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Scientists explore hottest, coldest things in universe
Roger M. Herman, professor of physics at Penn State, organized the 14th International Conference on Spectral Line Shapes	One hundred of the top scientists in the world gathered at Penn State last summer to discuss their research on some of the hottest and coldest things in the universe.   The 14th International Conference on Spectral Line Shapes focused on the patterns of light emitted or absorbed by hot environments, such as plasmas and ionized gases, and cold environments, such as gases trapped by laser radiation. Scientists talked about how to interpret spectral line shapes. Their research has applications for potential alternative energy sources, such as magnetic confinement and laser-induced fusion; X-ray lasers used for materials characterization; a wide variety of atomic and molecular physics and chemistry studies, including trapped and cooled atoms; and astrophysics research.   Roger M. Herman, Penn State professor of physics, organized the conference, which is held every two years at sites alternating between Europe and North America. Scientists came from Canada, Croatia, England, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Spain and the United States.   Welcoming the scientists, Penn State President Graham Spanier said, “In taking us to places we can’t see, your work is an example of the important contributions for physics to societal problems.”   The Spectral Line Shapes conference was sponsored by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and was supported, in part, by grants from Penn State and several companies. Outreach and Cooperative Extension’s Conferences and Institutes assisted with planning the conference, held at The Nittany Lion Inn. An outreach program of the Eberly College of Science