MEADVILLE, Pa. – Aug. 30, 2007 – A portion of the summer work conducted by James Lombardi Jr., associate professor of physics at Allegheny College, and his student research assistant, Alexander Brown, was recently featured in the episode “The Life and Death of Stars,” a segment of the History Channel series “The Universe.”
The History Channel describes the episode as “a front row seat to the most amazing light show in the cosmos.”
Lombardi and Brown performed computer simulations and created visualizations of a stellar collision that help establish how stars called “blue stragglers” can be formed through the collision of “garden-variety” stars.
“Alex has accomplished a tremendous amount during his internship,” said Lombardi. “Our interactions this summer quickly developed from that of a student and teacher to that of two colleagues. Alex completed not only the collision and visualization for the History Channel but also has initiated a series of new state-of-the-art calculations modeling collisions of more massive stars.”
Brown is a junior at Allegheny College. “My internship has given me experiences that have not only stimulated my imagination but will also benefit me in my future academic and professional careers,” he said. “I’ve learned things this summer that can only be taught outside of the classroom.”
A similar visualization by Lombardi is currently playing in the planetarium show “Cosmic Collisions” at the American Museum of Natural History, the National Air and Space Museum, the Museum of Nature and Science and the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.
The episode will be replayed on the History Channel on Monday, Sept. 3 at 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. To view the visualizations on the Allegheny website go to http://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/j/jalombar/movies/.
