Students, faculty and staff are always in attendance, and it is traditional that there will be much food, with special dishes supplied by our many foreign students. At the picnics, intense athletic competition between the faculty and students brings out the best in both. Research groups often hold their own seminars and social events. The red balls are atoms in the silicon structure. A silicon disk of chips is being hit by some sort of beam.
Quarks can have three colors, red, green and blue.
The thing that looks like a balloon is an x-ray focusing lens. One of our faculty is an avid sailor, and is writing a paper on the physics of sailing. A projector is being used to study new teaching techniques. These are only hints at the fascinating, world-class research and scholarly activities of the University at Albany Physics Department.