The Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Series presents Ron Bude from the University of Michigan Medical School(retired), discussing "Eadberht, Muons, Coin Metallurgy, and the Ramblings of a Retied Professor Who is Having a Blast" on December 6.

Abstract: Retirement does not have to mean being 'put out to pasture'.

I have maintained my academic curiosity after retiring and have ventured into new areas that are in some ways even more fulfilling than my academic radiology career. Furthermore, it is truly liberating to be mostly free of oversight by funding agencies and hospital institutional review boards (which seem to exist to stifle, rather than encourage, research). 

I accumulated the largest collection in the world of the coins of Eadberht, king of Saxon Northumbria ca 750 AD, on which very little research has been done. I have been able to sequence the many die types and do some interesting electron microscopy and invasive compositional metallurgy on them.

Recently I was granted a week of muon beam time at the Rutherford facility in Oxfordshire to non-invasively evaluate their composition and I report on both the science and numismatics of this research.

Lastly, I have acquired an ATF explosives license and am re-pursuing my childhood interest in building display fireworks (this time legally), and will show my efforts here, as well as a few other interesting things I am doing using some of the scientific toys available to me as professor emeritus with a self-funded research account.