Prof. Chang Kee Jung, Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, Stony Brook University
As illustrated in the Super Bowl XLII game that the NY Giants won in a dramatic fashion, sports occupies an important part of American life as well as in other parts of the world. Surprisingly, a large fraction of the intriguing and often spectacular sports actions and feats can be explained using relatively basic physics concepts. In this talk Prof. Jung will discuss some interesting actions in popular sports that you most likely wondered about at some point, using basic concepts in classical mechanics and fluid dynamics. Some topics to be discussed are: why quarterbacks throw a football in a spiral; why curve balls curve; why a knuckle ball is so hard to hit; why golf balls have dimples; and how Beckham bends his free kicks.
Prof. Jung came to Stony Brook in 1990 from Stanford. He participated in various particle physics experiments based on high energy particle accelerators at SLAC and Fermilab. In 1991, recognizing the importance of neutrino physics in the coming decades, he started a research group called the Nucleon decay and Neutrino (NN) group at Stony Brook to study neutrino properties and search for proton decays. He and his group have been participating in the Super-Kamiokande experiments that discovered the neutrino oscillation phenomenon, and the K2K and T2K long baseline neutrino experiments in Japan. He also led an effort to build a deep underground science and engineering laboratory, as well as a next generation nucleon decay and neutrino experiment in Colorado.
Prof. Jung has introduced and developed two new courses at Stony Brook: "Light, Color and Vision" and "Physics of Sports" for non-science major students. He loves sports and follows all NY area sports teams.