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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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The School of Physics welcomes Utah State University Professor David Farrelly on "God Does Play Dice: How Chaos Crafted the Kuiper Belt, Why Quantum Mechanics is Craps, and other Curmudgeonly Concepts"
Abstract:
Joseph Ford saw beauty in "Chaos" and the potential for "villainous chaos" to be used in a constructive manner. His ideas have proved prescient. The talk will focus mainly on how chaotic dynamics may have played a key constructive -- rather than destructive -- role in shaping certain features of the Kuiper belt: in particular, the formation and properties of binary objects in the transneptunian part of the Solar System. Kuiper belt binaries stand out from other known binary objects in having a range of peculiar orbital and physical properties which may, actually, be the fingerprint of chaos in the primordial Kuiper belt. Understanding how these remote binaries formed may shed light on the formation and evolution of the Solar System itself.
