Extraordinary Physics in Ordinary Systems

All too often we think of the 'big questions' in physics and forget about what some think of as the mundane 'little questions'. Yet it is the little questions that we can so easily use to motivate our teaching and our own excitement for Physics. From the kitchen sink, to the wind blowing across a wheat field, to dew drops on a spider web, examples of beautiful physics are all around us.  I will share some of these examples and discuss a bit of the physics that we all too easily ignore in our everyday lives.

Kari Dalnoki-Veress, a polymer physicist, is a Professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at McMaster University. He was recently awarded the Royal Society of Canada 2010 Rutherford Memorial Medal in Physics with the Society citing him as "a dedicated young scientist with a genius for simple but profound investigation. In an era dominated by large funding initiatives and complex instrumentation, Dalnoki-Veress is an inspired scientist and research supervisor who can find deep insight from brilliant direct experiments.” Kari has a strong commitment to outreach with a talent for communicating the “extraordinary physics in ordinary systems”. With his graduate students, he has developed a number of interactive activities and demos which engage and delight students of all ages and leave them with a deeper understanding of fundamental physics.