Would you enjoy an opportunity to meet periodically with your colleagues in the greater Boston area who are working in statistical mechanics? We hope to reinstitute the successful Greater Boston Area Statistical Mechanics meetings which took place at Brandeis University and other Boston area institutions during 1976-1979.

The first meeting will take place on Saturday, October 16 at Brandeis. We also will take this opportunity to honor the memory and work of Eugene Gross, a founding member of the physics faculty at Brandeis and a well known researcher in statistical mechanics.

The main goal of these meetings is to establish an informal, friendly, and supportive environment where people from a variety of departments and institutions can meet and exchange ideas and where old and new friends can meet.

There will be coffee and bagels from 9:30 am to 10 am and four 30 minute talks beginning at 10 am. Three to five minute talks will be presented after lunch in the spirit of the successful Rutgers statistical mechanics meetings. Viewgraphs can be used to show graphs and other visualizations of results or data, but the use of viewgraphs to present equations is discouraged. Coffee will be available at all times.

Please tell your colleagues and students about the October 16 meeting.

Because lunch will be provided by the Brandeis Department of Physics, it is necessary for you to register for the meeting. To assure that there will be enough food, please register by Monday, October 11.

Pre-registration for the meeting has closed. Registration figures: 72 people have registered representing 17 different institutions, and including 8 postdoctoral research associates, and 27 graduate students.

1. X. S. (Sean) Ling, Brown University, “Giant Peak Effect and Disordering of Pinned Vortex Matter.”
2. Nicholas Gross, Boston University, “Dynamic Phase Transitions in the Swift-Hohenberg Equation. ”
3. Alexandros Pertsinidis, Brown University, “Direct Observation of Loss of Long-Range Order in One-Dimensional Colloidal Crystals.”
4. Judith Herzfeld, Brandeis University, “Avoidance Model for the Ordering Transitions of Charged Particles.”
5. Ilija Dukovski, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “Simulations of Ising model with External Fields: Application to Benzene Adsorbed in a Zeolite.”
6. Hui Yin, Brandeis University, “Effective Field Theory of the Zero-Temperature Triangular-Lattice Antiferromagnet: A Monte Carlo Study.”
7. Narayanan Menon, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “Velocity Statistics in a Two-Dimensional Granular Gas.”
8. Florence Rouyer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “Experimental Study of a Quasi-2D Non-Brownian Suspension of Spheres: Structure And Dynamics.”
9. Azadeh Samadani, Clark University, “Size Segregation of Granular Matter in Silo Discharges.”'
10. Hudong Chen, Exa Corporation, “Subgrid Averaging Via Discrete Boltzmann Representation.” Abstract
11. Carmen Gagne, Dartmouth College, “Lattice-Independent Approach to Thermal Phase Mixing.”
12. Nicolae-Viorel Buchete, Boston University, “Mean First Passage Time Estimates For Coil-to-Helix Transitions in Peptides.”
13. Sidney Redner, Boston University, “Should a Filter Ever Clog?”
    
    Session II
    
    
14. Toni Neicu, Clark University, “Extinction Transition in Bacteria Colonies Under Forced Convection.”
15. Philip Segre, Harvard University, “Glass Transition Through Aggregation.”
16. F. Marty Ytreberg, University of Maine, “Calculated Properties of Field-Induced Aggregates in Ferrofluids.”
17. Francois Amar, University of Maine, “Accurate Densities of States For Phase Space Theory of Cluster Evaporation.”
18. Joshua Weitz, MIT, “Dissipative Particle Dynamics: Modeling Polymeric Systems.”
19. Timothy Newman, University of Virginia, “Directed Polymer with a Random Columnar Pin Revisited.”
20. Maurice De Koning, MIT, “Efficient Free-Energy Calculations By Simulation of Nonequilibrium Processes.”
21. Marian Anghel, Boston University, “Dynamics, Scaling, And Temporal Patterns of Stress-Correlated Clusters in a Model of Earthquake Faults with Long-Range Stress Transfer.”
22. Sib Krishna Ghoshal, Brandeis University, “Spring-Defect Model of Structural Phase Transitions in Y-BA-CU-O.”
23. Arshad Kudrolli, Clark University, “Experimental Investigation of Eigenvalue Statistics Using Vibrating Plates.”
24. Kristi Pance, Northeastern University, “The Study of Quantum Repeller Using Microwave Experiments.”
25. Hao Qi, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “Numerical Study of Van Der Waals Adsorption on Fractal Surfaces.”
26. Peter Dodds, MIT, “Deviation from Scaling Laws in River Networks.”

• Postdoctoral position in Theoretical Geomorphology: The Physics of Eroding Landscapes with Daniel Rothman, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT. Further information is available.

• Postdoctoral position available with Tom Keyes, Department of Chemistry, Boston University on NSF-supported research on instantaneous normal mode theory of dynamics in liquids. Further information is available at keyes@chem.bu.edu.

• Due to the death of a faculty member, the Physics Department at Kalamazoo College is searching for a temporary faculty member beginning in the middle of December. We seek someone who can take responsibility for the lab portion of a two term sequence of introductory physics for scientists, pre-engineers, and pre-med students, which will be team taught in the winter and spring quarters. Other duties include participation in the lecture part of the course and grading. If you are interested, please send a curriculum vitae and the names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of at least two faculty members who are familiar with your teaching ability to Jan Tobochnik, jant@kzoo.edu. Inquiries can be made by phone at 616-337-7098.

New England Section of the APS fall meeting, November 5-6, 1999, Colby College, Waterville, Maine.

The first in a series of Gordon Research Conferences on Physics Research and Education will be held June 11--16, 2000 at Plymouth State College in Plymouth, New Hampshire. The focus of the first conference is the teaching of Statistical and Thermal Physics. The conference will bring together workers who are active in research areas that use thermal and statistical physics, researchers in the growing field of physics education research, and professors who teach courses in statistical and thermal physics. Other information on teaching statistical and thermal physics can also be found at this site including the list of articles in the December issue of the American Journal of Physics which is devoted to statistical and thermal physics. If interested, please contact the co-chairs for the conference, Harvey Gould, hgould@clarku.edu and Jan Tobochnik, jant@kzoo.edu.

Organizing committee

• Bulbul Chakraborty, Brandeis University, bulbul@binah.cc.brandeis.edu, 617-736-2843.
• Bill Klein, Boston University, klein@buphyc.bu.edu, 617-353-2188.
• Harvey Gould, Clark University, hgould@clarku.edu, 508-793-7485.

Please send comments and corrections to Harvey Gould, hgould@clarku.edu.

Updated 14 October 1999.