Winter 2004 Number 109

SCUBA - 2

- Moving Objects - pg 8 - Fall Convocation - pg 10

- Dr. Phil is a "Prize" - pg 9 - Undergraduate Physics Conference - pg 12

Page 2 Phys 13 News / Winter 2004

Canadian Foundation for Innovation Grants
by G. Scholz
Dept. of Physics, Universiy of Waterloo
Dr. David W. Strangway, President and CEO of the
Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) announced the
names of nine large-scale research infrastructure projects
aimed at promoting Canada's position in the areas of
marine and environmental sciences, infectious diseases,
astronomy, light sources, and particle physics. All projects
were selected following a national competition and will be
funded by the CFI from two special $100 million
allocations. The projects are divided into two categories:
1) The International Joint Ventures Fund is aimed at
creating infrastructure in Canada that would showcase
internationally outstanding research being undertaken in
Canada, and to enable Canadian researchers to collaborate
with the best scientists in the world. Three projects were
selected under the International Venture Fund:
• A research icebreaker to study the changing Arctic
Ocean and global climate change issues.
• A highly innovative 5-beam advanced laser – capable
of spanning a very wide range of wavelengths – a
fundamental tool to transform the Canadian research
and training environment in disciplines such as physics,
chemistry, and biotechnology.
• A major new International Facility for
Underground Science to transform Ontario’s
internationally renowned Sudbury Neutrino
Observatory (SNO) from a large-scale experiment to
a world-class facility and scientific destination.
2) The International Access Fund is designed to offer
Canadian researchers access to world-class research
collaborations and facilities located elsewhere in the
world which will allow them to collaborate with the best
researchers in many subject areas that are important for
Canadians. Six projects were selected under the
International Access Fund:
• The Neptune Program to strengthen Canada’s
leadership in research in the deep ocean.
• The Canada-Kenya research laboratory to provide
outstanding researchers in Canada – and their
international collaborating partners in Nairobi, Oxford
and Washington – with a state-of-the-art facility for
research on highly infectious diseases such as AIDS
and hemorrhagic fever.
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
• A joint Canada-UK SCUBA-2 camera (SCUBA:
submillimetre common user bolometer array) to be
located on the James Clark Maxwell Telescope, in
Hawaii, to produce images of the deep universe using
radio waves.
• The Canadian access-fee to the Atacama Large
Millimetre Array (ALMA) Telescope – a major
international construction to be based in Chile, which
will be the foremost land-based instrument over the
next 20 years.
• A beamline at the most advanced neutron spallation
installation in the world, at Oak Ridge, Tennessee in
the USA, to secure the leadership of Canadian
researchers in using neutrons to look at engineering
materials.
• The KOPIO Project – a new experiment in particle
physics to explore the origin of matter. The project is
a major new international initiative led by a team of
internationally renowned Canadian scientists in
Canada, and involves 63 scientists in six countries.
The Physics Department at the University of Waterloo
is proud to be hosting “SCUBA-2”, which is described in
more detail below. We hope to feature other projects in
future issues of Phys 13 news.
SCUBA-2: A Submillimetre Camera for Astronomy
by Mike Fich
Dept. of Physics, University of Waterloo
Canadian astronomers are at the centre of major
research efforts at submillimetre wavelengths. A large
part of the reason for Canadian successes in this area is
Canada's contribution to projects providing absolutely the
best instrumentation available anywhere for submillimetre
astronomy. The most successful submillimetre instrument
in the world is SCUBA which is, in part, managed by
Canadian astronomers. This article presents a summary of
the SCUBA success story and of a new instrument, SCUBA-
2, now being fabricated within Canada and at the institutions
of its international partners.
Astronomy at Submillimetre Wavelengths
When we look up at the sky at night we see stars
everywhere. When we look at a galaxy it is the stars in that
galaxy that are visible to us. Fig. 1 shows the Andromeda
galaxy, a large spiral galaxy, and two other small galaxies
Page 3
that are all close to our own “Milky Way” galaxy. Although
we cannot distinguish individual stars in these galaxies all
of the light we see originates from stars. Note also the
many individual bright points spread over the entire picture
in Fig. 1. Virtually all of these are stars in our Galaxy. We
are inside our Galaxy and we look through some part of our
Galaxy no matter which direction we choose when we
observe other places in the Universe.
Fig. 1: The Andromeda Galaxy and two small companion
galaxies
Most of the light produced by stars is at visible
wavelengths, the light that our eyes are evolved to detect.
But there are other things besides stars in the Universe.
For example, in Fig. 1 the Andromeda galaxy has dark
patches encircling its centre. These are a visible sign of
that galaxy’s interstellar medium (or ISM), the material
between the stars. These dark patches are due to a small
amount of interstellar dust (microscopic particles, solids
made of many elements including especially carbon,
oxygen, and silicon) mixed in with the gas that dominates
the ISM. Dust typically makes up approximately one
percent (by mass) of the ISM and the ISM itself has a mass
of perhaps five percent of the mass contained in stars.
While the dust absorbs visible light, it emits very
strongly at longer wavelengths of light where our eyes can
not see. Just beyond visible wavelengths, the infrared is
often split into the near infrared, mid-infrared, and far-
infrared. Longer in wavelength still are the various radio
wavelengths, beginning with the submillimeter, then the
millimeter, centimeter, decimeter, and meter wavelengths
bands.
Many galaxies are equally bright at visible
wavelengths and at far-infrared and submillimeter
wavelengths. Thus the picture of the Universe as seen in
the visible, as in Fig. 1, is missing a great deal. The ISM
contains the material that forms into stars, and when stars
Page 4
die they expel much of their matter back into the ISM.
Thus it is the ISM that provides us with much information
on the births and deaths of stars. However, virtually all of
the light emitted by the ISM is at longer wavelengths.
Unfortunately (for astronomers) the Earth’s
atmosphere is not transparent at all wavelengths. Visible
light and a wide range of radio waves are able to reach the
surface of the Earth. A small part of the ultraviolet and
near-infrared parts of the spectrum can pass through the
atmosphere too. (The “cut-off” in the ultraviolet is
determined by the ozone layer in the Earth’s atmosphere.)
At submillimetre wavelengths there are “windows”,
narrow in wavelength range, where light is only partially
absorbed by the atmosphere. At high altitudes the
transmission through the atmosphere is improved, but is
critically dependent on the amount of water vapour in the
air above the observing site. Submillimetre astronomers
search for the highest and “driest” sites in the world for
their telescopes.
Fig. 2: Telescopes on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii
Fig. 2 shows the summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant
volcano on the island of Hawaii. At 4,000 meters (14,000
feet) the climate there is quite good for astronomy. Many
telescopes are located on Mauna Kea, including those
operating at visible, near-infrared, submillimetre and radio
wavelengths. Visible-light telescopes there include the
Keck telescopes (the largest visible-light telescopes in
the world, the two identical white domes to the right of
centre in Fig. 2), Gemini (a very new, very large telescope
partially owned by Canada, the large silver dome to the left
of the centre), the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope (the
large white dome in the centre in the foreground) and
Suburu, a new Japanese very large telescope (just behind
and to the left of the Keck telescope domes).
The largest submillimeter telescope in the world is
the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) which is also
on Mauna Kea. It is seen in Fig. 2 far in the background just
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
to left of the centre. A closeup view of the JCMT is shown
in Fig. 3. For a scale size in the picture note the two cars
in the garage at the left of the building. The JCMT is jointly
owned and operated by the United Kingdom, Canada and
the Netherlands.
Fig. 3: James Clerk Maxwell Telescope
The JCMT began operation in 1987 with a sensitive
single channel bolometer (borrowed from another
telescope on Mauna Kea), the best detector available, that
measured the brightness of one spot on the sky – a single
pixel. To make an image required such a laborious process
of scanning this one pixel across the sky that only a few
modestly-sized images were ever made.
A first generation of “Common User” instruments
was built over the next ten years. The most successful of
these instruments was SCUBA, the Submillimetre
Common User Bolometer Array which was delivered to
the JCMT in late 1996. This instrument consisted of two
arrays, simultaneously imaging at two wavelengths (450
and 850 microns), with a total of 131 pixels. Its imaging
speed is approximately 5,000 times greater than the
previous single channel bolometer.
Exciting scientific results came from SCUBA
almost immediately. Astronomers used SCUBA to find,
for the first time, galaxies forming at the edge of the
Universe in the distant past. SCUBA played a leading role
in showing that the physical processes that select the
masses of stars have already done so while the protostellar
clouds are cold and large, before these clouds begin their
gravitational collapse to form stars. Polarimetry (the
measurement of the polarization of light) with SCUBA
showed an amazing correlation between interstellar
magnetic field geometries and the structure of interstellar
clouds. Observations with SCUBA have found the dust
leftover from the process of forming stars and planets in
nearby solar systems, finally confirming established
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
theoretical predictions. Some of these and other SCUBA
discoveries are highlighted in the sections below.
Disks around Stars
The study of debris disks of cold dust around nearby
main sequence stars can give vital clues to the planetary
formation process. This dust is thought to arise from
material left over from the formation of planets. Not only
do such images give us an effective ‘time series’ showing
how our early planetary system evolved from a circumstellar
disk, but perturbations, seen as clumps and cavities in the
observed image, have the potential for actually pinpointing
the locations of young planets. In Fig. 4, a SCUBA image
of a nearby system is shown beside a computer model. In
the numerical simulation of the ε Eridani dust disk (shown
at right of Fig. 4) an inner planet (known to exist from
radial velocity searches) has cleared the central region
(orbit shown as solid circle), whilst an outer planet (dotted
circle) causes perturbations in the dust disk. The position
of this putative planet can be estimated (large white dot).
ε Eridani observation Numerical simulation
Fig. 4: (Left): SCUBA 850 micron observation of the faint dust
ring surrounding ε Eridani (Greaves et al. 1998). (Right):
numerical simulation of dust trapped in mean motion resonances
with a putative planet (Liou, Greaves & Holland 2002, in prep).
The Centre of our Galaxy
A recently produced very large scale SCUBA image
of the plane of our Milky Way galaxy in the vicinity of the
Galactic Centre is shown in Fig. 5. This superb image
(made by a team of 14 astronomers from 5 countries
including Canada) shows a great deal of structure and will
be the object of extensive further study. The observations
required to produce this image consumed many days of
time using the JCMT, and yet this represents approximately
0.01 percent of the plane of our Galaxy, and the plane of
the Galaxy is only a small fraction of the overall area in the
sky. While SCUBA is currently the most powerful
instrument of its kind, it is still limited in what it can
produce. There is a large international effort underway to
image the entire Galactic Plane at other wavelengths, but
with current instrumentation this has not been possible
at submillimetre wavelengths.
Page 5
 Fig. 5: The Plane of our Galaxy towards the Galactic Centre (Sagittarius A)
Star Formation
With SCUBA it is possible to produce moderate-
area (fraction of a square-degree) fields of nearby
molecular clouds (such as the 850 micron image of Orion
shown below in Fig. 6). A great deal of structure is found
within these maps on all scales, from individual point-
sources and moderately resolved clumps of prenatal dust
and gas, through clusters of clumped sources, to large-
scale filaments, with and without internal fragmentation.
These SCUBA maps reveal that the molecular cloud
material condenses into individual clumps, with a
distribution in masses similar to that of the initial stellar
mass spectrum. Yet only some regions of the cloud are
able to form these clumps, and the clumps that form appear
stable to internal gravitational collapse. On larger scales,
details of the filamentary structure within molecular clouds
provide evidence for the presence of ordered magnetic
fields, which may be dynamically important.
Fig. 6: Orion at 850 microns
Page 6
Polarimetry
The study of polarized radiation is the primary
means of investigating the geometry of magnetic fields
within astronomical sources. These fields are prevalent
throughout galaxies, from the largest scales to the small
cores that are collapsing to form stars within molecular
clouds. Understanding the geometry of these fields, both
at a global and a detailed level, is crucial to our understand-
ing of star formation processes and the physics of molecu-
lar clouds. Polarimetric maps of dense filamentary clouds
in Orion obtained with SCUBA have shown that the mag-
netic field structure (the many small straight lines in
Fig. 7) can be explained with a theoretical model of
filamentary clouds with a helical magnetic field.
Recently, it has been possible to combine three
observational techniques to obtain a 3-D map of the field
configuration in the M17 molecular cloud. The strength of
the magnetic field along the line of sight is provided by
Zeeman measurements, polarimetric measurements give
the orientation of the field in the plane of the sky, and the
ion-to-neutral molecular line width ratio determines the
angle between the magnetic field and the line of sight.
SCUBA-2 will provide essential measurements for study-
ing magnetic fields in 3-D in other regions.
Fig.7: Polarization observations of Orion's Molecular Cloud
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
 Cosmology: The Formation of Galaxies
Observing in the submillimetre region offers equal
sensitivity to dusty, star-forming galaxies over an enor-
mous range in redshift (1 < z < 10), and hence access to the
Universe at epochs from about half way back to only 5% of
its present age. Current SCUBA surveys have uncovered
about 100 submillimetre galaxies, which have changed our
view of early star formation. Follow-up of the current
samples suggests that the brightest sources represent the
formation of the massive elliptical galaxies, which contain
about half of the massive star formation occurring at these
early times. SCUBA-2 will allow us to probe more normal
galaxies as well. The population revealed in the
submillimetre region has proven to be extremely faint at
other wavelengths. (see Fig. 8 for an illustration of this!)
Cosmology: The Formation of the First Stars
We know from studies of the Cosmic Microwave
Background that the Universe began in a very uniform
smooth state, with few structures. At some point the
“Cosmic Dark Ages” came to an end through the birth of
the first stars within primordial galaxies. Nuclear energy
was converted to light in stellar interiors, and had impor-
tant heating and ionization effects on the surrounding
medium. Exactly how this process began and evolved is
currently one of the greatest cosmological puzzles. Re-
cent work in the submillimetre waveband has shown that
luminous infrared galaxies evolve more strongly than their
more normal optically-bright counterparts. It has also
become clear that luminous obscured galaxies at high
redshift contribute a substantial fraction (arguably the
majority) of the total emitted radiation in the Universe.
Roughly half of all the stars that have presently formed,
probably formed in highly obscured systems. To trace the
star-formation history of various galaxy types over cos-
mic history with precision requires much larger samples
Fig. 8: (l) a long exposure of a small part of the sky with the
Hubble Space Telescope. Almost every object in this picture is
a galaxy. (r) A “deep” exposure of the same part of the sky with
SCUBA. Everything shown is a source of submillimetre light
(there is no “noise” in the image). Essentially every object seen
in the submillimetre image is not detected in the visible image.
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
than currently available. SCUBA-2 will for the first time
allow us to trace this cosmic star-formation history.
SCUBA-2
The SCUBA-2 project is a unique opportunity to
exploit emerging new technology to produce the world’s
most advanced camera for astronomical research in the
poorly explored submillimetre region of the spectrum.
SCUBA-2 will replace the original SCUBA camera in
mid-2006. SCUBA-2 is being built by a large team of
researchers with members from various universities and
research institutions in the UK and Canada, with the
detectors being fabricated under contract by the US
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The lead UK institution in the project is the Astronomy
Technology Centre (UK ATC) at the Royal Observatory,
Edinburgh, and the lead Canadian institution is the
University of Waterloo.
The Canadian SCUBA-2 consortium consists of
eight Canadian universities (in addition to University of
Waterloo these are: Saint Mary’s University, Université
Laval, Université de Montreal, University of Lethbridge,
University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, and
University of Victoria). The international SCUBA-2 team
includes the Canadian Consortium plus a number of other
world-renowned groups, including the group at NIST in
Boulder, Colorado, the Astronomy Instrumentation Group
at the University of Cardiff, and the Scottish
Microelectronics Centre at the University of Edinburgh.
To achieve the scientific potential of SCUBA-2,
with a mapping speed that is at least 100 times that of
SCUBA (this is the design goal), SCUBA-2 will have focal
planes operating at two wavelengths simultaneously (450
and 850ìm) that utilize most of the usable field of view of
the telescope. This requires ~10,000 pixels - a pixel count
Deep-etched 1.135 mm
trench (10 µm)
Implanted
Absorber
Indium
SQUID bump bonds
MUX
TES
Backplan
Nitride membrane
Quarter-wave
(0.5 µm)
Si Brick
Fig. 9: A single SCUBA-2 pixel. Submillimetre light enters the
instrument from above and is absorbed, heating up the absorber.
The TES “measures” the temperature increase and the
temperature is read out by the SQUID MUX (multiplexer).
cont'd on pg 16
Page 7
Moving Objects
by Walt Duley
Dept. of Physics, University of Waterloo
The visual detection of motion has perplexed sci-
entists from the earliest days of research into the mecha-
nisms of vision. An ability to detect motion, of course,
has obvious evolutionary advantages and so it is not sur-
prising that this capability has been “hard-wired” into the
eye. This hardware takes the form of special detectors:
rods at the outside of the retina that are sensitive only to
motion. Motion of an image over this area on the retina
has been programmed to invoke a response in which the
eye rotates to acquire an accurate image of the moving
object. This acquisition then permits the object to be
identified and assessed as a potential threat. It is important
that the eye rotate because the detectors at the edge of the
retina respond only to a change in illumination. Indeed,
one cannot see an object in peripheral vision unless it is
moving.
Motion of an object can also be detected by follow-
ing it with the eye while retaining a focus. In this case, the
background to the object may also move across the retina
causing a perception of motion, but it has been shown in a
large number of well-controlled experiments that motion
can still be detected even in the absence of a background
reference. This suggests that there are two distinct
systems to acquire and measure motion, both hard-wired
into the brain. One of these is the response of a stationary
eye to the motion of an image across the retina. The other
would appear to consist of a bio-mechanical measurement
system that records the movement of the eye and produces
an output signal that the brain evaluates to detect motion
and velocity. While both mechanisms are plausible, they
provide only a simplistic description of the manner in
which motion is detected.
From common experience it is known that under
certain conditions motion appears to occur even when an
object is stationary. Well known is the waterfall illusion,
wherein a stationary object, viewed after watching the
waterfall, will appear to move in an opposite direction to
the water flow. Similarly, a blinking light in a dark room
will also appear to move when one stares at it. Even a
stationary light will seem to move erratically in a com-
pletely darkened room or a small mark on the wall may
seem to migrate in dim light.
When objects do move, the eye can follow them
without disorientation. We also sense no motion when the
eyes turn to scan a stationary scene, even though this
Page 8
means that the image is being moved over the retina. On
the other hand an after-image produced by a photographic
flash will remain at the same point in the field of view as
the eye is turned, so that the act of rotating the eye cannot
itself introduce an element of motion into a stationary
scene. These observations argue that there are at least two
separate mechanisms contributing to a determination of
the motion of objects in the visual field, and that both act
together in acquiring and processing this information.
Inhibiting or compromising one of these mechanisms can
have the effect of introducing motion where none exists.
The disorientation that accompanies over-indulgence in
alcohol may be an example of such a compromise. Ele-
ments of motion sickness may also be related to conflict-
ing visual and other sensorial stimuli as the motion detec-
tion and assessment system associated with vision yields
different information from that provided to the brain by
the inner ear. This can be experienced in driving as
peripheral vision detects motion asynchronous to signals
from the inner ear.
Detecting and assessing motion visually involves
these “hard-wired” subsystems, but it also has elements of
an acquired knowledge base. This “practical” knowledge
has been obtained over time through experience of how
things should look in relation to their size and shape.
Simulation of the overall response of the eye to motion,
now done by analysts using a variety of increasingly so-
phisticated computer models, shows that signals from all
the body’s motion sensors (head with respect to body,
head with respect to world, eyes with respect to body, etc.)
are referenced to this knowledge base in order to reach a
decision as to the nature of the event. It is as if the brain
applies a filter to visual signals to select those character-
istics that are needed to invoke a physiological response.
In reaching conclusions based on this filtered informa-
tion, the brain is required to make a decision and it tends
to pick the one that is most consistent with the information
available. In effect, it is a sort of “fuzzy logic” analysis to
the data available. If this leads to the conclusion that an
object is moving, then it must be moving, or one must be
moving in relation to it. A good example of this phenom-
enon is the image of a rotating spiral that, if it fills the field
of view, stimulates a response that makes it feel like one
is being drawn either toward the spiral or away from it.
Another effect can be seen when the moon appears to
move with a car when driving, but at slightly slower speed.
All of these phenomena show that visual data has
strong temporal as well as spatial components, and that the
brain does its best in evaluating these data and coming up
with a conclusion that matches its perception of reality.
Fortunately, most of the time this works, but occasionally
when no clear decision is possible, the brain opts for its
own interpretation, a sort of mental slight of hand!
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
Dr. Phil is a "Prize"!
by Gretchen Harris
Dept. of Physics, University of Waterloo
At a gala awards ceremony in Ottawa on November
19, Phil Eastman was one of five winners of the 2003
Michael Smith Awards which recognize outstanding
achievement in the promotion of science in Canada. These
awards are sponsored by NSERC (the Natural Sciences
and Engineering Research Council) and are named in
honour of the late Canadian Nobel Laureate Michael
Smith. Anyone who has taken the Sir Isaac Newton exam
knows who Phil Eastman is and that this award is long
overdue, but SIN is only a part of how his career in physics
has enriched literally hundreds of thousands of lives for
more than 30 years.
Phil Eastman has a contagious love of physics that
he has shared successfully with people of all ages. As I was
gathering material to support his nomination, I was amazed
by the variety of people I could call on and who were
thrilled to write their stories of Phil Eastman and physics.
When all was collected we had too much material and had
to cut it back! Most people wanted to talk about the SIN
exam or the "Circus of Physics" but of course he was also
editor of Phys 13 news for many years and I learned that
he also co-authored a high school physics text which has
been used for decades in both Canada and the United
States.
Phil Eastman created SIN in 1969 and since then
over 150,000 high school students in more than 1000
schools have been tested and entertained by it. The com-
bination of good, challenging problems with delightful
(often Canadian-based) humour has made the SIN exam
something that both students and teachers still look for-
ward to 35 years later. Phil Eastman told me that many of
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
the people who came up to speak to him at the awards gala
wanted to say how important the SIN exam was to them.
One of those was Rajiv Gupta, who is currently President
of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and was at
the ceremony to accept a Michael Smith Award to the
RASC. But he wanted to tell Dr. Phil how much the SIN
exam and its challenges meant to him. Among the letters
we received was one from Jeff Catania, once a SIN exam
participant and now with the Halton District School
Board; he speakes eloquently about how the challenge of
the SIN exam stimulated by the joy of figuring out the
answers was at least as important as doing well and possi-
bly even winning - which he did. For him the problem
solving skills developed through SIN have been important
throughout his career. The SIN exam has been at least as
important to physics teachers who find it valuable in
honing their own skills and motivating students. Retired
Grade 13 physics teacher Ted Passmore recalls that "...SIN
questions ... inevitably raised the bar and allowed for
interaction between them (students) and me on a level
beyond that which normally occurred in class".
If you have not seen the "Circus of Physics" you
have missed a major treat. According to Carl Thompson,
a teaching colleague from engineering at UW, "his show
has been honed to perfection... after each punch line... Phil
explains the science behind each result in a simple, easy to
understand manner." He could hold groups of 200 or more
grade 6 students in rapt attention for these demonstra-
tions. Another colleague tells of his 87 year old mother
who saw Dr. Phil spread the excitement of physics to a
group of retired learners in Woodstock. Afterward she
went up to him and said she had a son who taught physics
- Phil remembered him and impressed her forever.
Another, perhaps less well known element of Phil
Eastman's contribution to physics and physics learning has
been his work in the development of physics textbooks.
He and David Martindale developed several books be-
tween 1987 and 1992; at the present time there are over
250,000 copies of these (in both French and English) in
circulation today. His outreach included science fairs and
their development. To Dawn Scheifley he "was a catalyst
to interest the students and parents" as they developed
science fairs at elementary schools in Waterloo region.
These are only some of the stories to be told about
Phil Eastman and I am sure many of you also have fond
memories of Phil.
Just in case any of you are interested, Dr. Phil's
wife accompanied him to Ottawa and made sure he had a
haircut and decent suit to wear. As the photo accompany-
ing this article shows, he does dress up ok. Congratula-
tions for an honour well deserved!
Page 9
 UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
EIGHTY-SEVENTH CONVOCATION
OCTOBER 25, 2003

Saturday, the 25th of October, would have been a

very normal day for most of us. However, for a few (11 to
be exact) physics students this was one of the most impor-
tant days of their lives. After four, five or even six years
of very hard work at the university, these students would
receive their Bachelor's, Master'ss or Doctorate Degree
at the 87th Convocation Ceramonies. Some were given
very special recognition for their outstanding achieve-
ments.

The University of Waterloo Alumni Gold Medal:

For Outstanding Performance in a Master's Program:
Adrian Del Maestro

Doctor of Philosophy Degree:

Gautam Das - "Multiwavelength Fiber Laser"
Sanjeev Seahra+ - "Physics in Higher-Dimensional
Manifolds" Robert Nieckarz being congratulated by Dr. Lazaridis.
Robert plans to continue with graduate studies here at
Master of Science Degree: Waterloo.
Andrew Chen
Adrian Del Maestro+
Ryan Kerner
Casey Myers

Bachelor of Science Degree:

Honours Science (Physics Minor):
Michael Gomes
Ian Szufnara

Honours Science - Physics

Babur Butter
Nikki Chan
Dean Gibson*
Sean Jackson
Aleksandar Jevtic*
John Newsome
Bart Piwowar
Connie Sutherland†
Dhruv Vagale

Honours Science - Chemical Physics

Robert Nieckarz

*Co-operative Program
Bart Piwowar receiving a word of advice from the Provost.
†
Dean's Honours List Bart first came to Waterloo as a high school co-op student.
+
Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Studies

Page 10 Phys 13 News / Winter 2004

 Adrian Del Maestro being congratulated by Chancellor Mike Lazaridis on winning
the Gold Medal for his performance as a Master's student. Adrian is now pursuing
Doctoral studies at Yale University.

(l to r)
Sean Jackson: graduate student at Univ of Waterloo, planning to be a teacher.
Connie Sutherland: graduate student in the Ph.D. program at Univ of Ottawa
Aleksandar Jevtic: environmental researcher, planning to do graduate studies.
Dhruv Vagale: Teaching Assistant for the Dept. of Physics, and plans to pursue
graduate work in business entrepreneurship.

Phys 13 News / Winter 2004 Page 11

Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference
by: Nathan Babcock Sebastien Casault
Owen Cherry Chris Cookson
Mark Eaton Mike Garrett
Rob Helsten
The 39th annual Canadian Undergraduate Physics
Conference took place from October 30th to November 1st
2003 at McGill University in Montréal, Quebec. From the
moment of our arrival, we were enthralled by the welcoming
atmosphere of one of Canada’s oldest cities. From the
historical character of the old city to the hustle and bustle
of Chinatown, Montréal weaves a rich tapestry of the
diverse Canadian identity.
We arrived Wednesday evening, the day before the
conference commenced. After settling into our
accommodations (and, of course, a quick trip to the nearest
dépanneur) we made straight away to Schwartz’s Smoked
Meat Restaurant. Since 1903, Schwartz’s has been a
central attraction in Montréal, offering some of the most
mouth-watering smoked meat you ever did taste. Honestly,
it was incredible.
The conference roared ahead at full steam bright
and early the next morning, with an opening address given
by Scott Tremaine on the long term stability of our solar
system. Understanding the stability of the solar system
amounts to solving an N-body problem on a time scale of
many millions of years. Simulations of the present
configuration of the solar system have been performed for
planetary orbits over the next 100 million years, and
approximate analyses have been given for longer time
scales still.
The conference also featured lectures delivered by
a number of other keynote speakers, including Waterloo’s
Page 12
own Ray Laflamme. Professor Laflamme spoke on recent
advances in Quantum Information Theory as well as some
of his own work at UW’s Institute for Quantum Computing.
Cecile Fradin of McMaster University gave a fascinating
description of her methods for observing single
macromolecules inside living cells. Peter Grutter of
McGill University spoke on nanotechnology, explaining
how he uses scanning tunneling microscopy to build
nanoscale structures, atom by atom. The conference’s
closing lecture was given by Geoffrey West, who delivered
a light-hearted but thought-provoking address on the scaling
laws of biological systems, ranging in size from microbes
to whales.
Of course, the main focus of the conference is not
the talks given by the keynote speakers, but those by the
students themselves! For many undergraduate physics
students, it was their first opportunity to formally present
their own work and research. Each student delegate was
allotted twelve minutes for his or her presentation, followed
by a three-minute question period. To provide useful
feedback to the speaker (and to award prizes for the very
best), two judges also evaluated each talk. Four talks in
four separate conference halls took place simultaneously
during each fifteen-minute time slot, with a three-minute
transition period in between. Choosing which talk to hear
next could often be a difficult decision. This year’s first
prize talk was given by Hyun Youk from the University of
Toronto and was entitled, “Magnetic Trapping of Neutral
Atoms Using Anti-Helmholtz Coils and Microchip Traps.”
Those who attended attested the fact that it was one of the
best presentations there. Another notable talk titled,
“Quantum Physics: There’s Magic Everywhere” was given
by William Archer of the University of Calgary. Ever the
entertainer, Archer presented some of the most intriguing
aspects of quantum theory in the form of a magic show,
complete with tuxedo, top hat, and magic wand.
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
 Students who preferred not to give an oration also
had the option to submit a poster describing their work.
Three hours were allotted to poster viewing, providing
ample time to peruse the wide variety of topics presented,
ranging from biomagnetism to mathematical magic cubes.
A particularly entertaining poster on the Slinkyä was
presented by Patrick Clancy and Fraser Turner of St.
Francis Xavier University. Clancy and Turner investigated
spring constants and critical slinking angles of a number of
commercially available slinking devices. They also
measured the “slinkiness” of each device, that being the
number of stairs it can slink down before it gets pooped out
and stops. As all good slinky researchers know, the
“slinkiness” factor is directly proportional any Slinky’s
degree of “fun.”
No CUPC would be complete without a tour of the
hosting university’s laboratories. Most of the tours took
place in McGill’s Ernest Rutherford Physics Building.
There was much too much interesting research to describe
all of it in detail, but it is worth mentioning some of the
highlights. At Dr. Maria Kilfoil’s Soft Condensed Matter
lab, her group gave a short presentation on the use of
optical tweezers to manipulate matter. Many of us also
visited to Dr. Peter Grütter’s NanoScience and Scanning
Probe Microscopy lab, where we saw various applications
of atomic force microscopy, including their research on
nanoscale transistors.
Phys 13 News / Winter 2004
On Friday evening the annual Grad Fair was held,
providing a chance for the delegates to get a flavour for the
graduate research opportunities available at schools from
all around Canada. Each year, representatives from
universities across the county set up displays describing
work being done at their schools. Some institutions send
professors currently looking for grad students and others
send the graduate program advisors, but they’re all quite
keen to endorse both their schools and their research. This
year, as the Grad Fair took place on Hallowe’en, many of
the school’s booths offered candy, but that wasn’t the only
treat in store. At the end of the night, McGill brought in its
own “Red Shift Blues,” a band composed of McGill physics
profs played classic hits from such groups as the Beatles
and CCR (and we’re not talking about the Canonical
Commutation Relations, either!). Playing to a packed
house of rowdy physicists, the show was an obvious success.
After the closing ceremonies on Saturday evening,
we all had a chance sit back and relax with our newfound
friends before our long train ride home. The next day we
departed from Montréal happy, exhausted, and a little
envious of the people who live their daily lives in exciting
Montréal. The people there love their city and truly enjoy
sharing what they have with visitors.
Next year’s CUPC will be held at the University of
Victoria in beautiful British Columbia. See you there!
Page 13
 FIND THE NOBEL LAUREATES PUZZLE #1 Tony Anderson

The answer to this Phys 13 news (#108) puzzle is "SCHRODINGER"

Erwin Schrödinger (1887 to 1961) from Austria, received the Nobel prize in physics in 1933, shared with Maurice Dirac, for
the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory.

We received correct entries from Chris Curran, Ali Reza Sharafat, Robert Bandurka, Brenda Gerein, Marc
Craig, Chris Edwards, Robin Bunner, V. Srinivasan, Helen Kro and E. Dunning.

The winner of our book prize, drawn by our Assoc. Chair, is Ali Reza Sharafat, a grade 12 student from Lisgar
Collegiate Institute, Ottawa. Congratulations Ali! A copy of "Astronomy - Journey to the Cosmic Frontier"
by John D. Fix has been mailed to you.

DERANGED SCIENTISTS - BONUS PUZZLE

NOBEL LAUREATES WITH CANADIAN CONNECTIONS

By popular request (well, the editor asked me!), here is another puzzle involving five more Nobel Laureates who were either
Canadians or had strong associations with Canada. Unscramble the letters below to form the names of these scientists. Then use
the letters with asterisks to find the name of the fifth scientist in this category. Note that several of the scientists are not
physicists and none of them were featured in our earlier Canadian puzzle #10. Send your entries to reach us before March 1,
2004. (Please include your full name, affiliation and address).

MAIL: R. Jayasundera, Department of Physics, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada
FAX: (519) 746-8115 - attention of R. Jayasundera
E-MAIL: jayasund@scimail.uwaterloo.ca

A draw for a book prize will be made from all correct entries. This contest is open to all readers of Phys 13 news. The solution
and the winner's name along with the biographical sketches of these five scientists will appear in the next issue of the magazine.

*
THISM

* *
S H O W C LAW

* *
TA M LA N

* *
FURTHERDOR

SOLUTION

Page 14 Phys 13 News / Winter 2004

THE SIN BIN about 200 km × 50 km, and is 80 m deep, how long will the
water in the lake supply Ontario’s power needs of about 20
A problem corner intended to stimulate some
gigawatts?
reader participation. The best valid solution to the
problem will merit a book prize. We will always
Assume that Lake Ontario keeps its level as water
provide a book prize for the best student solution.
drains out the St. Lawrence River, and that no other water
Send your favourite problems and solutions to our
drains into Lake Erie, so that the lake will be depleted to
BINkeeper, John Vanderkooy, jv@uwaterloo.ca.
produce the power. I had the feeling that this would give an
almost inexhaustible supply of power, but numbers do
Problem 109
have to be respected…
We received the correct solution from Ali Reza
The Solution!
Sharafat, who also sent the correct solution for the Laureates
Puzzle and happened to win the draw. Lucky Ali! It would
Thanks to Chris Curran for a correct solution. I still
be nice if we had more solutions from students! To
keep hoping that students will send in a solution! Perhaps
promote more student involvement the problems for the
the realities of physics teaching are such that there is very
next while, although challenging, can be done by students
little time for that extra hour…
even if they have not finished all their physics. Eg. the
problem below needs a little bit of optics, but geometrical
The potential energy of the water in Lake Erie can
reasoning will get you a long way. Of course we expect that
be calculated based on centre-of-gravity concepts. The
teachers and others alike will still send in their solutions!
CG will be halfway between the top and bottom of the lake,
so if the total volume of the lake is V, the density ρ, and the
We continue on the theme of energy use in the
height of the centre of gravity h=40m, then the potential
future and consider a society that wants to use the Sun for
energy of all this water E is:
everything. The flux of energy from the Sun near Earth is
1400 W/m2. What we want to do with mirrors orbiting the
E = V ρ g h = 80 × 200000 × 50000 × 1000 × 9.8
moon is to illuminate its dark side (people on Earth still
× 40 = 3.136 × 1017 joules.
want to sleep at night…) in order to grow plants in
biospheres continuously. The Sun has a diameter of
If this energy is used to produce power P (2 × 1010 W) over
1.4 × 109 m and is 1.5 × 1011 m away. The moon has a
a time t, then E = P × t, thus
diameter of 3.5 × 106 m. To the best of your ability, find
the minimum mirror size, radius of curvature of the
t = E / P = 3.136 × 1017 / 2 × 1010 = 1.568 × 107
mirror, and orbit height from the moon which will allow us
seconds = 181.5 days.
to have a radiant flux of 400 W/m2 at the moon? You may
assume that all the energy striking the mirror will end up
Thus all of Lake Erie would be depleted in 6 months. My
on the dark side of the moon, uniformly illuminating it.
initial guess was for a much longer time period! We
certainly are massive energy consumers.
To guide your thinking, if we used a very large flat
mirror behind the moon, the flux would be close to
1400 W/m2, since this merely reflects the sunlight near
Earth undiminished to the dark side of the moon. Of
World's Easiest Quiz
course only a small portion of the mirror would be needed.
The questions below appear to be straight-forward but
don't be fooled. Only four correct answers will give you
a passing grade. (answers on back cover).

1) How long did the Hundred Years War last?

2) Which country makes Panama hats?
3) From which animal do we get catgut?
4) When do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?
Problem 108 from last issue: 5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?
6) What animal are the Canary Islands named after?
We keep on the theme of energy in this issue and 7) What was King George VI's first name?
now want to supply Ontario’s electrical power requirements 8) What colour is a Purple Finch?
by using water from Lake Erie. It is about 80 m above Lake 9) Where are Chinese Gooseberries from?
Ontario. If we assume that Lake Erie has a surface area of 10) What's the colour of the black box in an airplane?

Phys 13 News / Winter 2004 Page 15

cont'd from pg 7 A single 40x32 sub-array

on the order of 100 times greater than any existing camera

for this wavelength region. Since existing technology is
not scalable to such pixel counts, it has been necessary to
develop a new approach incorporating superconducting
Transition-Edge Sensors (TES) linked to multiplexed
SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device)
amplifiers. Such innovative new technology has
applications for future astronomical missions as well as a
range of industrial, security, and medical applications (e.g.
X-ray spectrometers for diagnosing contaminants in silicon
chip fabrication lines and detectors for medical imaging).

Each pixel of SCUBA-2 will be more sensitive and

more stable than the SCUBA pixels such that in common
usage the sensitivity will be only limited by the background
of the sky. The design for a typical pixel is shown in Fig. 9
while Fig. 10 shows the lay-out for several pixels in a Fig. 11: The focal plane assembly for 850 microns showing
regular grid. four sub-arrays fitted together (at the top). The wide copper
bands coming out at the bottom on each side are the cables that
connect the detectors to the electronics that controls the camera
Detector wafer and reads out the data.
Absorber and TES

Multiplexer wafer

Bump bonds
Phys 13 news is published four times a year by the
Physics Department of the University of Waterloo. Our
policy is to publish anything relevant to high school and
Fig. 10: Several pixels laid out in a rectangular grid. Note that
first-year university physics, or of interest to high school
there are two wafers, a detector wafer and a multiplexor wafer,
and these are connected together by “bump bonds”, a very physics teachers and their senior students. Letters,
high technology technique. ideas, and articles of general interest with respect to
physics are welcome by the editor. You can reach the
editor by email at: scholz@uwaterloo.ca. Alternatively
Due to the physical size of the pixels and limitations you can send all correspondence to:
on the fabrication of an individual wafer, SCUBA-2 will
use four sub-arrays of 40 by 32 pixels at each wavelength, Phys 13 news, Physics Department
fitted together as shown in Fig. 11. These sub-arrays will University of Waterloo
come very close to filling the focal plane of the JCMT and Waterloo, Ontario
therefore covering all of the area where the light collected N2L 3G1
by the telescope is brought to a focus to create
an image of the sky. Online editions can be viewed at:
www.science.uwaterloo.ca/physics/p13news
SCUBA-2 is scheduled to have the first prototype
arrays completed in early 2004, and the plans will have the
camera ready for installation in late 2005 with first science Editor: Guenter Scholz
operations in May 2006 after extensive commissioning
Editorial Board: Tony Anderson, Rohan Jayasundera,
and testing of the instrument on the telescope. In the year
Jim Martin, Chris O'Donovan,
following the first science usage of the SCUBA-2 the
Guenter Scholz, Thomas Thiemann,
camera will be augmented with “ancillary” instruments, a
John Vanderkooy and David Yevick
polarimeter (to be made at Université de Montréal) and a
spectrometer (to be made a the University of Lethbridge). Publisher: Judy McDonnell
By early 2007 this will be a fully operating submillimetre
camera, the best in the world, and Canadian astronomers Printing: UW Graphic Services Department
can expect to continue in their leading role in this field.

Page 16 Phys 13 News / Winter 2004

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Answers to the World's Easiest Quiz:

1) 116 years
2) Ecuador
3) Sheep and Horses
4) November
5) Squirrel fur
6) Dogs
7) Albert
8) Crimson
9) New Zealand
10) Orange, of course.

Phys 13 News / Winter 2004 Page 17