Tarsh Freeman
Tarsh Freeman received his
BS degree from the University of Alabama in Mathematics
with a minor in Physics, and then later received
a masters degree in Mathematics. However, prior
to this he got an "education" broader than Dr. Byrd's
in that he has worked both in a tire manufacturing
plant in Tuscaloosa and as an Alabama State Trooper
(after attending the Alabama State Trooper Academy).
After gaining this experience, he decided to obtain
a degree at the University of Alabama. His interest
in astronomy stems from several courses taken at
the University. After graduation, he taught mathematics
at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa and at the University.
He now is a faculty member at Bevill State Community
College, teaching mathematics at at the Fayette,
Jasper, and Carrolton, Alabama campuses. He continues
to tutor mathematics to Alabama athletes in all
sports in the University Athletic Academics department.
He continues to be an enthusiastic weight lifter
having won several state wide competitions in power
lifting, ``deadlifting" over 600 pounds (about 30
years ago). In collaborative research with Gene
Byrd and Sethanne Howard in the early 90's, Tarsh
managed to successfully simulate the two-way arm
pattern of NGC 4622 with a single inner leading
arm and an outer pair of trailing arms being created
by a plunging passage of a smaller perturber galaxy
through NGC 4622's disk. The inner leading arm matched
theoretical expectations for a galaxy with a flat
rotation curve. Later, once the HST images and spectroscopic
data had been obtained for NGC 4622, it became possible
to determine the actual arm winding sense for this
galaxy. The universe had a surprise in store for
them. When the HST images were obtained they showed
immediately that the theoretical expectations were
apparently wrong and the outer pair of arms have
the leading sense, winding outward in the same direction
the disk turned, clockwise. NGC 4622 appears to
be even more unique than previously thought.
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