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More than 60 big thinkers from around the world were on campus in July 2008, focusing their attention on the infinitesimal details that help to define the structure of the universe.
Physicists from as far away as Australia, Japan, North and South America and Europe attended the five-day International Conference on Precision Physics of Simple Atomic Systems, including the working group of Nobel Prize winner Ted Haensch.
UWindsor professor Dr. Gordon Drake said some of the more fascinating lectures focused on the methods used to measure a variety of fundamental constants, such as the speed of light and the actual sizes of protons and neutrons. Determining even minor changes in those constants over long periods of time could dramatically alter previously held beliefs about the age and origins of the universe, he said.
"An event of this stature, with so many leading physicists coming from all over the world to Windsor, speaks to the quality of the work being done here," said Dr. William McConkey, a UWindsor Professor Emeritus and internationally renowned physicist in his own right. His lifelong work in the field of atomic and molecular physics was recognized earlier that year with an Order of Ontario award.
The event was sponsored by the Department of Physics.
Photo: UWindsor Physics Professor Gordon Drake, right, chair of the organizing committee for the International Conference on Precision Physics of Simple Atomic Systems, chats during a conference coffee break Wednesday morning with Savely Karshenboim of the German Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, left, and Peter Mohr of the Maryland-based National Institute of Standards and Technology.
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