The exciting slide into 2019 just keeps getting better. After the Spring edition of the Entangler was posted, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) consortium unveiled at a press conference in Washington DC the first image of the photon ring surrounding the supermassive black hole buried at the heart of M87. A giant galaxy located fifty million light years away, M87 harbours a six billion Solar mass "supermassive” black hole that was imaged for the first time. Located only 2 x 10^-15 light years up the hallway from me sits Professor Avery Broderick. Avery was among the four chosen from more than 200 team members to show the world that we have “...seen the unseeable.” Early in September we learned that Avery, his students, and the Event Horizon Telescope team were awarded the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Physics. This is a marvelous honor for Avery, his team, the Department and University, and for our partners at Perimeter Institute.
In this edition of The Entangler we congratulate Professors Michel Gingras and Donna Strickland who were named Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada for lifetimes of exceptional scientific achievement. You can read about the grand opening in October of the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics. Led by Professor Will Percival, The Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Distinguished Chair in Astrophysics, the new Centre will enable breakthroughs in our understanding of how the Universe itself and the matter and energy it contains came into being. We highlight the nascent careers of current and former students Zeel Patel, Sainath Motlakunta, and Brent Plumley. Zeel’s "child-like” curiosity will be nourished in her pursuit of physics by a prestigious Schulich Award. Sainath, working with Professor Rajibul Islam, received the Dean of Science Award for the top MSc thesis for his work on trapped ions. Having received a BSc in 2008, Brent Plumley combined his dual passions for the outdoors and mathematical physics to start a company that designs water stunts. We learn how quantum computers may be used to answer deep questions in particle physics, why the universe is not just expanding but is accelerating, and about the bizarre and exciting properties of "spin ice.” We welcome Professors Karen Cummings and Brenda Lee to our Faculty. Finally, we celebrate the long and exciting career of Distinguished Professor Emeritus, John Vanderkooy, who I am sure many of you fondly remember. When you are done reading, check out the SIN Bin to keep your problem-solving skills razor sharp.
Enjoy!
Brian McNamara
University Research Chair
Chair, Department of Physics & Astronomy
