Ole Miss Astronomy Past and Present

Surprising to many, the University of Mississippi once attempted to lead the world in the field of astronomy. Years later it was realized that Mississippi's elevation and weather aren't very conducive to "seeing" a term used for the quality of the light collected in a telescope. The elevation and humidity in Mississippi distort light as it moves through our atmosphere. The perfect place for seeing and taking astrographs would be on a mountain top in a cool, dry region away from city lights. After this realization, the research emphasis became on modern physics. Dr. Don Summers monitors experiments and contributes software to the Large Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland. The largest particle collider ever built, the LHC uses large magnets to speed small pieces matter close to the speed of light, then smashes them together to see what they're made of. Participation at the LHC is keeping the University of Mississippi's Department of Physics an Astronomy at the forefront of discovery in the physics world.