by Penn State Berks
Photo courtesy of Andreas Metz
When George Losoncy worked in the maintenance and operations department at Penn State Berks, he spent a lot of time in the Luerssen Science Building during his evening shifts. During that time, he had many deep intellectual conversations that evolved into friendships with the physics faculty. It was this love of science that inspired him to create the Penn State Berks Losoncy Lecture Series in Physics and Astronomy, with the mission of sharing the thrill of discovery with others.
The 11th annual Losoncy Lecture will be presented by Andreas Metz, professor of physics at Temple University and Fellow of the American Physical Society. Metz will present “Understanding the mass of everyday objects from the perspective of particle physics” on Wednesday, March 27. A reception will begin at 4 p.m. in the college’s Freyberger Gallery, and the lecture will begin at 4:30 p.m. in the Perkins Student Center Auditorium. This event is free and open to the public.
In addition to his impressive credentials, Metz is a member of a topical collaboration sponsored by a two-million-dollar U.S. Department of Energy grant. Through this initiative, he collaborated with two professors of physics at Penn State Berks: Leonard Gamberg and Alexei Prokudin. One of the goals of the collaboration is to better understand the origin of mass, and this is the topic of Metz’s lecture.
Prokudin explains the subject matter: “Consider this: If one constructs a house, one can easily calculate its mass as the sum of the masses of all bricks and other objects used in its construction. For atomic particles, the situation is more complex: The sum of masses of all elementary particles that make up, say, a proton is just a few percent of the proton’s mass. (The proton is the nucleus of the hydrogen – the most abundant element in the Universe. The proton is made up of quarks and gluons). So, what is the mass? It turns out that, for the most part, the mass of the proton is the energy of the strong force that binds quarks and gluons that make up the proton. We do not think of everyday objects as energy, but they are!”
The Losoncy Lecture Series brings experts to Penn State Berks each spring to discuss their research. For more information, contact Prokudin at 610-396-6160 or via email at prokudin@psu.edu.
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