Splash Biography

AUSTIN MCDOWELL, Senior at Berkely studying Physics & Astrophysics

Major: Astrophysics&Physics

College/Employer: UC Berkeley

Year of Graduation: 2016

Brief Biographical Sketch:

I like learning about why things do what they do; that's why I study physics. Astrophysics provides exciting examples of physics pushed to the limits, which is why it's cool.

Past Classes

(Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

S96: Gravitational Lensing: 'How to use galaxies as a magnifying glass' in Splash Fall 15 (Oct. 10, 2015)

Gravitational lensing is caused by massive objects bending the path of light to create bizarre, distorted images such as the one shown below. We will explore the physics and geometry behind this phenomenon to further understand radiation and space-time. Example of gravitational lensing: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/A_Horseshoe_Einstein_Ring_from_Hubble.JPG More reading: http://www.cfhtlens.org/public/what-gravitational-lensing