10-28-96Contact: Roger Rollins, Physics and Astronomy, 614-593-1728

ATHENS, Ohio -- Ohio University will host the 1996 Fall Meeting of the Ohio Section of the American Physical Society (APS) Friday and Saturday, Nov. 1-2, on the Athens campus. The conference will feature more than 70 paper presentations and lectures by graduate students and faculty from many of Ohio's universities and colleges and four invited speakers, including a public lecture by a top researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The theme for this year's plenary sessions is "Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos." Talks will include an invited lecture by Earle Hunt, professor of physics and astronomy at Ohio University, and William Ditto, director of the Applied Chaos Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Hunt and Ditto will speak Friday afternoon.

Friday evening, Neil Gershenfeld -- a researcher with the MIT Media Lab -- will deliver a talk on "Musical Instruments, Models and Machines." The lecture is open to the public and will be held at 8 p.m. in 235 Morton Hall.

Saturday's invited talks include another lecture by Gershenfeld and a seminar by Martin Gutzwiller, author of "Chaos in Classical and Quantum Mechanics," and a scientist with the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.

Registration for the conference will start at noon Friday in the Morton Hall Lobby. The fee is $20.