The
  Webfooted Astronomer

June 1999

UW's Tom Quinn to Discuss Globular Cluster Dynamics at Next SAS Meeting

Tom Quinn, Research Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Washington, talked to us last August about the stability of the solar system. He pointed out that the subject may seem silly because the solar system has been around for billions of years.

But as our life depends on the solar system, the subject is certainly not silly. Over time, resonance between orbits change, which could change our earth’s orbit. This subject is part of stellar dynamics, and Tom Quinn is the expert. Indeed, he teaches a graduate level course in this.

But for the June Seattle Astronomical Society (SAS) meeting, Tom is going to talk about the dynamics of globular clusters. He pointed out that the math involved gets rather heavy, but I asked him to leave out the math, so we could understand it. He promised to do so. The meeting should be very interesting. I am looking forward to it.

We meet on June 16 at 7:30 p.m. in room A102 of the Physics/Astronomy building on the University of Washington campus in Seattle.