Physics & Astronomy Colloquium

3:30 PM, Friday, August 26, 2005

Room 155, Chem-Phys Building

Dr. Gary Ferland

Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Kentucky

`` Understanding Starburst Galaxies - Numerical Simulations of Diffuse Interstellar Gas''

I will talk about how astronomers know things - astrophysics is an observational, not experimental science, so our level of rigor cannot approach physics. But we have a time machine, we can view the distant past by looking to great distances from the Earth. Everyone enjoys looking at pictures of the sky, but the greatest information comes from spectroscopy. The computer revolution of the past few decades has changed how astronomy is done - we can compute anything we can imagine. We can do rigorous numerical experiments. I will describe the development and application of Cloudy, one of the most widely used theory codes in astrophysics, to problems related to star formation in the early universe.

Refreshments will be served in CP 179 at 3:15 PM