 453 "String-net condensation: a unification of gauge interaction and Fermi statistics" Xiao-Gang Wen MIT Refreshments served in the High Energy Theory coffee area, 4th floor Jefferson, at 3:45 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2004 Friday, December 17, 2004 4pm Harvard University Condensed Matter and Applied Physics Colloquium Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences Pierce 209 "Hybrid IC/Microfluidic Chips for the Manipulation of Biological Cells " Hakho Lee Harvard University Refreshments will be served in the Brooks Room following the colloquium Friday, December 17, 4PM Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science and Fusion Center Seminar Building NW17-218 "Power absorption during High Harmonic Fast Wave Heating on NSTX" Randy Wilson Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory