Dispersion interactions, while weaker than most chemical bonds, can be very important in the self-assembly of nanostructures such as those based on carbon nanotubes or pi-conjugated sheets (graphenes). This talk will introduce the simplest ways of understanding these forces, then reveal a class of systems (zero-gap anistropic nanostructures including graphene and metallic nanotubes) where this simplest approach would appear to break down.

We trace the history of probability theory from the throwing of bones, sticks, and dice to modern times. Early 18th century books, Jacob Bernouill's "The Art of Conjecture" and Abraham DeMoive's "The Doctrine of Chances" were rich with new mathematics, insight and gambling odds. Progress was often made by confronting paradoxes. The first of these confused probabilities with expectations and was explained in the Pascal-Fermat letters of 1654. The St.

Lewis' research group is developing an artificial photosynthetic system that will only utilize sunlight and water as the inputs and will produce hydrogen and oxygen as the outputs. They are taking a modular, parallel development approach in which the three distinct primary components-the photoanode, the photocathode, and the product-separating but ion-conducting membrane-are fabricated and optimized separately before assembly into a complete water-splitting system.