The Hamilton Spectator's Steve Buist Interviews Prof. Alison Sills

Spec Interview

Hendrik Poinar Sept. 14

Ian Bruce November 2

Gurmit Singh December 14

Michael Atkinson January 24

Milena Head February 8

Alison Sills March 8

Brian McCarry April 12

Allison Sekuler May 3

Past Lectures
September 2003-May 2004

Past Lectures
January 2003-June 2003

Science in the City
Overview & Schedule

Professor Alison Sills

The following article is reprinted courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator, McMaster University’s partner in the Science in the City Lecture Series.

Space crashes 'can be quite fun'

Mac prof who studies stellar collisions giving lecture Tuesday

Steve Buist
The Hamilton Spectator
Mar. 5, 12:57 EDT

Alison Sills has long been fascinated by things that go bump in the dark.

Really, really big things that happen to bump into each other in galaxies far, far away.

Sills, a professor in McMaster University's department of physics and astronomy, is the only theoretical astrophysicist in Canada who studies stellar collisions.

"They can be quite fun -- and energetic," Sills said with understated humour. "But you really don't want to be in the middle of one of these things."

Sills will be sharing her knowledge of the subject Tuesday when she delivers a lecture entitled When Stars Collide in the Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning in Room 1105 on the McMaster campus.

It's part of the Science in the City lecture series, sponsored jointly by McMaster University and The Spectator.

Stellar collisions are rather fleeting occurrences in the world of astronomy. Sills has never actually been lucky enough to witness one firsthand.

In a scientific field where a million years is almost the blink of an eye, star collisions happen fast -- even in human terms.
" The interesting part would take about a month," said Sills.

"If you use the analogy of a car crash, we don't see the putting on of the brakes or the crash," she added. "What we see is the debris that's left on the road."

Sills, who grew up in Toronto, combined her love of physics and mathematics and obtained a bachelor's degree in astronomy from the University of Western Ontario.

She received her PhD from Yale University in 1998 and joined McMaster in 2001.

Her research on stellar collisions was featured in a November 2002 cover story in Scientific American.

"One of the things that draws me to this area is that you can take very simple physics and apply it to these things, like stars colliding, and it works," said Sills. "It gives you the right answers."

In case you're worried, there's no danger of a nearby star crashing into us any time soon.

The closest star to our sun is about one light year away.

"Our star (the sun) is in a very sparse, very boring out-of-the-way part of the universe," sighed Sills.

Tuesday's lecture is free and open to the public.

During the talk, Sills will show movie models of a star collision.

"They're neat," she said. "At least, I think they're neat."

To register for a spot, call 905-525-9140, ext. 24934, or send an e-mail to sciencecity@mcmaster.ca.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the talk begins at 7 p.m.

sbuist@thespec.com

905-526-3226