TAPT Meeting @ UA Physics
Oct. 1, 2024
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On Saturday the 28th the Tucson Area Physics Teachers (TAPT) had their annual breakfast. 16 people were in attendance, including community college instructors high school instructors, as well as our current graduate students and undergraduate students.
Dr. Pranabendu Moitra from geosciences give a presentation titled "Causes and consequences of violently explosive basaltic eruptions".
We learned how crystal formation in rising plumes of magma leads to viscosity increasing by many orders of magnitude. With the reduced ability to flow, increasing pressure leads to explosive eruptions. The talk was well received and there were many questions afterwards. Since this rising magma is a suspension, it connects well with work within our department. Charles Wolgemuth’s recent PhD student Jorge Palos-Chavez worked on improving our understanding of suspensions for his thesis, and he talked with the speaker for quite a while afterwards. Meeting participants also toured the newly renovated Physics Studio Style Teaching room PAS 284.
For more than 25 years, TAPT has been providing support for the teaching of physics at the introductory level in local K12 schools and community colleges. The group meets monthly to discuss some physics-related topic.
