What do elephants, space-time, and bomb disposal have in common? They are all subjects in presentations of the Physics Café series. Sponsored by the physics department, the series presents current physics topics in an accessible and exciting format.

A recent offering by Ithaca assistant professor Bruce Thompson explained how he and his colleagues have used seismic techniques to study wild elephants. "When elephants walk, the earth moves," Thompson said. "But we've discovered that when elephants trumpet, the earth also moves. Could all that ground shaking actually have a purpose?" He answered those questions in a café session entitled "Elephants + Physics = ???: The Elephant Seismic Project."

Professor Donald Spector of Hobart and William Smith Colleges gave a presentation entitled "Whose Line Is It Anyway? How We Know Space and Time Are Curved." This talk provided an entertaining overview of relativity and showed how modern physicists have proved Einstein's theory.

Some presentations are downright thrilling. In his talk, "Seeing beneath the Soil," Ithaca assistant professor Michael Rogers discussed his use of ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry, and other tools to look underground without digging. He has used the techniques in the 150 bomb disposal missions he has conducted with the U.S. Army's 55th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit.