Add to Calendar 2026-03-24T11:00:00 2026-03-24T12:00:00 PHAS Tuesday Tea! Event Information: Welcome to PHAS TUESDAY TEA! This is a super friendly physics community tea event. We hope you join us! This event runs on Tuesdays from 11am-noon in the atrium outside of HENN 200. Come by for some social chit-chat and tasty treats. We welcome all new summer students, new grad students, staff and faculty to meet new-to-you colleagues, catch up with your physics community and to learn about current happenings in the PHAS Department.  Event Location: In the atrium outside of HENN 200

Add to Calendar 2026-03-24T12:30:00 2026-03-24T14:00:00 CAP Lecture Tour: Gravity and Quantum Mechanics Event Information: 2026 CAP Lecture TourThis year, the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) Lecture Tour is officially scheduled at SFU on Wed March 25th, 2026. We are fortunate to have CAP Lecture Tour Prof. Manu Paranjape, Université de Montréal speak with us as well this Tuesday, March 24th on UBC-V campus!  The CAP Lecture Tour, targeted towards undergraduate physics students, follows a selection process based on input from undergraduate students from CAP member departments: several physicists from across the country are chosen to present their lecture to at least one host institution within each of the six CAP regions, and up to four other satellite institutions. Welcome Manu to UBC! Abstract:  We take the audience on a tour of some aspects of gravitational physics and quantum mechanics, from very real, experimentally accessible situations to rather speculative and fantastical astrophysical applications. We start with classical gravitation interacting with a quantum mechanical system and transition to quantum gravity interacting with quantum systems. The theory of quantum gravity is not yet considered complete; however, an effective theory of quantum gravity has been well- understood since the 1970s. We address the question of whether the graviton, the putative quantum of the gravitational field, would in fact be observable.  Bio: Manu Paranjape is off Indian origin, was born in Liverpool, UK, and grew up in Edmonton Alberta. He received his BSc (1978) and MSc (1979, supervisor Y. Takahashi) both from the University of Alberta, and PhD (1984, supervisor J. Goldstone) from MIT. He completed a Postdoc at UBC followed by one at ETH, Zurich. He became Professor from 1986 at the Département de physique, Université de Montréal, Montréal. His research interests are general theoretical physics, with an emphasis on quantum field theory, solitons, gravity and quantum mechanics.    Learn More: CAP Lecture Tour: Canadian Association of Physicists 2026 CAP Lecture Tour See Manu's faculty page at the Université de Montréal: Manu PARANJAPE - Département de physique - Université de Montréal and short bio: Manu PARANJAPE - La recherche - Université de Montréal Event Location: HENN 318

Add to Calendar 2026-03-26T18:00:00 2026-03-26T19:15:00 The history of weather and the weather of history Event Information: Curious about how the universe actually works? Join the experts from UBC’s Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) to find out fun facts about everything from the Milky Way to radio waves in this new, accessible science series: How the Universe Works! All are welcome! Abstract: Unease about the weather has undoubtedly been a lasting human trait as long as humans have lived on earth. We can be certain the advent of agriculture about 12,000 years ago brought specific worry of rains and drought. Ancient mythologies all had a god of weather to appease to bring abundant crops and keep seafarers safe. The ancient Greeks had Zeus, the god of thunder and lightning, and the Romans had Jupiter for the same realm. Archaeologists in India have found stone bowls dating back to 400 BCE that were used as rain gauges to help foretell crop yields, the first weather instruments we know of.  This talk has two parts; the first part (The History of Weather) steps through the last 2,000 years of weather forecasting advances and technologies, from folklore to AI. The second part (The Weather of History) looks back at cataclysmic weather events that have literally shaped human geopolitics over the past 500 years. As an added bonus we will review all-time extreme weather records here in Canada and look at extreme weather records around the world as well. Bio: Doug McCollor is an Adjunct Professor in Atmospheric Science at UBC. Doug is a weather forecaster by trade and earlier in his career was a geophysicist. Doug holds a Bachelor’s degree in physics, a Master’s degree in geophysics, and a PhD in atmospheric science, all from UBC, and a diploma in meteorology from Dalhousie.  Event Location: Vancouver Public Library - Central Branch (Alice MacKay Room, Lower Level)

Add to Calendar 2026-03-31T11:00:00 2026-03-31T12:00:00 PHAS Tuesday Tea! Event Information: Welcome to PHAS TUESDAY TEA! This is a super friendly physics community tea event. We hope you join us! This event runs on Tuesdays from 11am-noon in the atrium outside of HENN 200. Come by for some social chit-chat and tasty treats. We welcome all new summer students, new grad students, staff and faculty to meet new-to-you colleagues, catch up with your physics community and to learn about current happenings in the PHAS Department.  Event Location: In the atrium outside of HENN 200