Thursday, July 27, 2023

For Those Attending in Person

Buffet Lunch

At

 

 

 

Tim Lorek is the director of the Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice at the College of St. Scholastica. He will be speaking about what the center is doing and the lecture series theme for the next year.

 

 

 

By Tacitus

Having our meeting in the Great Hall of the Kitchi Gammi Club – this week and next – was a treat.  What a great view of the lake through the huge leaded glass windows.  Past Assistant Governor, Al Makynen, presented the Rotary Reflection answering the Star Trek Question:  How fast is Warp Nine.  Further, Trekkies knew on September 8, 1966, the underlying theory of the transporter was recently proven to be true.  Both of these items would be expounded upon during the program.

 

Past Assistant Governor, Al Makynen, getting ready for warp speed

President Gary Melander presided over a rather short meeting with no self-reports of either personal milestones or professional accomplishments.  It would appear we are a bunch of shy Rotarians not quite ready for prime time.  Maybe next week more will be raised for the Golden Can.

 

President Gary Melander not getting the bucks he hoped for into the Golden Can.

Past President Barb Perrella reminds us we are the Club that serves others.  One way we do that is through the sale of Rotary Roses.  The sale will kick off after Labor Day.  Get your client lists dusted off and ready.  The Rose Committee is gearing up now with its first meeting next Tuesday.

 

Past President Barb Perrella announcing the Rose Sale – Starting after Labor Day

Chair of the Day President Gary Melander introduced our very own Allen Anway, a scientist, inventor, and historian.  Allen Anway is an experimental physicist who received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1960 and founded A2D2 Company in 1990.  With his background as an historian, he provided the context for the discovery, and limited partial understanding, of subatomic particles.  Hence the title of his presentation: “So You Want to be a Quantum Mechanic”.

 

Professor Allen Anway working hard to keep his eager class of mechanics engaged

In 1804 the double slit experiment, performed previously with water, was done to prove that photons of light have the property of waves.  In 1961 a double slit experiment proved that electrons have wave like properties.

(Do you remember the lab experiments you performed in high school senior physics class?) Albert Einstein had a suspicion there was something out there that he did not fully understand (What chance did we have?)   He suspected there was a spooky action at a distance between particles.  Richard Feynman, a theoretical physicist known for his theory on quantum electrodynamics (and a Nobel Prize winner) declared that no one understands quantum mechanics.  Our speaker gave us permission to also not understand.   There was a collective sigh in the room.

It was a colorful presentation of a complex topic important in our day.  Quantum mechanics works to understand how particles are entangled.  The value of this knowledge, with immediate application, is that if we know the wave function of particles, including molecules we can predict their properties.  Imagine the benefit of knowing the properties of a molecule in the creation of a new pharmaceutical.

 

 

Mr. Lucky (President Gary Melander) was the only one in the room to receive an Award Certificate at the completion of class

A table of eager quantum mechanics students

Jay Ott, Zack Walters, Dan Dock, and Zach Walters

 

Tom Young, Past Assistant Governor Phil Strom, Past President Barb Perrella, Past President Dean Casperson, Jim Schwartz and Jon Ohman are getting ready for class to begin