The Ferdinand G. Brickwedde Lectures in Physics

The Brickwedde Lectures were established in 1981 and are funded by an endowment provided by one of our alumni, Professor Ferdinand G. Brickwedde (B.A., '22, M.A., '24, Ph.D. '25) and his wife, Langhorne Howard Brickwedde.

Each academic year, at least one outstanding individual is invited to the Department of Physics and Astronomy for a three-day period. During this time, the visitor delivers a public address and the weekly departmental colloquium, the latter being geared to the scientific community. At other times, visitors are invited for shorter or longer periods to give a colloquium, teach, or conduct specialized seminars. As stipulated by the Brickweddes, the visitors are asked to spend generous amounts of time with students. Informal discussions and social activities are arranged so that all students have the opportunity to have contact with our guests.

This year consisted of three main events: The Brickwedde Lecture, the Departmental Colloquium, and the Graduate Student Lunch & Undergraduate Student Tea

Michael E. Fisher

The Brickwedde Lecture

"Pictures, Models, Approximations and Reality: Phase transitions and our understanding of the physical world"

This lecture explored the ways in which theoretical physicists and chemists look at the real world and try to understand it. Through the medium of a domino game on a large checkerboard, the rapier-like specific heat of superfluid helium, and the visual effects seen when a liquid and its vapor merge to form a supercritical fluid, the talk addressed the question: "What is the role of the theorist in modern science?" The power of analogy based on physical pictures and simple models was illustrated in the context of recent ideas concerning phase transitions and critical phenomena in fluids and magnets, in alloys and polymers. The significance of the concepts of shape and singularitiy in the serach for universality was explained, and the role of symmetry and dimensionality in our current insignts was touched upon.

The Reception Following the Lecture

From left to right: Prof. Aihud Pevsner, Prof. Michael Fisher, Prof. Paul Feldman, Chair, and Prof. Andrew Millis	Prof. Gordon Feldman, left, and Prof. Barry Blumenfeld

• More photographs from the reception
• The Colloquium Abstract
• Pictures from the Lunch and Tea

This page created by Walter J. Earls III.